Women, Gender, and Human Rights

by Agosin, Marjorie

• ISBN13: 9780813529837
• ISBN10: 0813529832
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-11-01
• Publisher: Rutgers Univ Pr

Summary

The 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights expresses the credo that all human beings are created free and equal. But not until 1995 did the United Nations declare women's rights to be human rights, and bring gender issues into the global arena for the first time. The subordination of indigenous and minority women, ethnic cleansing, and the struggle for reproductive rights are some of the most pressing issues facing women worldwide.

Women and Human Rights is the first collection of essays to encompass a global perspective on women and a wide range of issues, including political and domestic violence, education, literacy, and reproductive rights. Most of the articles were written expressly for this volume by internationally known experts in the fields of government, bioethics, medicine, public affairs, literature, history, anthropology, law, and psychology.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(14)
I: Theoretical Visions
Becoming Human: The Origins and Development of Women's Human Rights	15	(50)
Arvonne S. Fraser
Indivisible or Invisible: Women's Human Rights in the Public and Private Sphere	65	(18)
Sheila Dauer
Women, Violence, and the Human Rights System	83	(15)
Sally Engle Merry
Mainstreaming a Concern for the Human Rights of Women: Beyond Theory	98	(27)
Felice D. Gaer
II: Women and Health
Women's Health and Human Rights	125	(27)
Julie H. Levison
Sandra P. Levison
The Rights of the Girl Child	152	(18)
Julia Chill
Susan Kilbourne
Psychocultural Factors in the Adaptation of Immigrant Youth: Gendered Responses	170	(21)
Carola Suarez-Orozco
III: Women, Activism, and Social Change
Women's Rights as Human Rights: Women as Agents of Social Change	191	(14)
Temma Kaplan
The Forgotten Minority	205	(14)
Jean Trounstine
Degrees of Separation	219	(15)
Jane Stapleton
Gender Apartheid, Cultural Relativism, and Women's Human Rights in Muslim Societies	234	(12)
Mahnaz Afkhami
Grassroots Organizations and Women's Human Rights: Meeting the Challenge of the Local-Global Link	246	(21)
Mary Geske
Susan C. Bourque
IV: Women and the Cultures of Displacement
``What Was She Doing There?'': Women as ``Legitimate Targets''	267	(16)
Barbara Harlow
How Long Does Exile Last?	283	(6)
Agate Nesaule
Letters of the Law: Women, Human Rights, and Epistolary Literature	289	(23)
Joseph Slaughter
Jennifer Wenzel
Before the Mirror	312	(11)
Christopher Merrill
About the Contributors	323	(4)
Index	327	(13)
About the Editor	340