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During the Cold War, international organizations, especially those associated with the United Nations, were used by the two superpowers to promote their own interests. UNESCO was one such platform. The Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first Soviet woman to address this forum in 1966. Tereshkova, who had in 1963 been the first woman in the world to make a space flight, used her UNESCO platform to introduce gender issues in the context of Cold War international relations. Beyond the power play between the states locked into the East-West confrontation, she attempted to voice universalist arguments for women’s rights and development, in a speech marked at the same time by typical Soviet rhetoric.