Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:26:02.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feminism, Women's Human Rights, and Cultural Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Susan Moller Okin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The recent global movement for women's human rights has achieved considerable re-thinking of human rights as previously understood. Since many of women's rights violations occur in the private sphere of family life, and are justified by appeals to cultural or religious norms, both families and cultures (including their religious aspects) have come under critical scrutiny.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 13 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Border Crossings: Multiculturalism and Postcolonial Challenges, Part 1 , Spring 1998 , pp. 32 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackerly, Brooke N.d. A feminist theory of social criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Afkhami, Mahnaz 1995. Faith and freedom: Women's human rights in the Muslim world. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla 1995. Cultural complexity, moral interdependence, and the global dialogical community. In Women, culture, und development: A study of human capabilities, eds. Nussbaum, Martha and Glover, Jonathan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bunch, Charlotte 1994. Strengthening human rights of women. In World conference on human rights, Vienna, June 1993: The contributions of NGOs: Reports and documents, ed. Nowak, Manfred. Vienna: Manzsche Verlag Universitatsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar
Bunch, Charlotte 1995. Transforming human rights from a feminist perspective. In Women's rights, human rights: Intemutiml feminist perspctiws. See Peters and Wolper 1995.Google Scholar
Charlesworth, Hilary 1994. What are women's international human rights? In Human rights of women: National and international perspectives, ed. Cook, Rebecca J.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Covenant for the new millennium: The Beijing declaration and platform for action. 1995. From the Report of the fourth world conference on women. U.N. Doc. A/CONE177/20. Santa Rosa, CA: Freehand Books.Google Scholar
Das, Veena 1994. Cultural rights and the definition of community. In The rights of subordinated peoples, eds. Mendelsohn, Oliver and Baxi, Upendra. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Flax, Jane 1995. Racelgender and the ethics of difference: A reply to Okin's “Gender inequality and cultural differences.” Political Theory 23(3): 500–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Elisabeth 1995. Women's human rights: The emergence of a movement. In Women's rights, human rights: Internutiml feminist perspectives. See Peters and Wolper 1995.Google Scholar
Jaquette, Jane 1993. The family as a development issue. In Women at the center: Development issues and practices for the 1990s, eds. Young, Gay, Samarasinghe, Vidyamali, and Kusterer, Ken. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Natalie Hevener, and Lindquist, Stefanie A. 1995. Critiquing gender‐neutral treaty language: The convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. In Women's rights, human rights: International feminist perspectives. See Peters and Wolper 1995.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia 1981. Excerpt from “Woman can never be defined.” In New French feminisms: An anthology, eds. Marks, Elaine and De Courtivron, Isabelle. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Laqueur, Walter, and Rubin, Barry. 1979. The humn rights reader. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Locke, John 1950. [1689] A letter concerning toleration. 1st ed. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs Merrill.Google Scholar
Marchand, Marianne 1995. Latin American women speak on development: Are we listening yet? In Feminism, postmodernism, and development. See Marchand and Parpart 1995.Google Scholar
Marchand, Marianne, and Parpart, Jane. 1995. Feminism, postmodernism, development. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Martin, Jane Roland. 1994. Methodological essentialism, false difference, and other dangerous traps. Signs 19(3): 630–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, Ann Elizabeth. 1994. Universal versus Islamic human rights: A clash of cultures or a clash with a construct? Michigan Journal of International Law 15(2): 307–404.Google Scholar
Moghadam, Valentine, ed. 1994. Identity politics and women: Cultural reassertions and feminisms in international perspective. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1991. Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. In Third world women and the politics offeminism. See Mohanty, Russo, and Torres. 1991.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Russo, Ann, and Torres, Lourdes, eds. 1991. Third world women and the politics offeminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Russo, Ann, and Torres, Lourdes, eds., 1992. Feminist encounters: Locating the politics of experience. In Destabilizing theory: Contemporary feminist debates, ed. Barrett, Michele and Phillips, Anne. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, Robin 1984. Sisterhood is global: The international women's movement mthohgy. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.Google Scholar
Moruzzi, Norma Claire. 1994. A problem with headscarves: Contemporary complexities of political and social identity. Political Theory 22(4): 653–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narayan, Uma 1998. Essence of culture and a sense of history: A feminist critique of cultural essentialism. Hypatia 13(2): 86–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Narayan, Uma 1997. Contesting cultures: ‘Westernization,’ respect for cultures, and third‐world feminists. In Narayan, Dislocating cultures: Identities, traditions, and Third‐World feminism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma, New York Times. 1995. Women's meeting agrees on a right to say no to sex. 11 September.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma 1996a. Walled in, shrouded and angry in Afghanistan. 4 October.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma 1996b. African ritual pain: Genital cutting. 5 October.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma 1996c. New law bans genital cutting in United States. 10 October.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma 1996d. The many faces of Islamic law. 13 October.Google Scholar
Narayan, Uma 1996e. Woman's plea for asylum puts tribal ritual on trial. 9 November.Google Scholar
Ofei‐Aboagye, Rosemary Ofeibea. 1994. Altering the strands of the fabric: A preliminary look at domestic violence in Ghana. Signs 19(4): 924–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller. 1989a. Humanist liberalism. In Liberalism and the moral life, ed. Rosenblum, Nancy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller. 1989b. Justice, gender, and the family. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller. 1994. Gender inequality and cultural differences. Political Theory 22(1): 5–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parpart, Jane L., and Marchand, Marianne H. 1995. Exploding the canon: An introduction/conclusion. In Feminism, postmodernism, and devebpment. See Marchand and Parpart 1995.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole 1989. Feminist critiques of the public/private dichotomy. In The disorder of wmn: Democracy, feminism, and political theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole 1994. The rights of man and early feminism. Frauen und Politik, Swiss Yearbook of Political Science: 19–31.Google Scholar
Pathak, Zakia, and Sunder Rajan, Rajeswari. 1992. Shahbano. In Feminists theorize the political, eds. Butler, Judith and Scott, Joan W.New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Peters, Julie, and Wolper, Andrea. 1995. Women's rights, human rights: International feminist perspectives. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Russell, Diana E.H. 1989. Lives of courage: Women for a new South Africa. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya 1990a. Gender and cooperative conflicts. In Persistent inequalities: Women and world development, ed. Tinker, Irene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya 1990b. More than one hundred million women are missing. In New York Review of Books 37(20): 61.Google Scholar
Shaheed, Farida 1994. Controlled or autonomous: Identity and the experience of the network, women living under Muslim laws. Signs 19(4): 997–1019.10.1086/494948CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1980. Inessential woman: Probkms of exclusion in feminist thought. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Toubia, Nahid 1995. Femak genital mutilation: A call for global action. New York: Women, Inc.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. G.A. Res. 217A(III), U.N. Doc. A/810. Adopted December 10, 1948.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1966a. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. G.A. Res. 2200(XX1), 21 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316. Adopted December 16, 1966.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1966b. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. G.A. Res. 2200(XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR, Supp. (No. 16), U.N. Doc. A/6316. Adopted Deceniber 16, 1966.Google Scholar
United Nations. 1979. Convention un the elimination of all fm ofdiscrimination againsr women. G.A. Res. 34/180, U.N. Doc. A/Res/34/180. Adopted December 18, 1979.Google Scholar
Walby, Sylvia 1992. Post‐post‐modernism! Theorizing social complexity. In Destabilizing theory: Conmporary feminist debates, eds. Barrett, Michele and Phillips, Anne. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar