As the UN ponders its next secretary-general, many say it's well past time for a woman to lead

At a time when the fight for gender equality is facing a backlash, pressure is mounting for the next leader of the United Nations to be the first woman in its more than 80-year history.

The contradiction isn’t lost on UN Women, the agency facing an uphill struggle pressing for the rights of women and girls — and for women to be at the top in international organizations, governments, business, technology and the escalating debate over artificial intelligence.

According to the U.N. agency’s recent “gender snapshot,” at the current rate of progress it will take 171 years to achieve gender equality, a U.N. goal initially set for 2015 and then moved to 2030. Other findings are also grim: Nearly one in three women globally have experienced sexual violence. Nearly one in five girls is married before age 18. And at the pace of the last five years, gender parity in parliament won’t be reached until 2089.

After years of upward movement, women’s political leadership is also losing momentum, with six in seven countries still led by men.

Sarah Hendriks, a high-ranking official in UN Women, said the just-ended annual gathering of world leaders in the U.N. General Assembly hall “very much reflected a male-dominated world, both in terms of representation as well as content.”

She welcomed the “disproportionate reinforcement” of the potential for a woman to be the next U.N. chief which she said cut across regions of the world and political divides, and was “energizing.”

“This is not just a question simply of symbolism,” she told The Associated Press. “It’s a question of whether the U.N. actually reflects the equality it asks the world to uphold.”

“We can’t ask governments to dismantle barriers to women’s leadership while accepting those barriers in its own institutions,” she said. “We can’t tell companies to break glass ceilings while the U.N. leaves our own ceilings intact.”

During the weeklong high-level meeting that ended Monday, Hendriks said, leaders said women “must have an equal opportunity to hold the most powerful positions in the world including this one – and, in fact, especially this one.”

Among those speaking out was East Timor’s President José Ramos-Horta, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize. He said that after more than 80 years, “we ought to have enough wisdom and elect a woman with unquestionable integrity." And Botswana's president, Duma Boko, lamented “an unfinished chapter in the history of this organization” — that after eight decades “the United Nations has yet to be led by a woman as secretary-general.”

There are currently seven candidates to replace Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, whose second five-year term ends Dec. 31. The slate consists of four women and three men; former Chilean president Michele Bachelet dropped out.

Two women – U.N. trade chief Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica and Guyana’s U.N. ambassador, Caroline Rodrigues Birkett, topped the poll, but in the 15-member council each had at least five “discourage” votes. A third straw poll is scheduled Tuesday, and some diplomats said the results could encourage new candidates.

By tradition, the job of secretary-general rotates by region; this is Latin America’s turn, though there are two African contenders. While the General Assembly has the final say, decision-making rests with the five veto-wielding members on the Security Council — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France. They have been mum about their choices, though Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that Grynspan and Rodrigues-Birkett “meet the criteria."

Hendriks, UN Women’s director of policy, programs and its intergovernmental division, said the choice, for her, is really about the kind of multilateralism the United Nations wants for the next 80 years.

During the high-level meeting, she said there was a reduction in the focus on gender equality in speeches by the U.N.’s 193 member nations. Leaders spoke extensively about conflicts in the Mideast, Ukraine and elsewhere, about peace and security and U.N. reform and in some causes about climate change, development, finance and artificial intelligence. “But gender equality was much less prominent as a political priority.”

Hendriks said the gender dimension of the technological transformation taking place today, including the use of AI, received far less attention. She called this a serious concern because “if we build a future of technology without women,” inequality will be embedded. Right now, she said, women hold only 22% of the AI professional positions globally and only 14% of leadership positions, “but nobody was talking about that.”

Still, there were some champions. Liberian President Joseph Boakai told the assembly that “gender equality is essential. When women lead, peace agreements last longer, economies grow faster and government becomes more accountable.”

In his farewell “state of the world” speech opening the meeting, Guterres called gender inequality the most universal form of inequality.

“Everywhere, women and girls continue to face discrimination, violence, exclusion and abuse,” he said. “Around the world, their rights are being rolled back. Their voices silenced. Their bodies turned into battlegrounds. And their freedoms treated as bargaining chips.”

Calling this “a profound waste for humanity,” the U.N. chief said women make peace more durable, economies more dynamic and institutions more effective.

Over his 10 years as secretary-general, Guterres said, the United Nations has achieved gender parity for the first time in its history in its senior leadership and all headquarters and professional staff.

“Equality is not a dream. It is a decision,” he said. “If the United Nations can change, so can governments. So can parliaments. So can businesses. So can peace processes. And so can this General Assembly.”

Edith M. Lederer has covered international affairs for The Associated Press for more than a half century.