Suchergebnisse

Examines the potential & limits of addressing women's rights issues in the larger realm of human rights. The positions of Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch on women's rights issues are outlined. It is argued that women's rights are often perceived as a private, domestic matter outside the realm of government policy. Addressing women's rights in the larger sphere of human rights would challenge this convention & make them a state issue. M. Nichols-Wagner

On the face of it, Wu Mei (not her real name) represents the modern Chinese woman who has achieved spectacular success. Just thirtyone years old, she makes around one million RMB (roughly $150,000) a year as an attorney in Beijing, a salary that likely places her in the top 1 percent income bracket in China. Slender and beautiful, she could be the perfect cover model for a magazine feature on "China's richest women." Yet, as she speaks, a darker picture emerges. Wu recently managed to obtain a divorce from her abusive husband after five years of marriage, but only by giving up her home, her life savings, and most of her belongings.

THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS FORBIDS DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF "RACE, SEX, LANGUAGE OR RELIGION." THIS ARTICLE STATES THAT IT WAS A STRUGGLE TO RID THE DECLARATION OF ALL DISCRIMINATION, ESPECIALLY IN THE CASE OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS. THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION CONTAINS FEW REFERENCES TO WOMEN'S RIGHTS, THE ARTICLE REVIEWS THESE AND STATES THAT THE DOCUMENT DOES NOT TREAT WOMEN AS INDIVIDUALS.

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.

Traces the nineteenth-century origins and contemporary dimensions of episcopal power, which on numerous occasions has directly blocked any advance towards women's emancipation. Feminism in Ireland is now struggling to recover from the series of defeats and defections that have weakened it in recent years, but the general backwardness of established politics continues to make issues of women's rights--and particularly such basic questions as divorce and birth control--an even more sensitive index of social change than elsewhere in Europe. (Abstract amended)

While dictatorships perform worse than democracies in respect for most human rights, a large number of autocracies have prioritized the advancement of women's rights. We present a theory of authoritarian rights provision that focuses on the incentives for dictatorships to secure women's loyalty, and we identify the particular capacity of institutionalized party-based regimes to supply—and capitalize from—women's rights policies. Analyzing a comprehensive sample of authoritarian regimes from 1963 to 2009, we find that party-based regimes are associated with greater economic and political rights for women irrespective of whether they hold multiparty elections. A comparative exploration of authoritarian Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya sheds further light on these findings and examines alternative explanations. Our account of women's rights as a tool of autocratic party coalition-building contrasts with the provision of civil and associational rights—so-called "coordination goods"—which represents a concession to the opposition and tends to accompany liberalization.

Explored & explained is the wide gap between two important perspectives regarding the ethics of fertility control: (1) the feminist position that the needs of individual women should always take precedence over less concrete notions of what is good for society; & (2) the family planning establishment position that since reproductive behavior on the individual level may have severe negative consequences for the larger society, it may be necessary & correct to regulate the reproductive behavior of women. The biological, economic, political, & social implications of reproduction are discussed, & it is concluded that there is a direct relationship between societal dominance of women & the great power inherent in the control of reproduction. Questions are raised regarding the kind of society that could maximize the reproductive rights of women without creating a mirror image of the current situation, & thus violating the rights of men. AA.

Features of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; role of the Commission on the Status of Women.

AbstractOver the last two decades, women leaders known as sulāliyāt from various parts of rural and semiurban Morocco, have been in the vanguard of local contestations over the privatization of communally held land. The stand taken by these rural women against neoliberal privatization policies sometimes puts them in direct confrontation with urban women reformers, whose claims in favor of a universal feminism reveal a value system outside local customary understandings of morality, gender, and land. This article aims to account for the emerging female leadership of the sulāliyāt that operates outside urban centers, but also beyond the universalist language of feminism related to abstract notions of female autonomy and gender equality. Deeply rooted in socioeconomic issues, including land expropriation and the displacement of local peasant populations in the name of reform, development, and a public common good, sulāliyāt tie gender dynamics to the intersectional structural inequalities produced and reproduced by land privatization and by the alliance between the open-market economy and patriarchal political authoritarianism. This article explores the subaltern agency of the sulāliyāt through an interdisciplinary examination of their leadership. The sulāliyāt challenge to official narratives of development and universalist human rights signals their capacity to formulate alternative local meanings of land ownership.

An examination of the UN Charter, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, examining the wording & resulting interpretations with respect to women's rights. The story of the drafting process is told with illustrative vignettes, referencing various participants' statements & dialogue with each other. Despite discussion, contention, & lobbying, linguistic sexism still exists in the finished document. Particularly problematic are: the reference to "all men" in Article 1, issues regarding the family & children in Articles 16 & 25, marriage & divorce in Article 16, & suffrage & pay in Articles 21 & 32. It is argued, however, that the Universal Declaration does not deny women's rights as individuals. C. Grindle