This text addresses the issue of women's human rights and defends their sensitive or receptive application to the socio-political context. The value of women's human rights is recognized as instruments of social transformation, but also the limitations of a legal-legalistic conception. A broader political conception is required. Following Ch. Beitz, who defines human rights as global discursive and political practices whose objective is to regulate the behaviour of States and protect human interests, a non (...) sceptical criticism of this conception is made. The application of the human rights of women by States without considering the previous social and political structure can unintentionally reinforce the situation of oppression they suffer. In this sense, it is committed to the need to focus the human rights of women not only as protections, but also as demands. Demands that come from new forms of feminist activism such as decolonial or antineoliberal. Without renouncing the idea of women's human rights, it is committed to an application sensitive to claims and critical of the social and political context, combining short-range affirmative policies with long-range transformative policies. (shrink)

In the following study the author goes back to the beginnings of the Women's Rights movements in order to pose the question on gender equality by approaching it through the prism of language as a powerful tool in human rights battles. This permits her to show the deep interrelation between women's struggle for recognition and some particular women rights, like the "feminization" of professional titles and the implementation of a gender sensitive language. Hence she argues (...) the thesis that even in the most advanced European democracies, where freedom of speech, education, and scientific research seem actually to be legally guaranteed as universal rights, there is still a deep conflict in regard to the use of language and also that we have throughout history backlashes, reproductions of past stereotypes, and a loss of women's rights which were previously acquired. (shrink)

Across the African continent, women's rights have become integral to international declarations, regional treaties, national legislation, and grassroots activism. Yet there is little research on how African men have understood these shifts and how African masculinities are implicated in such changes. Drawing on a year of ethnographic research in the Ugandan capital Kampala, this article investigates how ordinary men and women in Uganda understand women's rights and how their attitudes are tied to local conceptions of masculinity. The author (...) argues that a new configuration of gender relations is evident in urban Uganda—one that accommodates some aspects of women's rights while retaining previous notions of innate male authority. This article therefore illustrates the complex and often contradictory engagements with human rights that occur in local contexts and how such engagements are shaped by—and are shaping—gender relations, including conceptions of masculinity. (shrink)

As COVID-19 keeps impacting the world, its impact is felt differently by people of different sexes and genders. International guidelines and research on gender inequalities and women’s rights during the pandemic have been published. However, data from Taiwan is lacking. This study aims to fill the gap to increase our knowledge regarding this issue and provide policy recommendations. This study is part of a more extensive project in response to the fourth state report concerning the implementation of the Convention (...) on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in Taiwan in 2022. We have drawn on the guidelines and documents published by the United Nations human rights bodies, conducted interviews with advocacy and professional practitioners, and hosted a study group comprising students and teachers from the National Taiwan University College of Public Health to supplement the interview data. The data were analyzed thematically. The results include five themes: (1) particular health risks to carers (primarily women); (2) COVID-related measures’ impact on women’s health and health behaviors; (3) highly gendered psychological maladjustment; (4) increase in gender-based violence and domestic violence; and (5) mental health inequities and intersectionality. The study has global implications for societies of similar sociopolitical contexts and developmental statuses. To truly live up to the standard of CEDAW and other international human rights principles, we ask that central and local government be more aware of these lived experiences and adjust their policies accordingly, accounting for gender sensitivity. (shrink)

In this article I put forward three lines of argument. Firstly, the current debate on trafficking in human beings focuses narrowly on exploitation in the sex industry. This has produced a stand-off between moralists and liberals which is detrimental to developing strategies to combat trafficking. Moreover, this narrow focus leads to missing out the large numbers of women who are trafficked into other industries. It also masks some of the root causes of trafficking. In this article I therefore compare (...) the practice of trafficking for prostitution with forced labour in other industries in order to show that the sole focus on trafficking for prostitution is detrimental to the efforts to combat trafficking. This analysis is based on recent research and reports on its methodology as well as its outcomes. Secondly, I relate these findings in the article to the agenda for the women's rights debate. The women's rights literature has looked separately at the sex industry and labour migration. In the light of our research outcomes, it makes sense to have a much more intimate exchange between these areas, in order to discern the central role of root causes like globalization, patriarchy and other forms of discrimination. Thirdly, whereas a dichotomy between universalism and particularism has produced its own trenches in this field, I propose a balanced approach which addresses all forms of violence against women, including the central area of exploitation of migrant women in any sector or domestic context. (shrink)

Major changes have taken place in Muslim societies in general during the last decades. Traditional family and social organizational structures have come into conflict with the perceptions and needs of development and modern state-building. Moreover, the international context of globalization, as well as changes in intercommunity relations through immigration, have also deeply affected social and cultural mutations by facilitating contact between different cultures and civilizations. Of the dilemmas arising from these changes, those concerning women’s and men’s roles were the most (...) conflictive issues because of different interpretations and evaluations of historical, religious and/or cultural heritages. In the case of Morocco, for over 30 years, women’s and human rights NGOs have acted and advocated to promote women’s rights. The main disputes have concerned the distinction between what is within the requirements of Islam and what is the consequence of traditional social beliefs and practices. This ended nevertheless with the adoption by the Parliament of a new Family Law proclaimed in February 2004. This law was the result of a process of consultation and national debate, which made possible substantial progress in terms of proclaimed values of equality of rights between men and women, with the support of most national political and social leaders. Several lessons can be learned from the Moroccan experience. The crucial role of civil society, the political support of the state at its highest level, the working methodology of the Royal Advisory Commission and the final process for the adoption of the new code were from the most determinant parameters. In light of recent developments in some majority-Muslim countries, the future of women’s rights is a key issue of the so-called Arab spring. Muslim women’s challenges and struggles are not only ideological and legal battles, but they are also social and political struggles for which one of the major conditions is to prevent and prohibit the use of Islam as a political instrument. Muslim societies need to educate people properly and change their traditional representations and patterns of thought. To promote justice, equity and equality in general, as well as to protect women’s economic rights, they need appropriate economic and social policies. Then women can really promote, protect and benefit from the advances of their legal status. (shrink)

This article argues that in the quest for global bioethics in its relation to the promotion of women's health and women's rights, the main challenge is to, first, rise above the relativist trap and second, to solve the false dilemma between individualism and collectivism. Particularly in order to improve women's position and advance their well‐being in many developing countries with patriarchal cultural practices, there is an urgent need to introduce modern medicine and to share more evenly and (...) efficiently the health care resources of the industrialized societies. This presumes that we can find a normative bioethical approach that promotes the rights of individuals without striving for cultural assimilation and disrespect.From the philosophical point of view this means that we have to overcome the debate between the rival views of justice, and rather find the shared features of the various approaches, thus diminishing the exaggerated polarizations between them. The author claims that despite its importance in women's rights protection, feminist bioethics cannot remain as a normative alternative that can replace either liberal or communitarian approaches. Instead feminism needs to be part of both liberal and communitarian ethical thinking. Communitarianism, for its part, cannot offer an alternative to either liberalism or feminism, but it can function as an essential critical balancing force within these approaches. Individualist liberalism, on the other hand, has to find its way into collective social structures and accept their maintenance, instead of exhausting itself in its attempts to lift individuals above or beyond their social contexts. (shrink)

This article argues that in the quest for global bioethics in its relation to the promotion of women's health and women's rights, the main challenge is to, first, rise above the relativist trap and second, to solve the false dilemma between individualism and collectivism. Particularly in order to improve women's position and advance their well‐being in many developing countries with patriarchal cultural practices, there is an urgent need to introduce modern medicine and to share more evenly and (...) efficiently the health care resources of the industrialized societies. This presumes that we can find a normative bioethical approach that promotes the rights of individuals without striving for cultural assimilation and disrespect. From the philosophical point of view this means that we have to overcome the debate between the rival views of justice, and rather find the shared features of the various approaches, thus diminishing the exaggerated polarizations between them. The author claims that despite its importance in women's rights protection, feminist bioethics cannot remain as a normative alternative that can replace either liberal or communitarian approaches. Instead feminism needs to be part of both liberal and communitarian ethical thinking. Communitarianism, for its part, cannot offer an alternative to either liberalism or feminism, but it can function as an essential critical balancing force within these approaches. Individualist liberalism, on the other hand, has to find its way into collective social structures and accept their maintenance, instead of exhausting itself in its attempts to lift individuals above or beyond their social contexts. (shrink)

This essay examines why the recent recognition of human rights violations against women, as exemplified by Amnesty International's 1995 report on women, remains bound to the limitations of traditional approaches to human rights. The essay argues that despite Amnesty International's commitment to incorporating violations against women into its activities, it nevertheless upholds questionable assumptions about the gendered subject, gender relations within the family, and the relationship between the family and the state.

In this article I put forward three lines of argument. Firstly, the current debate on trafficking in human beings focuses narrowly on exploitation in the sex industry. This has produced a stand-off between moralists and liberals which is detrimental to developing strategies to combat trafficking. Moreover, this narrow focus leads to missing out the large numbers of women who are trafficked into other industries. It also masks some of the root causes of trafficking. In this article I therefore compare (...) the practice of trafficking for prostitution with forced labour in other industries in order to show that the sole focus on trafficking for prostitution is detrimental to the efforts to combat trafficking. This analysis is based on recent research and reports on its methodology as well as its outcomes. Secondly, I relate these findings in the article to the agenda for the women's rights debate. The women's rights literature has looked separately at the sex industry and labour migration. In the light of our research outcomes, it makes sense to have a much more intimate exchange between these areas, in order to discern the central role of root causes like globalization, patriarchy and other forms of discrimination. Thirdly, whereas a dichotomy between universalism and particularism has produced its own trenches in this field, I propose a balanced approach which addresses all forms of violence against women, including the central area of exploitation of migrant women in any sector or domestic context. (shrink)

This article draws on core insights of critical realism to explain why the international diffusion of women's human rights norms has varied greatly from one state to another and why states in general have been slower to incorporate these norms domestically than other human rights norms. Its central argument is that the gender-biased corporate identity of many states represents the most significant barrier to diffusion. However, it also shows that particular norms have been incorporated into particular (...) states at particular points in time as a consequence of articulated international and domestic pressure from a variety of actors. It begins by examining the limitations of existing explanations of international norms before developing an alternative critical realist argument to explain cross-national variation in the diffusion and efficacy of international norms of sexual non-discrimination. Through the cases of Germany and Japan, it demonstrates how the diffusion of these norms is conditioned and more often than not impeded by the dynamic interplay between various international and domestic structures and agents, discourse, and power. Finally, it briefly discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the argument. (shrink)

This paper proposes that in developing jurisprudence on women’s rights, the African Commission will need to ask the woman question, particularly the African woman question. The woman question requires a judicial or quasi-judicial body to always put woman at the centre of any decision with a view to addressing the historically disadvantaged position of women in society. Asking the African woman question means examining how the peculiar experiences of African women have been ignored by laws rooted in patriarchy across the (...) region. Although the Commission has handled few cases directly dealing with women’s rights, the paper suggests that the Commission can draw inspiration from decisions of other regional and international human rights bodies such as the European Court on Human Rights and the Committee on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women on how to ask the woman question. The paper recommends that in line with feminist reasoning, there is a need for the African Commission to develop a consistent gender-sensitive approach in dealing with cases that may have implications for women. In essence, the African Commission must ask the African woman question when dealing with cases on the enjoyment of women’s fundamental rights. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 45, no. 1. © 2019 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 253 Sonja Thomas The Women’s Wall in Kerala, India, and Brahmanical Patriarchy On January 1, 2019, a human chain of women, between three and five million strong and 385 miles long, gathered to protest the barring of menstruating women from entering Sabarimala Temple in Kerala, India. The so-called Women’s Wall received widespread news coverage; in the United (...) States, NPR, the BBC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times all had stories on it. Debra Messing, Kerry Washington, and Rose McGowan tweeted about it. As a scholar of caste, gender, and religion in Kerala, India, I watched the news and international attention with a good deal of interest and a bit of unease about how the intersections of casteism and patriarchy (brahmanical patriarchy) were glossed over in the reporting. The issues surrounding the Women’s Wall reveal the ways in which certain groups invest in the protection of brahmanical patriarchal power; a power that is reflected in political tensions between the Kerala state and the Indian central government that may come to a head in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Casteism and religious divides in Kerala are rarely discussed in depth because Kerala is largely seen as a progressive state, with a 94 percent literacy rate. Other development indicators also point to the assumption that Kerala is exceptional: low infant mortality rates, low maternal mortality rates, low fertility rates, and a population where there are more women than men. Kerala is seen as secular because there is a large number of both Christian and Muslim religious minorities. In 1957, 254 News and Views Kerala made history by democratically electing a communist government and initiating a set of far-reaching (although not all-encompassing) land distribution policies. The state is seen as transgender friendly with a transgender beauty pageant and support for trans surgery. The “feminist ” Women’s Wall protest fits in quite neatly within the dominant narrative that Kerala is exceptional, progressive, and thus a model for other Indian states and for countries in the Global South to follow. However, even as “progressive” Kerala is celebrated today, it is not clear that women in the state are necessarily as empowered as commonly believed. The state has some of the highest rates of violent crime in the nation and violence against women is widespread.1 Kerala’s suicide rates are two times the national average, and Kerala leads all other states in India in the number of family murder/suicides.2 Women are vastly underrepresented in politics.3 Although women are educated, the female workforce participation rate is one of the lowest in India.4 There is evidence to suggest that educated, nonworking women are using their education toward securing a better marriage match rather than for employment or empowerment.5 Kerala has a history of extremely repressive caste practices. This area of India once not only practiced untouchability, but what is known as “distance pollution.” A Dalit (the most oppressed caste in the caste hierarchy) was not allowed within sixty feet of a Brahmin (the most privileged caste), and the mere shadow of a Dalit falling upon a dominant-caste person could result in a Dalit’s death.6 Dalit Bahujans were prohibited 1. See Swapna Mukhopadhyay, ed., The Enigma of the Kerala Woman: A Failed Promise of Literacy (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2007). 2. Jocelyn Lim Chua, In Pursuit of the Good Life: Aspiration and Suicide in Globalizing South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014). 3. J. Devika and Binitha V. Thampi, New Lamps for Old? Gender Paradoxes of Political Decentralisation in Kerala (New Delhi: Zubaan: 2012). 4. Praveena Kodoth and Mridul Eapen, “Looking Beyond Gender Parity: Gender Inequities of Some Dimensions of Well-Being in Kerala,” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 30 (2005): 3278. 5. Sonja Thomas, “Education as Empowerment? Gender and the Human Right to Education in Postcolonial India,” in Human Rights in Postcolonial India, ed. Om Prakash Dwivedi and V. G. Julie Rajan (New York: Routledge, 2016), 82; Ritty A. Lukose, Liberalization’s Children: Gender, Youth, and Consumer Citizenship in Globalizing India (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 104. 6... (shrink)

This paper explores conceptual and practical linkages between women and food, and argues that food security cannot be realized until women are centrally included in policy discussions about food. Women's special relationship with food is culturally constructed and not a natural division of labor. Women's identity and sense of self is often based on their ability to feed their families and others; food insecurity denies them this right. Thus the interpretation of food as a human right requires (...) that food issues be analyzed from a gender perspective. For example, the paper asks how the rights to food intersect with the rights of women and other human rights; what the policy implications of these intersecting rights are; and how their integration will contribute to the effort to view all human rights as mutually reinforcing, universal, and indivisible. The second half of the paper speculates on the significance of distinctions between the right to be fed, the right to food, and the right to feed for understanding the relation between gender and food. (shrink)

Governmental and non-governmentalagencies worldwide have devoted considerablefinancial, technical, and organizational efforts toconstruct or rehabilitate irrigation infrastructure inthe last three decades. Although rural povertyalleviation was often one of their aims, evidenceshows that rights to irrigated land and water wererarely vested in poor men, and even less in poorwomen. In spite of the strong role of irrigationagencies in vesting rights to irrigated land and waterin some people and not in others, the importance ofagencies‘ targeting practices is still ignored.This article disentangles how public (...) irrigationagencies either included or excluded women and mensmallholders as right holders to irrigated land andwater. This is done on the basis of significant casestudies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America thatpoint in both positive and negative directions. Thegeneral conclusions are the following. Rights toirrigated land are related to the site-selection andphysical design of land-bound irrigationinfrastructure. These rights are vested in the pooreither by implementing a localized land reform or bydirectly selecting poor people‘s land forimprovement. Among all potential land users in aselected site, water rights have to be defined. Thepoor are included as title holders if water rights arevested in land users rather than land owners, and inboth women and men, rather than in male householdheads. A common condition to get water rights is thatone has to participate in construction investments.Agencies need, firstly, to open up this condition forthe poor, also for women, and, secondly, ensure thatpoor people‘s investments are linked to rights.Parallel to vesting land and water rights, externalagencies influence the composition of the local forumsin which decisions on land and water rights arerefined, endorsed, and implemented, and they influencethe order in which project activities are planned andundertaken. Early inclusion of the poor in theseforums and crystallization of expropriation andallocation criteria and procedures before constructionstarts are pivotal for poverty alleviation. (shrink)

Emerging out of increased attention to gender equality within violence and HIV prevention efforts in South African society has been an intensified focus on masculinities. Garnering a deeper understanding of how men respond to shifting gender relations and rights on the ground is of urgent importance, particularly since social constructions of gender are implicated in the HIV/aids epidemic. As social scientists collaborating on a rights-based HIV and antiviolence program, we sought to understand masculinities, rights, and gender (...) norms across six high HIV/aids seroprevalence provinces in South Africa. Drawing on focus group research, we explore the ways that men who are engaged in HIV and antiviolence programming can often be simultaneously resistant to and embracing of changes in masculinities, women’s rights, and gender relations. We use our findings on men’s responses to changing gender relations to make suggestions for how to better engage men in HIV and antiviolence programs. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explore why women’s participation in the Jordanian workforce remains comparatively low—despite an increase in the number of employed women across many countries and regions. Focusing on the Jordanian private sector, where the greatest disparities lie, we assess the conformity between the provisions that regulate family-related rights in the workplace within national labour law and international law. From this examination, we conclude that whilst law offers the potential for significant positive change in the Jordanian labour market, and (...) notwithstanding the labour law reforms which took place between 2000 and 2020, the underlying structure of the existing laws is inimical to the goal of women’s full participation. Using a women’s rights perspective, we argue that, instead of piecemeal reform, the labour law sphere must be revised as a whole to better accommodate respect for women’s needs in the workplace. This change must be underpinned by family-friendly legislation, which, as our study shows, is a key factor in alleviating some of the major challenges facing women workers. (shrink)

This article interrogates whether and how the concept of ‘patriarchy’ is used by UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies (treaty bodies) and special procedures to interpret state obligations to respect and ensure women’s human rights. There are two key points that arise out of this study: first, that several treaty bodies and special procedures purposely and consistently use the concept of ‘patriarchy’ when discussing women’s human rights, and second, that although not all treaty bodies and special procedures (...) have referred to the terms ‘patriarchy’ or ‘patriarchal’, an examination of those that have reveals a marked difference in how the terms are used by treaty bodies when compared with special procedures. While treaty bodies render the meaning of ‘patriarchy’ as being synonymous with certain harmful practices, such as female-genital mutilation (FGM), special procedures utilise ‘patriarchy’ as a system of power, permeating every facet of society. In this article I will argue that the current state of dissonance between the understandings of ‘patriarchy’ by treaty bodies and special procedures creates an unnecessary ambiguity that does nothing to advance gender equality. Furthermore, utilising a nuanced understanding of patriarchy, as articulated by intersectional and anti-essentialist feminist scholars, would potentially equip treaty bodies and special procedures for more meaningful interpretation of rights themselves, and greater protection of women’s human rights. (shrink)

Despite the persistence of violence inside and around prisons, and the dubious adequacy of criminal law to respond to victim–survivors, international human rights (IHR) discourse increasingly promotes the mobilisation of the state’s penal apparatus to respond to human rights violations, including violence against women (VAW). Using an anticolonial feminist approach, this article scrutinises the ontological and epistemological commitments underlying ‘human rights penality,’ by analysing features of the Western-colonial register vis-a-vis more relational worldviews. Separateness, abstraction, and transcendence broadly (...) underpin the exclusion of embodied experience, context, and material reality from the juridical field. In the second part, through discourse analysis of Inter-American and European case law, the author shows the deployment of human rights penality, the displacement of experience, and the disregard of context in IHR discourse. VAW is construed as a procedural and penal matter: it is the absence of a penal process that courts regard as failure to protect women, rather than the state’s inability/unwillingness to address structural subordination. Moreover, the ‘virtues’ attributed to the penal system justify its expansion, which facilitates the continuity of penal violence and debilitates alternative approaches to justice. Finally, the author posits penal abolition as an anticolonial praxis, pointing at examples of anti-carceral feminist work. (shrink)

North Korea references gender equality in its socialist constitution, but the de facto social and legal circumstances that women face in the country are far below the de jure status they are purported to enjoy. North Korean women endure extremely low public health standards and pervasive harassment. Yet their growing market power and social influence are underestimated. Women account for the majority of North Korean border crossers, and their informal economic activities are supporting families while modernizing the economy. This (...) essay examines the dangers of exploitation that North Korean women face and highlights the ethical and legal imperatives of supporting their roles in marketizing the economy and liberalizing the society in one of the worst human rights–violating states. Women are North Korea's most deserving recipients of international assistance and the country's most promising partners to the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How Old Are Modern Rights? On the Lockean Roots of Contemporary Human Rights DiscourseS. Adam SeagraveArguing for the proper placement of John Locke’s natural rights theory within intellectual history is a particularly high-stakes enterprise for historians of political thought and political theorists alike. This is due in large part to the fact that, as Brian Tierney notes in his recent study, it is “widely agreed that Locke’s work (...) was an important influence in the formation of modern liberal ideas, including ideas concerning rights.”1 Our understanding of Locke thus contributes to our reflective self-understanding as “modern liberals” (of one stripe or another) to an extent perhaps unequaled by any other thinker so far removed from our own time.As a result of the rare promise of studying Locke’s natural rights theory, there has been no shortage of scholarly attempts to determine its place in intellectual history on the basis of Locke’s own writings and their relation both to preceding and subsequent traditions and modes of thought. Although John Dunn had argued in his influential study that Locke’s political thought was too thoroughly steeped in theology to remain relevant in the contemporary context, this thesis has since been persuasively challenged (albeit in very different ways) by Simmons, Zuckert and Waldron, among others.2 Each of these scholars has contributed to an emerging agreement [End Page 305] that the thread of Locke’s natural rights theory may indeed be carried all the way up to current political and moral debates in some form or another. The precise length of this thread as it extends in the other historical direction has, however, remained a point of heated controversy. The scholarly literature on this issue may be broadly described in terms of a spectrum determined by two opposing emphases in understanding the relation of Locke’s natural rights theory to its medieval predecessors: a continuity emphasis and a discontinuity emphasis.On the discontinuity end of the spectrum stand those such as Michel Villey, Leo Strauss, C. B. Macpherson and, more recently, Michael Zuckert who argue for the existence of some sort of “Copernican moment” separating medieval natural rights theories from their modern counterparts.3 Whether this moment is identified with William of Ockham in the fourteenth century or Hobbes in the seventeenth century, these scholars tend to emphasize the distinctively “modern” character of Lockean natural rights theory and its significant departures from medieval modes of thought. According to many of the advocates of discontinuity, Lockean natural rights are not only “modern” in their political applications but also in their more profound meaning as foundations for morality, and particularly in their newly conceived relation to the concept of natural law.4The continuity end of the spectrum is, perhaps, more variegated, including scholars such as Tuck, Tierney, Tully, Oakley, Nederman, Coleman, and Swanson, among others.5 Despite their many important differences, [End Page 306] these scholars each focus upon the similarities between various elements or strains of medieval thought and modern natural rights theories rather than the differences between them. Insofar as the scholars on this end of the spectrum explicitly consider Locke’s natural rights theory, they tend to emphasize Locke’s intellectual debt to various preceding traditions and thinkers rather than his innovations upon them. Building explicitly upon the work of Tuck, Tierney and Tully, Janet Coleman finds “some extraordinarily Lockean moments” in the medieval thinkers John of Paris and Godefroid of Fontaines, and argues that Locke ought to be understood as contributing to this medieval tradition of thought rather than departing from it.6 Scott Swanson, in turn, builds upon Coleman’s scholarship in carefully connecting medieval understandings of the rights of subsistence and the principle of extreme necessity to Locke’s natural rights theory. Swanson initially goes even further than Coleman in asserting that “all of Locke’s celebrated doctrine is here [in John of Paris’s writings] offered in a nutshell” before concluding on the more moderate note, echoed by Cary Nederman, that Locke’s “application of natural rights of subsistence to politics” may indeed have been something “new under the sun.”7Brian Tierney, who has long been a prominent... (shrink)

This paper explores conceptual and practical linkages between women and food, and argues that food security cannot be realized until women are centrally included in policy discussions about food. Women's special relationship with food is culturally constructed and not a natural division of labor. Women's identity and sense of self is often based on their ability to feed their families and others; food insecurity denies them this right. Thus the interpretation of food as a human right requires (...) that food issues be analyzed from a gender perspective. For example, the paper asks how the rights to food intersect with the rights of women and other human rights; what the policy implications of these intersecting rights are; and how their integration will contribute to the effort to view all human rights as mutually reinforcing, universal, and indivisible. The second half of the paper speculates on the significance of distinctions between the right to be fed, the right to food, and the right to feed for understanding the relation between gender and food. (shrink)

Freedom of religious expression is to many a fundamental element of their identity. Yet the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on the Islamic headscarf issue does not refer to autonomy and identity rights of the individual women claimants. The case law focuses on Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides a legal human right to freedom of religious expression. The way that provision is interpreted is critically contrasted here with the (...) right to personal autonomy and identity now developed by that court in interpreting Article 8 which contains a right to respect one’s private life. (shrink)

In today’s European society one can observe different forms of religious fundamentalism, especially when defending various values relating to questions of the meaning of life or when confronted with multi-religious and multicultural situations. An ethical approach attempts to avoid such extremes, given that genuine human behavior is based on moral virtues, the Aristotelian “Golden mean”. At a time when some voices in left-leaning circles are trying to enshrine in the Charter of Human Rights the right of women to (...) terminate their pregnancies, by vehemently advocating their cause in the European Parliament and in the UN Assembly, and to redefine the traditional meaning of “family,” one might want to refer to the understanding of human rights of the Catholic Social Doctrine and other long-received ethical theories. On the other hand, many in the Pro-life movement also exhibit a fundamentalist approach to society, for example when legal bioethical approaches justify murder. In the contemporary setting it is necessary to clarify the relationship firstly between human rights and human dignity from the religious point of view and subsequently between human rights and the rights of a person, understood as a being who is self-aware. The current paper tries to clarify the position of the Roman Catholic Church on the issues of human dignity and human rights with the hope that this understanding will have a positive impact on the development of a just society as a means of preventing the spread of religious fundamentalism. (shrink)

There has been much recent debate about women's rights and their relation to human rights. Debates about domestic violence in Vanuatu are situated in this global frame but also in a regional and historical context dominated by the relation between kastom (tradition) and Christianity. This article depicts the dynamics of a conference on Violence and the Family in Vanuatu held in Port Vila in 1994, in terms of the competing claims of universal human rights and cultural relativism. (...) The allegedly western character of human rights which focus on the individual and civil and political rights is often contrasted with the non-western stress on collectivities and the rights to economic development and self-determination. These sorts of ideological oppositions in international politics reverberate in domestic politics as well, and especially in those which situate women and men as subjects in conflict, as they are in many domestic disputes. (shrink)

Dans l’Italie médiévale et moderne, les femmes qui sont exclues de la citoyenneté politique participent à diverses formes de construction du lien d’appartenance à un lieu particulier. La mobilité conditionne par ailleurs les statuts individuels, non seulement en raison des diverses manières de définir citoyens et étrangers, mais aussi du fait que les contenus du droit municipal ne se ressemblent pas d’un endroit à l’autre, surtout en matière de droits et de capacités des femmes. Cet essai illustre les principales thématiques (...) sous-tendant la citoyenneté féminine et examine ensuite les réactions des femmes et des hommes à la multiplicité des normes locales et à leurs différences. (shrink)

How did the events of the early modern period affect the way gender and the self were represented? This collection of essays attempts to respond to this question by analysing a wide spectrum of cultural concerns - humanism, technology, science, law, anatomy, literacy, domesticity, colonialism, erotic practices, and the theatre - in order to delineate the history of subjectivity and its relationship with the postmodern fragmented subject. The scope of this analysis expands the terrain explored by feminist theory, while (...) its feminist focus reveals that the subject is always gendered - although the terms in which gender is conceived and represented change across history. Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture not only explores the representation of gendered subjects, but in its commitment to balancing the productive tensions of methodological diversity, also speaks to contemporary challenges facing feminism. (shrink)

Human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), COVID-19 and Ebola have exposed the magnitude of care-related tasks on women. Most often, because of the gendered nature of domestic and reproductive roles, women are expected to assume unpaid care-related, nurturing and domestic work. Despite the valuable duties, women are economically poor and othered. These unpaid care duties are exacerbated by pandemics and ratified even further by religion. For instance, in Nomiya Church (NC), the first African independent church in (...) Kenya, women’s experience narratives and biblical texts such as the story of the Proverbs 31 virtuous woman are used to glorify unpaid charitable work for women. Women’s virtuous personality, hard work and character are upheld in Christian spaces, thus obstructing sound work theologies. This article employed African Women’s theological lens in view of pointing out repressing and transformative tenets in charitable theologies of work for social and gender justice. While applying womanhood hermeneutics in the passage, the article points to valued behavioural postures of hard work in responding to God’s stewardship mandate. An affirmation of fair reward and accumulation of property is embraced as a familial complementary role, especially in pandemic contexts. The article amplifies the accumulation of property as a human right and the mandate of stewardship for all earth communities. Hence, charity work is a stewardship framework that all earth communities must engage in for replenishment and sustenance for all.Contribution: The article challenges literal biblical interpretations that glorify charity work. It advances a stewardship framework in understanding unpaid and charity work that all earth communities must engage in to replenish and sustain all creation. The framework affirms the dignity of all human persons through a transformational understanding of the theology of work as enabled by the African theological hermeneutics. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from the contentGender equality as a badge of modernity is one of the primary features of the homogenizing process known as globalization. Just as all but a handful of states now claim to be “republics”, regardless of the degree of substantive public rule, an affirmation of equal rights for men and women uniformly appears in modern constitutions and international conventions. Even more striking than the gap between formal and substantive democracy is the chasm that separates (...) these claims of gender equality from the reality of the lives of the world’s women and girls, a breach that is visible in multiple contexts, from the stubbornly low percentages of women in positions of political and economic power, to the cultural transmission of sexual subordination in mass media, to the growing number of impoverished, enslaved, and stateless women worldwide. Using the lens of citizenship to assess, understand and address this gap between formal and substantive equality is the principle project of Gender Equality. (shrink)

In the past few decades, awareness around gender-based violence has expanded on a global scale with increased attention in global treaties, organizations, and conferences. Previously a taboo topic, it is now viewed as a human rights violation in the broader world culture. Drawing on a quantitative analysis of 568 textbooks from 76 countries from across the world, we examine the extent to which this growing global attention to GBV has filtered down into national educational curricula. We find that (...) textbook discussions of GBV are more prevalent in the post-1993 period and are linked to discussions of women’s rights. In addition, discussions of GBV are more common in countries with more linkages to the global women’s movement. Findings from our study underscore the influence of the women’s rights movement and the radical feminist perspective on the reframing of GBV as a human rights issue. (shrink)

Establishing women's rights became part of the moral justification given for waging `war on terror' by ensuring regime change in Afghanistan. Yet by December 2002, Human Rights Watch was reporting ongoing violations of women's rights. Western presumptions that women's lives would be transformed simply by removing the Taliban were false. This `interchange' explains this gap between expectation and reality by examining the contentious history of Afghan gender politics and the current political and economic situation. Acknowledging (...) such factors reveals that Western intervention will not easily subvert the existing gender order. Rather, any real change will result, not from prescribing Western models, but by enabling Afghan women to be autonomous agents with the right to determine their own life plans. (shrink)

Populist-nationalist ideologies pose a threat to women’s rights. This article examines to what extent national institutionalisation of international frameworks promoting women’s rights can weather the misogynistic political climate accompanying the global rise of populist nationalism. The post-2016 situation in the Philippines offers a testing ground for this problem due to the co-existence of President Duterte’s hypermasculinist national leadership with a strong history of institutionalisation of the UN’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. Drawing from an analysis of WPS policy and (...) institutions in the Philippines between 2009 and 2019 and from field research and interviews with government agencies, local civil society organisations and international partners, this article argues that the WPS agenda will likely survive in the hostile environment. But it also finds that institutionalisation alone does not guarantee successful implementation. While the WPS agenda may ostensibly remain a national priority under populist-nationalist regimes, its progression has been halted. (shrink)

Women's exclusion from political enfranchisement in Kant's political writings has frequently been noted in the literature, and yet has not been closely scrutinized. More often than not, commentators suggest that this reflects little more than Kant's sharing in the prejudices of his era. This paper argues that, for Kant, women's civil incapacities stem from defects relating to their capacities as moral agents, and more specifically, to his teleological account of the conditions within which we, as imperfect beings, develop (...) our moral capacities. Women are not incidentally or tangentially excluded from the boundaries of political and moral agency, but rather must adopt an explicitly nonmoral character if we are to understand humanity as moving toward its naturally given, moral ends. I argue (1) that Kant's teleological view of human development requires women to develop an explicitly nonmoral character; (2) that this teleology is inextricable from his view of the moral agency that human—and not merely rational—beings are capable of; and (3) that taken together, these suggest that women's subordinate status is internally connected to Kant's view of moral personhood. (shrink)

Since the mid-nineteenth century, women in Europe, North America and elsewhere have played an increasing role in the workforce. Women started pursuing jobs in factories, offices and businesses instead of being dependent on men for their livelihood. However, along with this significant improvement in the status of women, they still face obstacles, such as the gender pay gab and harassment in the workplace. Although both males and females experience harassment, the available literature clearly suggests that females are more likely (...) to be harassed. Much of the research concerning workplace harassment against women has been conducted in the West while little is known about this phenomenon in workplaces across the Arab and Muslim countries. In fact, gender relations and the nature of workplaces in Arab countries vary significantly from the Western workplace due to religious, social and cultural traditions. Muslim women live in the midst of patriarchal cultures where women’s honour is believed to be sacred. The ideology of women’s seclusion and subordination resulted in the restriction of their ability to participate in the labour force even where females are in urgent need of earned income. In this regard, harassment considers a crucial subject on various international agendas. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for instance, reinforces the implementation of legislation that protects women against gender discrimination. Islam in a similar manner respects women and acknowledges their major role within a society. Therefore, as women living in Muslim communities where issues related to sexuality are sensitive, and people are reluctant to discuss such questions in public, this paper aims to discuss women seclusion, the situation of Muslim women with regard to harassment in the workplace, how international human rights deals with harassment as well as the relation between the Islamic jurisprudence and the international human rights with regard harassment in the workplace. (shrink)

Common hospital and surgical center responses to the Covid‐19 pandemic included curtailing “elective” procedures, which are typically determined based on implications for physical health and survival. However, in the focus solely on physical health and survival, procedures whose main benefits advance components of well‐being beyond health, including self‐determination, personal security, economic stability, equal respect, and creation of meaningful social relationships, have been disproportionately deprioritized. We describe how female reproduction‐related procedures, including abortion, surgical sterilization, reversible contraception devices and in vitro fertilization, (...) have been broadly categorized as “elective,” a designation that fails to capture the value of these procedures or their impact on women's overall well‐being. We argue that corresponding restrictions and delays of these procedures are problematically reflective of underlying structural views that marginalize women's rights and interests and therefore threaten to propagate gender injustice during the pandemic and beyond. Finally, we propose a framework for triaging reproduction‐related procedures during Covid‐19 that is more individualized, accounts for their significance for comprehensive well‐being, and can be used to inform resumption of operations as well as subsequent restriction phases. (shrink)

Research is a global enterprise requiring participation of both genders for generalizable knowledge; advancement of science and evidence based medical treatment. Participation of women in research is necessary to reduce the current bias that most empirical evidence is obtained from studies with men to inform health care and related policy interventions. Various factors are assumed to limit autonomy amongst the Yoruba women of western Nigeria. This paper seeks to explore the experience and understanding of autonomy by the Yoruba women in (...) relation to research participation. Focus is on factors that affect women's autonomous decision making in research participation. An exploratory qualitative approach comprising four focus group discussions, 42 in-depth interviews and 14 key informant interviews was used. The study permits a significant amount of triangulation, as opinions of husbands and religious leaders are also explored. Interviews and discussions were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis was employed for data analysis. Findings show that concepts of autonomy varied amongst the Yoruba women. Patriarchy, religion and culture are conceived to have negative impact on the autonomy of women in respect to research participation. Among the important findings are: 1) male dominance is strongly emphasized by religious leaders who should teach equality, 2) while men feel that by making decisions for women, they are protecting them, the women on the other hand see this protection as a way of limiting their autonomy. We recommend further studies to develop culturally appropriate and workable recruitment methods to increase women's participation in research. (shrink)

Australia is witnessing a political, social and cultural renaissance of public debate regarding violence against women, particularly in relation to domestic and family violence (DFV), sexual assault and sexual harassment. Women's voices calling for law reform are central to that renaissance, as they have been to feminist law reform dating back to nineteenth-century campaigns for property and suffrage rights. Although feminist research has explored women’s voices, speaking out and storytelling to highlight the exclusions and limitations of the legal and (...) criminal justice systems in responding to women’s experience, less attention has been paid to how women's voices are elicited, received and listened to, and the forms of response they have received. We argue that three recent public inquiries in Australia reveal an urgent need for a victim-survivor-centred theory of listening to women’s voices in law reform seeking to address violence against women. We offer a nascent theory of a victim-survivor-centred approach grounded in openness, receptivity, attentiveness and responsiveness, and argue that in each of our case studies, law reform actors failed to adequately listen to women by silencing and refusing to listen to them; by hearing them but failing to be open, receptive and attentive; and by selectively hearing and resisting transformation. We argue that these inquiries signal an acute need for attention to the dynamics of listening in law reform processes, and conclude that a victim-survivor-centred theory of listening is a critical foundation for meaningful change to address violence against women. (shrink)

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; (...) and reproductive rights. (shrink)

Certification programs seek to promote decent work in global agriculture, yet little is known about their gender standards and implications for female workers, who are often the most disadvantaged. This study outlines the gender standard domains of major agricultural certifications, showing how some programs (Fair Trade USA, Rainforest) prioritize addressing gender equality in employment and others (Fairtrade International, UTZ) incorporate wider gender rights. To illuminate the implications of gender standards in practice, I analyze Fairtrade certification (...) and worker experience on certified flower plantations in Ecuador, drawing on a qualitative and quantitative field research study. (1) I show how Fairtrade seeks to bolster the wellbeing of female workers, addressing their workplace needs via equal employment, treatment, and remuneration standards and their reproductive needs via maternity leave and childcare services. My research demonstrates that for female workers, addressing family responsibilities is critical, since they shape women’s ability to take paid jobs, their employment needs, and their overall wellbeing. (2) I show how Fairtrade seeks to bolster the rights of women workers through individual and collective capacity building standards. My findings reveal how promoting women’s individual empowerment serves as a precondition for collective empowerment, and how targeting traditional labor rights is insufficient for empowering female workers, since their strategic choices are curtailed largely outside the workplace. While Fairtrade certification bolsters the wellbeing and rights of female workers in and beyond the workplace, much still needs to be done before women can claim their rights as workers and citizens. (shrink)

Le Code civil français, premier code libéral et bourgeois d’Europe, passe, en raison de sa clarté systématique et de sa langue, pour un modèle de législation moderne. En outre, il eut une influence durable parce qu’il est resté en vigueur dans de nombreux pays d’Europe après la fin des conquêtes napoléoniennes. Pourtant, en comparaison avec d’autres codifications européennes et avec le droit coutumier de son temps, le Code français se caractérise, dans le droit conjugal et familial, par des règles particulièrement (...) rigides consolidant la domination masculine. L’article propose une analyse comparée de certains aspects du droit civil qui ont eu et ont encore un impact considérable sur la vie des femmes et sur l’histoire des mouvements féministes. Il se demande pourquoi les Françaises, qui se sont fait entendre plus tôt que d’autres dans leur lutte pour les droits des femmes qu’elles revendiquaient comme des droits humains, ont paradoxalement obtenu la reconnaissance de leur égale citoyenneté relativement tard (en 1944 seulement) par rapport aux autres pays européens. (shrink)

Violations of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights are frequent all over the world. Women’s sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple human rights. The term ‘rights-based’ has become increasingly linked to the concept of a more comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive rights of women around the globe. The rights-based perspective is derived from the treaties, pacts and other international commitments that recognize and reinforce human rights, including the sexual and reproductive rights of women. We (...) conducted an extensive review of the guidelines, frameworks, research reports and published articles that have been cited as informing the rights-based approach. The findings of the review highlights what is meant by sexual and reproductive health and rights by the stakeholders, why this matter is important, and what can be done. It demands more partnerships with human rights, women’s and other civil society organizations, increased number of successful national policies, initiatives and/or legislative changes, increased budget and other resources at national and/or local community level, mass communication and engagement of men to promote and advance women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Achievement of gender equality is very crucial, because it is a human right that advances women’s empowerment; and is interlinked with sexual and reproductive health and rights. (shrink)

Criticisms have been made against international laws and conventions on asylum and refugees, arguing that these have been based on a male model of definition, which have ignored women’s persecutions. This article will argue that recent developments in European asylum policy have the potential to deepen this discrimination and to further reduce the rights of female asylum seekers. Although there have been some positive developments in jurisprudence that have recognised that gender-specific persecution may be the basis for granting asylum, (...) these advances remain relatively sporadic and are undermined by the operation of random and discretionary exercises of power by bureaucrats and decision makers in many cases. Further, although new developments in asylum policy are in theory “gender neutral,” differences in the material circumstances of men and women who arrive to seek asylum may mean in effect that the implications of these policies are deeply gendered. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The paper seeks to prove the thesis of the significance and importance of the theories and methodological approaches of historical anthropology, which are aimed at understanding the meanings, essence and value systems of human existence in the past for philosophical anthropology. The study of this problem is relevant for understanding the evolution of human identity with philosophical and anthropological concepts, understanding the essence of one’s own existence and attitude to the world. _Theoretical basis._ The author conducts research (...) in the analysis of the reflexive field of philosophical anthropology and related disciplines, in particular historical anthropology, implemented in the philosophical literature of recent centuries, that is, in the space of non-classical and modern philosophical thought. _Originality._ I raise and substantiate the theoretical question of the scientific significance of the analysis of human existence in the past thanks to the involvement of theoretical approaches and concepts formed in the reflexive field of modern historical and anthropological research. This forms the prerequisites for understanding complex and interdisciplinary explorations of the essence and cultural and spiritual values of human existence. I analyse the problems of the work in the context of the concept of the incompleteness of the project of philosophical anthropology without its involvement in the theoretical achievements of historical-anthropological investigations. _Conclusions._ In my opinion, modern historical and anthropological studies of the essence and meanings of being a person of the past form an extensive theoretical system. It is realized through such theoretical aspects of comprehension of human existence by historical and anthropological studies as "history of mentalities", "microhistory", "history of women", "new cultural history", "history of identity", "history of memory", history of mental aspects of political processes. Methodological approaches and concepts of modern historical anthropology form the basis of mental reconstruction and understanding of the mental and cultural causes and factors of human existence, thanks to the analysis of the evolution of the worldview, behaviour, outlook, various forms of individual and social activity of the individual. (shrink)

Agitation for women's rights in Iran is entwined with broader movements for freedom and reform that critique the Islamic Republic's shari'a law as discriminatory. Despite the foundation of these reform efforts in the social realities of contemporary Iran, anyone who critiques laws governing the rights of women is prone to the charge of insulting the sanctity and foundation of Islam and subject to harsh penalties. Reform efforts will be hamstrung until there is a foundation for open discourse and debate (...) in Iran. Thus, human rights such as the right to freedom of expression and related rights must be seen as the fundamental basis for successful political and legal reform in Iran – whether that reform is based in liberal Islam or secularism. (shrink)

Feminist scholarship on women in religious and right-wing social and political movements has moved from a reductive focus on causal or motivational factors to more sophisticated analyses explicating processes of agency and subject formation. With the aim of expanding and deepening this conceptual space, I will discuss some of my interactions with a group of women in the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, as we attempted to explore the complex meanings of ‘the modern’ that informed the self-understanding of my interviewees. My work (...) corroborates some of the contemporary scholarship on what is referred to as Political Islam in arguing that Islamist movements in Muslim societies are also the catalysts of modernization, rather than simply its interlocutors. This article argues that these processes of social and political organizing entail particular interrogations and the reconstituting of identities in ways that blur the line between ‘the religious’ and ‘the secular’. On the one hand, we need to understand Jamaat women's self-construction as religious or pious women; on the other hand, we must grasp the specificity of their claims to act as modern subjects situated in the time of political and cultural modernity. (shrink)

Interrogating the oft-stated emotion of ‘guilt’ amongst young female activists, I develop a theoretical account of why young women seem to be more burdened with such negative emotions than young men. Drawing on feminist theorising, I posit that young women’s emotional accounts of activist work highlight the retraditionalisation of gender under neoliberal modernity. I provide evidence of the gender-differentiated demands that heightened forms of reflexivity place on women, young women in particular. I then consider alternative conceptions of (...) politics, grounded in the work of Hannah Arendt, and extending my own earlier work on relational agency (Kennelly, 2009). Drawing on phenomenology to offer an account of political engagement grounded in the lived experiences of activists, I suggest that social movements might be bolstered through a deepened understanding of the role played by webs of relations and world-building practices, without losing sight of the gendered implications of such a turn. (shrink)

Christian feminist theory faces many stresses, some due directly to the apparent nature of Christianity and its seeming patriarchy. But feminism can also be thought inherent in Christianity. All people are made in God’s image. Christians should view women and men as equals, just as they should see peopleof all races as equals. The basic question discussed, within a biblical and philosophical framework, is if it possible for Christian feminist theory to hold thatthere is an essence to being a woman, (...) being a man or being human all the while recognizing vast differences among women, among men and among human persons? I propose a beginning solution to this problem. (shrink)

Christian feminist theory faces many stresses, some due directly to the apparent nature of Christianity and its seeming patriarchy. But feminism can also be thought inherent in Christianity. All people are made in God’s image. Christians should view women and men as equals, just as they should see people of all races as equals. The basic question discussed, within a biblical and philosophical framework, is if it possible for Christian feminist theory to hold that there is an essence to being (...) a woman, being a man or being human all the while recognizing vast differences among women, among men and among human persons? I propose a beginning solution to this problem. (shrink)