Debating women's human rights as a universal feminist project: Defending women's human rights as a political tool

Review of International Studies

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 11-27

  Steans, Jill ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33846635419     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210507007279     Document Type: Review

References (80)

1. The article was first presented in draft form at a BISA Gender and IR Working Group workshop held at the University of Surrey in July, 2004. I would like to extend my thanks to all participants at the Workshop for their helpful feedback and but especially to Roberta Guerrina and Marysia Zalewski.
2. A. Bottomley (ed.), Feminist Perspectives on the Foundational Subjects of Law (London: Cavendish Publishing, 1996); Moya Lloyd's article in this forum.
3. Courtney W. Howland (ed.), Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2001).
4. Charlotte Bunch and Susana Fried, 'Beijing '95: Moving Women's Human Rights from Margin to Centre', Signs, 22:1 (1996), pp. 200-4.
5. Doris Bush and Didi Herman, Globalizing Family Values: The Christian Right in International Politics (London and Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003);
6. Jill Steans and Vafa Ahmadi, 'Negotiating the Politics of Gender and Rights: Some Reflections on the Status of Women's Human Rights at "Beijing plus Ten" ', Global Society, 19:3 (2005), pp. 227-45.
7. Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 16.
8. Hans Peter Schmitz and Kathryn Sikkink, 'International Human Rights', in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons, Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage, 2001), p. 517.
9. Michael Ignatieff, The Warrior's Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience (New York: Metropolitan, 1997), p. 8.
10. See Chris Brown, 'Human Rights', in John Baylis and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 089-708.
11. This is not to say that communitarians are necessarily opposed to all tenets of liberalism and some might in fact be sympathetic to human rights projects.
12. Charles Taylor, The Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
13. Stephanie Lawson, 'The Culture of Polities', in Richard Maidment (ed.), Culture and Society in Asia-Pacific (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 231-52.
14. Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).
15. T. H. Eriksson, 'Multiculturalism, Individualism and Human Rights', in Richard A. Wilson (ed.) (1997). Human Rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto Press.
16. Schmitz and Sikkink, 'International Human Rights', p. 521.
17. T. Risse, S. C. Ropp and K. Sikkink (eds.), The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
18. Schmitz and Sikkink, 'International Human Rights', p. 521.
19. Donnelly, International Human Rights.
20. Schmitz and Sikkink, 'International Human Rights', p. 523.
21. Ibid, pp. 531-2.
22. Kimberly Hutchings, 'Speaking and Hearing: Habermasian Discourse Ethics, Feminism and IR', Review of International Studies, 31:1 (2005), p. 158.
23. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990).
24. Jutta Joachim, 'Shaping the Human Rights Agenda: The Case of Violence Against Women', in M. Meyer and E. Prugl, Gender Politics in Global Governance (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999);
25. Myra Marx Ferree and Beth B. Hess, Controversy and Coalition: the New Feminist Movement (Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1985).
26. Linda Nicholson (ed.), Feminism/Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1990).
27. See, for example, the discussion, in Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (eds.), Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press, 1994), p. 18.
28. 'Progress of the World's Women: Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals', 〈http://www.unifem.org/index.php?f_pa.ge_pid〉.
29. Hutchings, Speaking and Hearing, p. 157.
30. Ibid, p. 158.29 Bunch and Fried argue that the major debate has centred on how culture might limit women's human rights. She argues that women have to learn better how to argue for the universality of rights without implying homogenisation, especially around religion and culture, which can be positive for some women. Human rights are not a static concept, but have various meanings in a range of political, intellectual and cultural traditions. They further argue that women must create a more nuanced conversation that can address the tension between calls for recognising the universality of women's human rights and respect for and nurturing of local cultures and oppositional strategies. This entails women defining the terms of the debate and of 'culture' themselves rather than letting the debate be defined by others (Bunch and Fried, 'Beijing '95').
31. Kimberly Hutchings, 'Speaking and Hearing', p. 157.
32. Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor, 'Forging Feminist Identity in an International Movement: A Collective Identity Approach to Twentieth Century Feminism', Signs, 24:2 (1999), pp. 363-86.
33. Lea Wood, 'Gendered Imagination: Women's Resistance to Islamist Discourse', at: 〈http://www.ilstu.edu/-mtavokol/lwood/htm〉 (accessed April 2004).
34. Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), p. 4.
35. Valerie Sperling, Myra Marx Ferree and Barbara Risman, 'Constructing Global Feminism: Transnational Advocacy Networks and Russian Women's Activism', Signs, 26:4, Globalisation and Gender (2005), pp. 11.55-1186.
36. See 〈www.wlulm.org〉.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. See Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Oxford: Polity, 1992).
40. The notion of dialogue across boundaries is riot uncontroversial, particularly in its Habermasian guise, but this model might be reformulated to accommodate feminist concerns. Hutchings, On Speaking and Hearing, p. 162.
41. Sperling, Marx and Risman, 'Constructing Feminism', p. 1169. This is particularly important in the current political context where the feminist movement faces profound challenges from conservative if not overtly anti-feminist, forces.
42. Hutchings, 'On Speaking and Hearing', p. 158.
43. Christine Chinkin, 'Cultural Relativism and International Law', in Rowland, Religious Fundamentalisms, p. 61.
44. Benhabib, Situating the Self.
45. Ibid. See also discussion in Hutchings, 'On Speaking and Hearing', p. 161.
46. Wood, 'Gendered Imagination'.
47. Hutchings, 'On Speaking and Hearing', p. 164.
48. Sonia Alverez, 'Advocating Feminism', International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2:1 (1999), pp. 181-209.
49. Sperling, Ferree and Risman, 'Constructing Global Feminism'.
50. Ibid.
51. Chinkin, 'Cultural Relativism', p. 62.
52. Ibid.
53. Marie-Aimee Helie-Lucas, 'What is Your Tribe?: Women's Struggles and the Construction of Muslimness', in Howland, Religious Fundamentalisms, p. 27.
54. Brooke Ackerly, 'Women's Rights Activists as Cross-Cultural Theorists', International Feminist Journal of Politics, 3:3 (2001), pp. 311-46.
55. Chilla Bulbeck, 'Women's' Movements in Asia Pacific', in Richard Maidment (ed.), Culture and Society in Asia Pacific, pp. 163-84.
56. Hutching, 'On Speaking and Hearing', p. 156.
57. Dorothy Q. Thomas, 'We are not the World: US Activism and Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century', Signs, 25:4 (2000), pp. 1121-4. Thomas also points to the example of Botswana where CEDAW has been used to both educate women about their human rights and to mobilise popular support to change the law: Ibid, p. 1123.
58. Christine Chinkin, 'Gender, Inequality and International Human Rights Law', in Andrew Hurrell and Ngaire Woods (eds.), Inequality. Globalization and World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
59. Joachim, 'Shaping the Human Rights Agenda'.
60. Dorothy Q. Thomas, 'We are not the World', p. 1123.
61. In spite of concerted efforts by religious fundamentalists and secular conservatives to the narrow the reach of women's human rights, they are framed through the Platform of Action as indivisible, universal and inalienable. Bunch and Fried 'Beijing '95'.
62. Back in 1981, Laura Rende pointed out that the implementation of human rights instruments has generally fallen short of ensuring their full applicability to women as an oppressed and vulnerable social group, but she discerned hope for the future in the coming into force of CEDAW and in the work of supervisory organs to be established by under the convention. However, there remain considerable limitations and much effort will be needed by all concerned inside and outside the UN system before an international system of protection of the human rights of women could be said to exist. Laura Rende 'Human Rights and Women's Rights: The United Nations Approach', Human Rights Quarterly, 3:2 (1981), pp. 11-31.
63. Ackerly, 'Women's Rights Activists'.
64. A. Afsharipour, 'Empowering Ourselves: The Role of Women's NGOs in the Enforcement of the Women's Conventions', Columbia Law Review, 99:1 (1999), pp. 129-72;
65. Charlotte Bunch, 'Transforming Human Rights from a Feminist Perspective', in Peters and Wolper (eds.), Women's Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives (London: Routledge, 1995).
66. The Vienna conference on human rights, the Cairo conference on population and development and the Beijing Platform of Action all included more 'specific targets' and indicators which has proved helpful to activists in monitoring progress and compliance.
67. 〈WLUML.org〉.
68. Chinkin, 'Gender Inequality'.
69. BBC News, 28 June 2005. At: 〈http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/ 4620065.stm〉.
70. Brooke Ackerly, 'Women's Rights Activists', p. 312.
71. Ibid, p. 312.
72. Bunch and Fried argue that in international UN meetings, controversies over language are debates about, the direction of government policy and so attention has to be paid to the detail of compromises as well as the sub-text of the disputes they represent. Nevertheless getting reluctant governments to agree to even a weak text can represents an advance on their prior position and, therefore, be significant. Bunch and Fried, 'Beijing '95'.
73. Wood, 'Gendered Imagination'.
74. This was not just an issue, at Beijing, but at the 1993 Vienna conference on Human Rights too. The West mounted a strong endorsement of universality in wake of a challenge from Asia-Pacific countries (The Bangkok Declaration) who recognised that human rights were universal but argued that they must be considered in the context of the dynamic and evolving process of international norm setting, bearing in mind the significance of national and regional peculiarities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds, and rejected the idea that rights could be measured differently in some countries. But there is little guidance on what this means in operational terms. This is an issue for feminists, precisely because it is In the 'private sphere' where agreement is hardest to reach and so in the absence of such guidance much of the substance of women's human rights - issues such as marriage, divorce, reproductive rights - is up for grabs. Christina M. Cerna: 'Universality of Human Rights and Cultural Diversity: Implementation of Human Rights in Different Socio-Cultural Contexts', Human Rights Quarterly, 16:4 (1994), pp. 740-52.
75. Bunch and Fried, 'Beijing '95'.
76. Ibid.
77. Wilson, Human Rights, Culture and Context.
78. Events at the Beijing + Five review served once again to remind activists and theorists alike that the claims of religion, culture and identity can be articulated in ways that offend liberal and secular feminist sensibilities and that conservative, if riot overtly anti-feminist, agendas can be promoted in the name of 'women'. Steans and Ahmadi, 'Negotiating the Politics of Gender and Identity'.77 At Beijing an improbable coalition of the Holy See, some Islamic fundamentalist states and assorted Christian fundamentalist organisations, contested previously agreed language (at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development) that placed control of choices on sexuality and reproductive function in the hands of women. The battle over language was settled in favour of
79. retaining the 'Cairo language', although it was taken up again five years later at the Beijing plus 5 Review. In the run up to the Beijing plus 10 Review, a group of prominent NGOs initiated a campaign to try to prevent the event going ahead, fearing that, as with the 'plus 5 Review' in 2000, the women's human rights agenda was in grave danger of being rolled back. In the event, Beijing plus 10 passed off relatively quietly in New York in March 2005, reaffirming most of the political commitments espoused at Beijing and with renewed commitment to move forward on specific areas such as gender inclusion in governance and UN peacekeeping. It seems, then, that at the international level, the feminist, cause hasn't quite been dealt the devastating blow that ultra-conservatives and religious fundamentalists had been working for.
80. Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, New York: Anchor Books, 1999).