UNITED NATIONS : Controversy Dogs Summit Preparations : Brouhahas over words, participants and even its slogan may presage trouble at U.N. women’s conference.

UNITED NATIONS — While former Rep. Bella Abzug was railing this week against what she regarded as a wrong turn in preparations for the U.N. Conference on Women in September, a group of her supporters stood up in the gallery of the meeting room and held up placards with the word gender in English, French and Spanish.

The demonstration reflected a spirited battle that erupted in the closing days of the preparatory meetings for the Beijing conference. The Honduran delegation demanded the deletion of all use of the word gender in the proposed “platform of action” for the conference. This infuriated many feminists, who saw it as a step backward.

Feminists use the word gender when they discuss the relationships between men and women based on their different social roles: the tendency of U.S. society, for example, to often accept men as executives and airline pilots and reject women for the same jobs. The feminists fear that Honduras, which often acts on behalf of the Vatican at these conferences, wants to define women only by the way they differ physically from men.

The brouhaha reinforces the expectation that the conference is sure to become embroiled in controversy and politics.

The U.N. organizers tried to avoid controversy. The original slogan for the conference--”Half the world, half the power”--was abandoned, said Patricia Licuanan of the Philippines, chair of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, because it sounded “a little too threatening for men.”

The commission, which is organizing the conference, came up with a substitute slogan--”Partnership for equality, development and peace.”

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But this slogan had to be abandoned as well, Licuanan said on the U.N. television program “World Chronicle,” because the Chinese have no character in their written language that expresses a partnership that is not a marriage. So, she said, the commission settled on “Action for equality, development and peace.”

The commission worked long hours Friday in the final preparatory meeting for the Beijing conference, but many bitter controversies were left unresolved.

One of the most important centered on accreditation. China wants to keep Tibetan and Taiwanese women’s groups away from Beijing because it regards Tibet and Taiwan as integral parts of China.

China objected when several of these groups tried to register as non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, officially accredited to the conference. If accredited, these organizations can sit in on all sessions of the official conference. Members of the Status of Women panel decided to put off a decision on accreditation until July, hoping they can work out a compromise.

These controversial groups are already accredited to take part in what is called the NGO Forum. That will be a U.N.-blessed but unofficial parallel conference in Beijing of worldwide women’s organizations and other groups supporting women’s causes. In principle, China has promised to grant visas to all those taking part in the NGO Forum, but there is a fear that this promise will not be honored for Tibetan and Taiwanese women.

At past women’s conferences, the NGO forums have acted as pressure cookers, trying to push the official delegates into stronger positions. For this reason, the NGO Forum is regarded by some critics as troublesome, and women’s leaders are suspicious of the Chinese government’s recent decision to move the forum to another site in Beijing.

The original plan was to set the NGO Forum in a stadium near the official conference site in the center of Beijing. But Chinese officials announced a few days ago that the forum will be moved to a new location near the airport in Huairou County, at least an hour’s drive from Beijing.

Although there is wide agreement on the nature of the problems women face--an oft-repeated statistic, for example, is that 70% of the world’s 1.3 billion poor people are women--there is a good deal of disagreement about how far to commit governments to solve such problems.

The preparatory meetings failed to resolve many of these disagreements, and the final wording of the proposed platform for action will have to be ironed out in Beijing. This presages a good deal of conflict when the 30,000 official delegates and NGO representatives assemble for the conference, the fourth since 1975.

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The problem is compounded by a large difference in needs and demands of women throughout the world. Gertrude Mongella of Tanzania, the U.N. official who will be secretary general of the official conference in Beijing, has been quoted by women delegates as telling them: “Some women want water to wash dishes. Others want dishwashers.”

Times staff writer Rone Tempest in Beijing contributed to this report.

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A Changing World for Women

Although the number of women attending school is catching up with that of men, women’s earning power still lags behind that of men in comparable positions.

Earning Power:

Women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s earnings in non-agricultural industries, selected countries, 1991*.

Czechoslovakia: 70.6%

Denmark: 83.3%

Germany: 73.6%

Japan: 50.8

New Zealand: 80.9%

School enrollment

Number of girls for each 100 boys, 1990.

Africa

Asia and the Pacific

Eastern Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

Western Europe, U.S.

World