What time is it?  Don't bother looking at your watch, if you were born in the last century and have one, or your phone if you were born in this one, because you will be so wrong.  Only António Guterres, secretary-general of the U.N., can provide the correct answer.

And why must we do that?  He obligingly tells you.

The #COVID19 pandemic is demonstrating what we all know: millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone — women, men, girls & boys.

-- @antonioguterres https://t.co/ppSUGLr2Wx pic.twitter.com/krT6HkQil6

— United Nations (@UN) September 6, 2020

O-o-o-ok.  

A few weeks earlier, he expanded on this at a talk he delivered, "Secretary-General's remarks at Town Hall with Young Women from Civil Society Organizations [as delivered]." 

While statistics indicate that women and girls are at lower risk from the COVID-19 virus itself, they are suffering because of the redirection of health funding and services. It is simply counter-productive, for example, to deprioritize maternal and reproductive health services. Maternal mortality fell by nearly 40 per cent between 2000 and 2017; we cannot backtrack now, but there are signs that rates are rising again due to the pandemic, particularly in countries in crisis.

So what is the solution to this situation? Awww, this is the UN so you can guess. (Spoiler summary: the same government run health systems that are incapable of delivering effective, low cost health care--or just about anything else--should take over this crisis as well.)

Governments must take a holistic view of the health impact of this pandemic. All women have a right to quality, affordable sexual and reproductive health services. Governments have a responsibility to make sure women and girls can access these services, even during a crisis. 

In the longer term, we need health systems that meet the needs and realities of all, including women and girls. This means prioritizing and funding primary health care and Universal Health Coverage.

We are also urging governments to prioritize protecting women from gender-based violence in their national COVID-19 plans. At the start of the pandemic, after my call for a global ceasefire, I issued an appeal for an end to all violence everywhere — from war zones to people’s homes — so that we can face this pandemic together, in solidarity.

Male Wuhan coronavirus victims are apparently doing just fine, as there is no mention of this species.

But...to his credit, Guterres does concede:

Recovering better goes beyond governments. The private sector, academia, institutions of all kinds and civil society must be fully engaged.

And so, to help women help themselves, this patriarchal male condescendingly has 

made temporary special measures a signature issue of my Call to Action on Human Rights. Unless we use quotas and temporary special measures to remove the biases and obstacles to women’s equal participation, women will never realize their full rights, and societies will never reap the benefits of equality and inclusion.

Got that?  Patriarchal male-imposed quotas by the U.N. are the only way to help women.  Left unsaid, because women — and any beneficiary of an arbitrarily imposed quota system — are too incompetent, stupid, incapable, etc. to do it as well as the patriarchs who make all the decisions.  And women's work is just not as good as those patriarchs' work.  So the patriarchs will condescendingly admit some lower types to their rarified  world — lucky them.  

And where did this (Wuhan) coronavirus originate?  Hmmm!  Oh, Guterres does mention China, but remember, he works for and admires the U.N.

This year is an important one for gender equality, marking the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration, the 20th anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, and the first year of the Decade of Action on the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Perhaps the funding the U.S. disproportionately contributes to the U.N. and its numerous agencies should be, um...defunded and redistributed to those U.S. police departments under great strain from recent events and to the innocents of all backgrounds whose businesses and homes have been destroyed.  Jacob Blake's victim in Kenosha, who has been ignored, could certainly use some extra financial help.  Maybe give some extra funds to the Seattle black female police chief who recently resigned, stating that the city's decision to cut funding for her department "left her destined to fail."

That should certainly be a start "to rebuild more equal, inclusive, and resilient societies"  that Guterres advocates. 

Image: sanjitbakshi via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.