2026-03-20
On Wednesday evening, I participated in a side event during this year's United Nations Commission on the Status of Women cosponsored by the United States as a member nation and several civil society organizations, including The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam).
The event carried a provocative title: "What Is a Woman? Protecting Women and Children from Gender Ideology." Yet the question itself points toward a simple reality. The people best positioned to protect a young woman or girl are generally her parents -- the ones who welcomed her home, watched her grow, and desire her flourishing more deeply than anyone else.
I spoke as a lawyer and director of the Conscience Project, a religious freedom and conscience-rights advocacy organization. But I also came as a Catholic mother of 10 children, including several daughters who are now teenagers and one pre-teen.
Raising daughters in today's culture has reinforced a lesson that no policy document can capture: Girls flourish when they are known, loved and accompanied by the people closest to them. No school counselor, no government agency and no ideology can replace the presence of an attentive and loving parent.