Deze blogpost is geschreven door Artemis Westenberg. Ze schrijft een hele serie blogs voor de NVR over haar dagen in New York voor de 69ste CSW, te lezen op de NVR website.
I am famous here. Well, that is perhaps too big a statement, but people definitely recognise and acknowledge me in the corridors and side events. Bear with me and it will become clear.
Like last year, for me the CSW side events started with the Israeli side event ‘Resilience and Courage in Times of Conflict.’ Like last year also, the representative of Israel to the UN, ambassador Danny Danon, like ambassador Gilad Erdan before him, whom I see speaking in the UN on internet snippets, became a real life person that was just passing close to me. I am pretty sure that these ambassadors value their task and position, but probably do not view themselves as famous. However, they are, and not just to me. Unlike last year, I didn’t have to sneak in to a closed, only for registered people, Israeli event, but could simply walk in with several co-boardmembers of the International Alliance of Women. The discussion was interesting, even if sometimes heartbreaking.
The next big event, in a very big room, the ECOSOC Chamber boasting 581 seats, was were I became ‘famous’. Those of you that have followed my blogs before know that I am partial to Side Events organised by the Nordic Council of Ministers. It is not just the openess of the panel discussions, the closeness to what we in the Netherlands consider to be ‘normal’ approaches of societal ills, but most of all the approachability of those ministers for obtaining honest answers after the event. The theme of the event was ‘Pushing for Progress’ to oppose the backlash of the ‘barefoot and pregnant’ is what women should be opinion in the USA and elsewhere. I bided my time while the moderator, a superb moderator who kept the discussion interesting and flowing, led the event into ‘question time’. My time.
I stood up, raised my arm with my phone in it, and kept standing. As I had been sitting second row behind the chairs at the microphoned desks, also quite far up the rafters of the room, I knew that being acknowlegded and posing my question on menopause would be hard. But 'nothing ventured, nothing gained', so up I stayed waving my arm. The moderator noticed me while the first questioner stumbled through her query, and I was granted the floor. Reaching around the person at the desk, I opened the microphone and stated that I represented the Dutch Women’s Rights organisation and the Dutch National Women’s Council and that I was beyond childbearing years and so needed menopause care. Did the Nordic Countries offer that, and if so, could they help my Dutch government to offer the same to the women in the Netherlands.
I have asked many questions in side events over the years, that were well received, but never, absolutely never have I been gifted with a full room loudly applauding my query. Added to that, the moderator declared it the most important question to be asked, which she herself definitely wanted answers from the ministers for. And that is how I am now recognised in the corridors and the events as ‘the woman who asked the question about menopause care’.
The ministers of Sweden and Iceland specifically answered my question and stressed the need for menopause care. Therefore, I sought them out after the event ended, and secured their support for a ‘menopause side event’ next year at the CSW together with the Netherlands. The moderator declared that she would love to moderate that event. In all, I just have to tell our Dutch government now where they must show up for their side event in 2026.
Besides the support of the Nordic Countries’ ministers, I gained the support of the Danish Women’s Council, of the Australian organisations and many other countries that sought me out to start coordinating world-wide demand for proper menopause care for women-through-their-life-course.
As the ECOSOC room had another interesting event on ‘#StopOnlineViolence’ by Luxembourg and the Council of Europe I stayed in the room, but descended to the desks that often have the overflow of speakers of the event. I happened to meet a space-relation from Italy at these seats, Silvia from the G100 Space group.
A good discussion ensued on how the digital age has brought a lot of digital stalking, digital harrassment and threats to women, especially to women politicians. Stricter monitoring and better laws to protect women on the internet were the proposed solutions, which are already in place in a number of countries. As last speaker the prime minister of Aruba, seated only a few seats away from me at the ring of lower desks in the room, gave her story about how on the small island of Aruba, where everyone knows everyone, cyber stalking makes the digital and real life of female politicians, but also of women in general, very unpleasant. As the prime minister was so close by, I complimented her, in Dutch, on her speech and commiserated with her on the problem being exacerbated when a community is small. Everyone knows where you live. Everyone knows where your children attend school. It makes for a truly unsafe environment for women politicians.
Tired, and rather happy, I left for dinner and a good night’s rest in my home on Manhattan, to prepare for another day at the CSW. For the briefing at the Embassy of the Netherlands to the UN, where I will present to Mariëlle Paul, our minister of Emancipation, my case on Menopause Care in the Netherlands.
by Artemis Westenberg, Vrouwenbelangen en Nederlandse VrouwenRaad (NVR)
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