Vesna Pusic, Croatia, speaking at the informal dialogue with UN Secretary-General candidates at the UN, April 2016. Photo: Ourania Yancopoulos.
A glimmer of hope was riding on the possibility that the world might get its first female - and possibly feminist - United Nations Secretary General. The current Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, is coming to the end of his second five-year term this December, with his replacement to be named within months.
For the first time, there was a slate of female candidates vying publicly for the UN’s top job. As Croatia’s Vesna Pusic - the candidate who most loudly proclaimed her feminism (and, regrettably, so quickly shuffled to the bottom of the rankings, withdrawing her candidacy after the first straw poll) so aptly put it: “I happen to be a woman, I don’t think this is enough, I happen to be a feminist and I think this is (important).”
