Universal (?) Declaration of Human Rights

Please sign the petition for Project Revision. "...a petition of hope designed to inspire the good people of The United Nations to update The Universal Declaration of Human Rights to have gender-inclusive language. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains words like 'mankind', 'brotherhood', 'he', 'his' and ‘himself’ over 25 times and does not fairly include women in the language. Women's rights are human rights and... it is time for men and women to be included in humankind instead of limited by mankind." -- excerpt from the Avaaz website

We must stop ignoring the wealth of creativity, insight, compassion and intelligence that "womankind" has to offer. Pity that the genesis of our societies and growth of language have led to this problem with the most basic aspects of our language -- better to use phrases like "his or hers" than to keep everything male-specific with the invisible corollary "of course that includes women." Continuing the exclusive use of intrinsically male-dominant pronouns keeps women invisible and denies both their past and future contributions -- especially so when language is used as a tool of the misogynist. If women are not included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because of historically exclusionary language the UN will be perpetuating a tragedy. -- Don Baraka