WOMS202 Lecture 15: Lectures 15 and 16
14 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
➢ Women’s Rights as Political and Civil Rights
■ How are women affected by abuses of political and civil rights?
■ 2 components
● Making women who suffer from general human rights more visible
● Calling attention to abuses women suffer because they are
women
● Examples:
◆ Sexual torture of political prisoners
◆ Sexual abuse of refugees
● Limitations:
◆ Narrow Scope, doesn’t challenge public/private divide
■ List each of the three other approaches
● What is the focus of each approach?
◆ Women’s rights as socio economic rights-ending women’s
subordination; political human rights are meaningless
without economic rights to food shelter, etc.
◆ Creation of new laws and work to make existing legal
instruments more effective for women; expand state’s
ability to address women’s rights-CEDAW
◆ Women’s rights as human rights
● What are specific examples of each approach?
◆ Socio economic approach- Looking at free trade zones,
problems: Access to credit, women’s rights to organize as
workers, violence in workplace, feminization of poverty
◆ Campaigns stating that women’s rights are human rights
● What is a limitation of each approach?
◆ Socio economic-Reduced women’s needs to the economic
sphere; overly reductive and too economistic; economic
development would be enough to have women’s rights be
respected
◆ CEDAW- little power to the man; not much teeth or force
◆ Women’s rights as human rights- women become another
interest group; not very effective; groups need to change
and incorporate gender at every level; doesn’t want
women’s rights to be a separate thing, instead a
transformation of how we perceive human rights in general
❖ “Transnational Networks on Violence Against Women”- Keck and Sikkink
➢ Women’s rights seen as transformative
➢ Connecting women’s rights with human rights-make women’s rights more
powerful
➢ Issue of violence against women had to be created
■ No one talked about violence against women until early 1980’s
■ Transformation of how women’s rights are being thought of
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Women"s rights as political and civil rights. Making women who suffer from general human rights more visible. Calling attention to abuses women suffer because they are women. List each of the three other approaches. Women"s rights as socio economic rights-ending women"s subordination; political human rights are meaningless without economic rights to food shelter, etc. Creation of new laws and work to make existing legal instruments more effective for women; expand state"s ability to address women"s rights-cedaw. Socio economic approach- looking at free trade zones, problems: access to credit, women"s rights to organize as workers, violence in workplace, feminization of poverty. Campaigns stating that women"s rights are human rights. Socio economic-reduced women"s needs to the economic sphere; overly reductive and too economistic; economic development would be enough to have women"s rights be respected. Cedaw- little power to the man; not much teeth or force. Transnational networks on violence against women - keck and sikkink powerful.
