EDITORIAL:

...If the nations of the world take the document as seriously as they should, women's lot ten years from now could and should be significantly better...

...Sexual equality is a noble goal, but in the poorer nations in particular it makes sense only in terms of drastic reforms in economic and political structures...

...EDITORIALS THE WOMEN At the International Women's Year World Conference recently spon-sored by the UN in Mexico, sharp divisions appeared immediately, with significant differences of approach obvious between the women-delegates from the developed countries and those from the developing nations...

...Be-cause men are considered more valuable in less ad-vanced cultures, boys are favored over girls from birth on, even on such fundamentals as how much food is allotted to each...

...Emphasizing the need to increase the role of women in decision-making in their own coun-tries (to say nothing of the United Nations itself, where women represent only 8 percent of the delegates), the Conference proposal provides for drastic yet realistic improvement in the condition of women over a wide range of areas, from education and vocational training through political participation and employment to health and nutrition...

...Bad as is the lot of men in the poorer countries, the woman's is even worse...

...Dele-gate after delegate from the poorer areas made it plain that they were not particularly interested in sexism, abortion and similar topics considered vital by many of the women from the Western industrialized nations...

...There is, after all, not too much point in being equally free to suffer from malnutrition.tion...

...And International Women's Year will have been one more trick if it is swiftly deviated toward political goals, national or inter-national, no matter how urgent, respectable or noble...

...The 48-page document produced by the delegates is not legally binding but it is hoped that member-nations of the UN will take it into account in their own planning...

...In spite of these differences, the Conference in the end did succeed in adopting a landmark ten-year plan...

...To the illiterate, most roads are closed, yet about 500 million of the world's females are totally unable to read or write...

...They are step-sisters at best, living in separate worlds, and this fact fully explains and justifies the interest of the delegates from the developing countries in pushing for consideration of larger eco-nomic and political questions...

...In turn France's Minister for Women's Affairs spoke for many women in calling the potential politicizing of the Conference a typical male-inspired chauvinist maneuver, saying: "Throughout history men have got women to fight their revolutions, but once the fight is terminated, the women return to making coffee...

...No one, however, should underestimate how far women around the world have to travel to achieve a decent and dignified status...

...instead they insisted on the need for a new international political and economic order...

...By any index available, whether food allotted, life expectancy, infant mortality or whatever, the gap between the average impoverished woman in the developing countries and the typical American female is incredibly wide...