Sally Ethelston, vice president of Communications for Population Action International (PAI), remembers Cairo. "I'll never forget the faces of country delegates the afternoon they had finished their hardest negotiations. People emerged beaming because they knew they had forged something that would take the discussion so much further. And the United States played a major role in that process. What we see now is the United States playing the role of the bully."

"It's like Bush is sacrificing the women of the world to pay his political dues," says Terri Bartlett, also of PAI.

Regardless of whether Bush's machinations are payback to the religious right or born of a core belief that the UN will bring about the fall of man, activists in the global women's movement are not taking any more chances. Though many were expecting a 5th World Conference on Women to take place in Helsinki in 2005 (especially the Finns), the present consensus is that a ten-year follow-up to the 1995 conference in Beijing would be far too much of a risk. "Beijing is an incredible document," says Françoise Girard. "You look at it and really say, 'Wow.'" Still, women's activists are quick to insist that Bush isn't the only factor. "I wouldn't give him all the credit," says Zonny Woods. Conferences are a huge drain on time and resources, taking the best and brightest away from their work implementing the agreement. "If you think about it, we've been either having a major UN conference or preparing one for the past twelve years."

Indeed, the 1990s were not just about globalization of capital: There was the Rio conference in 1992, then a series of negotiations on climate change, forests and biodiversity. There were conferences on habitat, population and development, women, social development, human rights; then each of those had five-year reviews; then there were the conferences on racism, aging and HIV/AIDS; then the Special Session on Children.

"We don't need another conference in 2005," says Charlotte Bunch. "We need to keep working on implementing the Beijing platform. It hasn't been realized. Perhaps in 2010, or 2008, it will be a better political moment."

On the other hand, notes Jennifer Butler, the destructive role of the Bush Administration deserves wide attention. "If we don't tell people what's really going on, how can we mobilize them?" The UN shapes global norms, she argues, and if the superpower breaks away, it gives every other country license to back away from its commitments. "Since Beijing, you can't speak of any major world issue without applying some sort of gender lens," she says. Health ministries have implemented new programs, budgets have been allocated, national policy has been revised. But if Bush is allowed to continue his attack, "we will see a rollback, a slow erosion of the world culture that has been redefined to say it's not OK to violate women's rights."

And it's not only feminists who are fearful. There's plenty of buzz within the UN about how these conferences need to be made more, let's say, childproof. "We have got to figure out a way to avoid this again, because this is not productive at all. Because AIDS won't wait. Unwanted pregnancies won't wait," says a UN official.

Says Butler, "Maybe it's time to sound the alarm bells."

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