How sexist is President Joe Biden’s administration? So sexist, in fact, that men are now even being given the International Women of Courage Award.
On Wednesday, in a ceremony led by first lady Jill Biden, the U.S. State Department celebrated International Women’s Day by honoring females who have made a significant contribution to the world in some way.
The recipients of the 17th annual award were an impressive lot, at least if one is to rely on the copy from a Sunday media release by the State Department.
There was Professor Danièle Darlan of the Central African Republic and former president of the Central African Republic’s Constitutional Court, who was honored for “her defense of her nation’s constitution, her heroism in safeguarding judicial independence, and her refusal to be influenced by threats or political pressure.
“Her final act as President of the Court before her removal by the government, in which she found that methods proposed to redraft the constitution were not legally sound, exemplified her unwavering commitment to the rule of law,” the media release stated.
Then there was Bakhytzhan Toregozhina of Kazakhstan: “Since January 2022, she has been the head of ‘Qantar 2022’ (January 2022) a coalition of civil society organizations working to assist victims and document human rights violations associated with the widespread unrest that occurred in Kazakhstan last January,” the release stated.
Senator Datuk Ras Adiba Radzi of Malaysia, meanwhile, “has spent most of her professional life advancing and promoting human rights, selflessly advocating for vulnerable populations and using her platforms to shed light on injustices in Malaysian society.” She’s also the first female chair of Bernama, Malaysia’s powerful, state-run media outlet.
And then there was Alba Rueda, an Argentine man who “identifies” as a “woman” and has built a career as an activist for causes that force society to officially recognize this biological impossibility.
“Alba Rueda, Argentina’s current Special Envoy for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, was the first Argentine Undersecretary for Diversity Policies in the newly created Ministry of Women, Gender, and Diversity,” stated the State Department’s word salad that was supposed to describe why he was deserving of the honor.
“Ms. Rueda was the driving force behind Argentina’s executive order on the transgender labor quota in the public sector which was converted into the Transgender Labor Quota Act,” it continued.
“She previously worked in the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in their National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) as well as the Argentine Secretariat for Human Rights. She is one of the founders of Argentina Trans Women (MTA) and actively engages with Notitrans, the first transgender magazine in Argentina.”
According to a computer translation of a profile of Rueda by Argentinian outfit Infobae, he is essentially a glorified campus activist who never really left campus.
“Alba is salty. She arrived in Buenos Aires in the nineties with her family and at the age of 16 she chose her name. After finishing high school at Normal 10, in Barrancas de Belgrano, she enrolled in Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires,” the May 2022 profile of the transgender activist read.
“But after only two subjects to graduate, she dropped out, tired of the violence and discrimination of the teachers who refused to recognize her self-perceived identity and, for example, forced her to leave the classroom or prevented her from taking exams.”
“Alba joined the trans militancy in 2003 and has always faced the segregation of transvestites and trans from feminist spaces and women’s movements. In 2006 she started working at INADI. When the Identity Law was sanctioned, she was responsible for 0800, the telephone assistance line of that organization.”
Let me assure you that the last thing I want here is to encourage the persecution of transgender Argentinians. However, the dais on Wednesday included women who had risked their lives in places like Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic — less stable nations where the persecution of women (and men, for that matter) at the hands of the state or of invading armies is considerably harsher than allegedly not being welcomed into classrooms in the relatively stable environs of the University of Buenos Aires because of anti-trans sentiment.
And even those women living in more peaceful nation-states have done quite a bit more to earn the award.
Senator Datuk Ras Adiba Radzi has risen to chair Bernama, an unlikely feat that puts her in a position of power in one of Southeast Asia’s most prominent state-run media outlets.
Poland’s Bianka Zalewska, meanwhile, is a journalist who has been documenting Russian aggression against Ukraine for nearly a decade; according to the State Department’s media release, Zalewska “persevered through life-threatening injuries suffered when her press car came under fire from Russian proxy forces in Luhansk Oblast in 2014.”
USA Today reported: “Other honorees include an indigenous rights leader from Costa Rica, an Ethiopian journalist covering gender-based violence in the country, a doctor who grew up under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and now advocates for Afghan refugees in Turkey and the women of Iran who have led uprisings against the government’s repressive laws against women.”
Perhaps most importantly, however, these women were, well, women.
I know this is a difficult distinction to make for an administration whose sole Supreme Court appointment thus far said she couldn’t define what a woman was because she isn’t a biologist.
I’m assuming the people at the State Department aren’t, either — and neither is “Dr.” Jill Biden. Why even host the ceremony, then? Why have an International Women’s Day at all?
If the White House wanted to commemorate Alba Rueda’s activism, there were plenty of other venues and occasions to do it. To do it Wednesday was nothing less than a slap in the face to women, all in the name of advancing a woke agenda.