The United Nations General Assembly has officially opened the selection process for its next secretary-general, noting “with regret” that no woman has ever held the role and urging member states to “strongly consider” nominating women. After 80 years of male leadership and mounting global crises, the institution faces a choice: to repeat the past or to reimagine power before its founding ideals fade into history.
The fact that the post of secretary-general has never been held by a woman exposes the gap between what the UN says it stands for and how it operates. But having a uterus is not a qualification. The UN does not just need a woman simply because it is overdue; it needs a feminist who can transform power and deliver on its founding ideals.
As of November 2025, 145 of 193 member states have commented on the need for gender balance in the UN’s leadership and at least implied that the next secretary-general should be a woman. Some of the countries have listed desirable qualifications. Not one has suggested that she should be a feminist.
The system has produced nine men in a row. It rewards political inoffensiveness, not necessarily visionary leadership. An “open” process was introduced in 2016, when for the first time the names of official candidates were made public and faced public scrutiny, but little else changed because the permanent members of the UN Security Council picked their favorite candidate.
A feminist UN leader would not settle for navigating this system. She would insist on rewriting it.
From its founding, the UN pledged to uphold “the equal rights of men and women.” That promise echoed through later milestones, from the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to the Beijing Platform for Action and Security Council Resolution 1325.
Yet the institution that helped define the global framework for gender equality has never lived it at the top. The vocabulary is certainly there: equality, empowerment, parity. But the leadership has never embodied it.
Feminism, at its core, is a framework for justice. Inequality is never experienced along a single line of gender but through the intersections of race, class, geography, sexuality and history. As Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality,” argues, systems of power overlap and compound one another. So must our solutions.
The UN’s greatest challenges today are profoundly intersectional by nature: conflict, climate change, displacement, economic inequality and disinformation. Each crisis deepens when gender inequality is ignored. Each is alleviated when women lead. From Indigenous women defending the Amazon to African feminists reshaping peace processes, intersectional leadership is not theoretical because it plays out on the ground.
A feminist secretary-general would link these realities to the UN’s founding mission to “leave no one behind,” turning equality from a policy objective into a governing principle.
Even countries that have adopted feminist foreign policies have nearly all joined the call for a woman secretary-generally, yet none has specified that she should be a feminist. The most recent fourth ministerial conference on feminist foreign policy, hosted in France in November, underscored this paradox: governments celebrate their own displays of feminist diplomacy but hesitate to demand feminist leadership at the UN.
No doubt, the term “feminist” makes diplomats uncomfortable. Some dismiss it as a Western import, a divisive ideology. For others, particularly those from places where socially conservative populism is ascendant, feminism exemplifies much-derided government social meddling.
The West has no monopoly on feminism. Its roots are global, from Wangari Maathai’s environmental activism in Kenya to the liberation movements of the Caribbean, Africa and Southeast Asia, which all reframed equality as freedom. To call feminism Western is to erase the women of the global South who built it.
Feminism is sound public policy. Societies that promote gender equality enjoy lower poverty rates and more peace than those that are deeply misogynistic. Dismantling these gains is national self-sabotage.
A woman secretary-general would be historic. A feminist UN leader would be transformative. The difference is substance: a feminist would make equality foundational to governance, not a box to tick or a promise made without intent to deliver. She would bring the ethics of care, accountability and inclusion into every decision, from peace-building to climate action.
In practice, that means shifting peace and security toward prevention and justice; confronting sexual exploitation and abuse in UN operations through real culture change; prioritizing gender-responsive budgeting; and ensuring that women from conflict-affected and climate-vulnerable countries lead in shaping solutions.
The UN cannot claim to champion human rights while avoiding the very word that underpins them. Feminist leadership would put the UN’s purpose in practice, aligning its actions with its rhetoric and helping to restore its credibility as the only universal forum for addressing global challenges.
Under Article 97 of the UN Charter, the secretary-general is chosen by the General Assembly on the Security Council’s recommendation. In practice, the selection is made by its five permanent members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. Their divisions typically yield compromise candidates, not visionaries.
Under the Trump administration, America’s influence in this process is decisive, even without a stated view on the next secretary-general. Given the administration’s record on gender equality and skepticism toward feminist priorities at the UN, a woman candidate, particularly one with a strong feminist platform, would face resistance.
Right now, there is only one official candidate, a male who conveniently suggests gender should not be an issue in the race. But, in a system governed by veto power, such neutrality is illusory: the anticipated preferences of permanent members can shape who runs in the first place, further narrowing the field.
Across the world, momentum is building for feminist leadership at the UN. A broad coalition has launched a global petition urging governments to support candidates with a real feminist record. The thousands who have signed it make clear what many governments still sidestep: feminist leadership is becoming a global demand.
After nine men and 80 years, the UN has exhausted the promise of managed progress. The General Assembly’s call to “strongly consider” nominating women nods to overdue change, but gender alone is not enough. It needs a feminist visionary who can make UN ideals real again.
Erin Spellman, a graduate student at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, New York University, contributed to this opinion essay.
This is an opinion essay.
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on a female feminist SG?
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The authors are right: there are many compelling reasons why it’s long past time for the UN to appoint its first woman SG. I’ll address two familiar myths, add to the powerful case the authors make, and say why I suspect few women may even bother to run.
Myth #1: “Women are inherently better leaders.”
No. But across cultures, girls and women are more often socialized into leadership styles linked to more effective leadership, such as collaboration, empathy, inclusion, and conflict de-escalation. Add the fact that women, half the world’s population, still face systemic barriers to power. Women are owed not just lip-service equality, but real access to leadership at every level, including the very top.
Myth #2: “Competence should come before gender.”
This tired argument pretends competence is neutral. It isn’t. It’s shaped by institutions built by and for men, where women are judged more harshly, held to higher standards, and punished for traits men are praised for. The result isn’t meritocracy; it’s a rigged competition where mediocre men routinely beat out more accomplished women, including at the highest levels.
Adding to the case made by the authors: Electing a woman SG wouldn’t just align the UN with its own rhetoric on gender equality; it would signal a deeper break the world badly needs—from patriarchal, zero-sum leadership built on fear, ignorance, and extractive power, and toward a human-centered model grounded in equality, shared security, and cooperation, a long-overdue course correction.
The record, though, is bleak. In 2016, 7 of 13 candidates for UNSG were women; only 1 made it into the final 5. In 2021 there was only one candidate—an incumbent man. In 2026, so far, again only one man. So much for “transparency.”
Arundhati Roy’s line rings true: “Power rarely says no to women directly. It delays, redirects, and exhausts them instead.” How many women will succumb to “exhaustion in advance” rather than enter a race that looks designed to drain rather than choose them?
Some may run despite the long odds, to draw attention to the injustice of eighty years of structural discrimination in the selection of the UNSG. Presence can be a form of protest. Others may run for the same reasons people enter unwinnable races everywhere: visibility, leverage, future opportunity.
But given the current collapse of multilateralism and the erosion of the rules-based international order, I worry the real qualifications required to get this job—man or woman—are already painfully obvious.
I don’t understand why the author believes that female SG will be better than male one. Gender parity among UN top management was achieved already. And it is clear: female swindlers and thieves are not better than male ones. The same will inevitably happen with SG post. Any other outcome at UN is impossible with rotten principles it was founded upon: nontransparency, nonaccountability, prosecution impunity.