Women and men in the United Nations: A corpus analysis of General Debate addresses

Abstract

The United Nations (UN) has demonstrated a commitment to women’s empowerment over seven decades of work. Yet gender inequality pervades in countries around the world and even within the UN. This corpus analysis investigated collocates of woman(’s), women(’s), man(’s) and men(’s) in 193 UN General Assembly General Debate addresses in fall 2015 to examine gender representation by international decision-makers. The analysis revealed that the plural women occurred more frequently than men and primarily in discussions on gender equality and violence. In contrast, the singular man was identified more frequently than woman, in generic use (e.g. mankind) and in references to eminent male leaders. Despite UN dedication to gender equality and linguistic guidelines promoting gender-inclusive language, these General Debate addresses do not conceptualise women and men equally, more frequently referring to women as a group in need of protection and support and to men as political figures and other distinguished individuals.

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