fGabrielle has 10 post(s)

In “The Sexual Contract”, Carole Pateman discusses how women are excluded from the social contract. Pateman is not referring to contract law nor does she refer to property in the literal sense. Rather she refers to the social contract in which authority is granted to state and civil law and property in the sense of personhood. Meaning, the system in which we surrender some natural rights in order to live and participate in a civil society and to have our political rights protected. From the social contract, we have social relationships, including the relationship between husband and wife (the marriage contract) and employer and employee (the employment contract). We are taught that these freedoms and protections are universal in a civil society, however due to society’s patriarchal structure, women are excluded.

When Pateman refers to patriarchy, she is not referring to the literal definition of paternal rule. Rather, she refers to society where women are subordinate to men not as fathers and husbands but simply due to the fact that men are men. In the patriarchal society, men have the freedom to move between the private and public sphere freely, to fully engage in the social contract, the marriage contract, the employment contract, the prostitution contract. Women are not. They are largely relegated to the private sphere, which is viewed as apolitical. As a result, their rights, particularly in such contracts as the marriage contract, are almost nonexistent. This results in further subjugation and a furthering of a patriarchal society.

While the public sphere is the only sphere as existing in a political sense, the sphere which benefits from the civil law, freedom, and equality brought about through the social contract, the public sphere and the private sphere cannot exist without one another. Just as ‘natural’ and ‘civil’ depend on one another for their existence, yet remain in opposition to one another, so do the private and public sphere. Because women exist in the private sphere rather than the public sphere, they are excluded from the social contract. However, they are not (and cannot) be excluded from the sexual contract. They are not equals in the sexual contract though. Their exclusion from the social contract results in a subordinate position within the sexual contract. To maintain this separation and subjugation, the public/civil sphere is viewed through a masculine lens, while the private/natural sphere is viewed through a feminine lens. Again, this furthers patriarchal rule and leaves women existing in a space that both is and is not political, enforcing subjugation and oppression.

Reading Lila Abu-Lughod’s essay, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others”, I was immediately reminded of both Grewel and Brown’s work that we’ve previously studied in class. Grewel because she speaks to feminists of the developed world looking at those in developing countries in need of saving (effectively pushing the notion of victimhood on the women) and Brown as she outlines how humanitarian issues can be used to further imperialist (and capitalist) agendas.

Abu-Lughod notes that by focusing on cultural differences, particularly as it relates to women (like the veil), allows us to avoid discussions on the political and historical reasons that may have led to extremism and terrorism. It also works to further a concept of ‘otherness’, rather than allowing us to find a common thread that unites us as human beings.

Abu-Lughod focuses on a speech made by Laura Bush while she was first lady, and while the Bush administration was invading Afghanistan in response to the September 11^th attacks. Bush’s speech worked to further the cultural divide mentioned above, focusing on nail polish and clothing (although to be fair, also employment and education) rather than extreme poverty and malnutrition. Abu-Lughod notes that Bush’s speech was reminiscent of colonial excuses for imposing rule, with colonial powers using cultural differences that were deemed barbaric (and in some cases may well have been…however the solution was not rule by a foreign power) as excuse for rule, to save the women from the men in the countries being colonized. Specifically referring to the calls to liberate Egyptian women from the veil, Abu-Lughod noted that the calls for liberating women had nothing to do with their political access, only their clothing (never mind that women’s access in the UK was also limited). It is important to note that Bush also conflated the ‘war on terrorism’ as a fight for human rights, women’s rights in particular. Abu-Lughod refers to the above as ‘colonial feminism’.

Also noteworthy is that while the veil is a symbol of repression in western states, that is not necessarily the case. As Abu-Lughod notes, members of a community dress in a way to adhere to the standards and morals within that community, using Hasid woman and even proper wedding attire as examples. Furthermore, veiling should not be confused with a lack of agency. We must not equate the wearing of a veil as suppression as many women freely chose to wear a form of the veil in an effort to honor their religion and their community morals. The definition of freedom should include the option of wearing a veil without being looked at as oppressed (one of the many reasons that France’s ban of the veil is problematic). We must not also reduce Muslim women, or any women for that matter, to their clothing.

Abu-Lughod is careful to say that the above does not mean she supports oppressive regimes like the Taliban. However, she is stressing that we cannot confuse true feminist human rights work with the ‘colonial feminism’ of administrations the George W Bush’s.

In “Rights Talk and the Experience of Law: Implementing Women’s Human Rights to Protection from Violence”, Sally Engle Merry examines how one begins to see their problems within the framework of human rights. Focusing on gender-based violence in romantic and familial relationships, Merry and her assistants interview a number of women and men on their experiences with law enforcement, the judicial system, and advocacy groups to illustrate how these interactions bring awareness, or does not, to their consciousness of human rights and their understanding of how rights are applicable to the violence they have experienced (or perpetrated).

The interviews take place in Hilo Hawai’i in the early 1990s, across a broad range of ethnicities but mostly within a lower rung of economic class. They find that the interactions with law enforcement and the judicial system greatly affect the victims’ ability to look at their selves and their situations through the lens of human rights. For example, in many cases, the police officers responding to domestic violence cases were either chummy with the attacker or dismissed the women’s complaints. The result was the woman believing that they were not entitled to protection. On the other hand, many of the judges in the examples given were supportive of the women, resulting in the women developing a sense of self which acknowledged that they were due protection under the umbrella of human rights.

While the above may seem like common sense – it seems evident to me that one’s interactions with law enforcement and the judicial system will affect how one views themselves in relation to the law and rights – Merry’s research and essay is quite interesting, as it is yet another example of the public versus private sphere and how the division affects the rights of women. Merry speaks to the women developing a new sense of self, one that is not necessarily defined by their relationships with their partners or families, rather one that is defined as a subject of the state, one that is owed protection. This transition moves the conversation around gender-based violence in the home from the private domain into the public domain, allowing not only visibility but protection.

Merry does touch on the economics of both the victims and the attackers throughout her paper and spends a small paragraph on how those with the resources have different experiences. It would be interesting to investigate this further. On the one hand, one may think that having additional resources would allow victims easier access to lawyers and assistance. On the other, Merry makes a point of recognizing that many of these cases remain private due to the financial resources on both sides. Given that the consciousness of rights is tied to the private/public sphere division, it would be rather interesting to further investigate the impact of keeping these cases private has on the women’s ability to view their situation through the lens of human rights.

United Nations Resolution 1325, as described in the essay “Nongovernmental Organizations’ Role in the Buildup and Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325” written by Hill, Aboitiz, and Poehlman-Doumbouya, builds on language and resolutions already established by the United Nations, with the goal of protecting women and girls during times of conflict and including women in conflict resolution and peace keeping missions.  The resolution identifies that civilians, women and children in particular, are those that are most likely to be affected during times of conflict and stresses the need for protection of women and children under human rights law. It also notes the importance of the role women should play in conflict revolution and maintaining peace and the need for implementing gender and culture sensitivity training for peacekeeping missions.

Specifically, the resolution calls for equal representation of women in the decision-making process and accordingly, a plan to implement a strategy to do so. It calls for training guidelines on the protection and inclusion of women, increased funding for training, adherence to accords such as the Geneva Convention in regards to protecting women and children, consideration of women and children in future measures and resolutions, and studies on the impact of conflict on women and children. While the above certainly sounds well-meaning and useful, we must consider how the resolution moves from words on paper to action in real life.

Reading Hill et al.’s essay, it is difficult to ascertain whether the resolution has been successful in protecting women’s rights and safety. The authors speak to actions taken by nongovernmental organization’s (NGOs) roles in crafting the measure and later, working towards implementing the resolution. There were hearings, annotated essays and books recorded, testimonies, forums, dispersions of copies of the resolutions, panels, and working lunches. Again, this looks good on paper and allows academics to flex their intellectual muscles, but how do we determine the real-life consequences of the resolution?

One result is the inclusion of women’s voices and this certainly should not be underestimated. The essay does note the inclusion of gender provisions in reports on UN peacekeeping missions in a number of localities, including Afghanistan, East Timor, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It also mentions that the resolution has resulted in the inclusion of women in the reconstruction talks of both Afghanistan and the DRC. But missing from the essay is the result of these inclusions. Was input from and regarding women considered and put into action? What affect did the gender provisions have on the reports of peacekeeping missions?

Most likely, as is often the case with human rights, progress on this issue is slow moving and it will be a while until we see complete inclusion and consideration of women across all areas of conflict resolution, peace keeping, and rights protection. That being said, starting the conversation and officially resolving to include and protect women is an important first step.

In her essay “Globalisation and US prison growth: from military Keynesianism to post-Keynesian militarism”, Ruth Gilmore tackles the complexities of the united states prison system. Specifically, Gilmore addresses why the prison population continues to increase even as crime decreases. She proposes that it is a purposeful, and radical, restructuring of society. When I originally read ‘radical restructuring’, my eye read it as ‘racial restructuring’, which is not far from the truth. For as Gilmore points outs, seventy per cent of those arrested are white, yet seventy per cent of those incarcerated are persons of color (174).  To understand why this is happening, Gilmore turns to economic theory, focusing on the concept of ‘surplus’ and ‘crises’, in California.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, Gilmore carefully explains how a surplus leads to a crisis. In this particular case, a surplus of labor, in the form of those willing to work but unable to find jobs, and land, in the form of unused agricultural land, lead to an economic crisis. This crisis, coupled with the social crises caused by inequality, lead to a government response that was a highly inhumane political, rather than economic response – higher incarceration rates. But how to justify the high incarceration rates? To find the answer to the question posed, Gilmore brings us back to 1968.

1968 was a tumultuous year and may be considered the apex of the social movements of the 60s. One movement in particular Gilmore points to is the Black Power movement, positioned as an alternative to assimilation given white America’s refusal to substantially address racial discrimination and inequality. Alongside the rise of the Black Power movement, Gilmore also examines the rise of urban riots (whereas prior to the 1960s riots had historically been instigated by either whites or police). The radicalization of black and brown Americans lead to fear amongst white America. The answer to both the radicalization of the marginalized and the crisis caused by the surplus of labor and land, lead to the rapid expansion of the prison system.

As we have seen throughout the semester, capitalism and globalism are often the cause of human rights violations. And if not the cause, then either a propelling force or a way to hide true motivations. Although not mentioned in Gilmore’s essay, it is worth noting that in most states, you lose your right to vote if convicted of a felony (a California bill went into effect this year granting the right to vote to felons once they were no longer serving their prison term). The purposeful incarceration and disenfranchisement of people of color serves many purposes for those in power and as Gilmore states in her conclusion, it is time for us to fight mass incarceration and racism before it is too late.

Silvia Federici, in The Caliban and the Witch, puts forth a compelling argument in which capitalism depends on and enforces sexism. Imposing the separation of the public and private sphere, starting with common land being privatized and resulting with women losing control over their bodies and being legally infantilized, capitalism requires the subjugation of women to succeed. We will first look at the loss of the commons and the resulting loss of economy and agency for women.

Federici argues that women were more dependent on the commons than men were, not only for economy but also their social life. Prior to land being privatized, women worked alongside men tending to land and were able to sustain themselves through their labor. Additionally, the commons were used for women to socialize in a safe space with one another. Once land was privatized, women were relegated to the home, isolated from one another, and had no access to wages. This resulted in chronic poverty and dependence on men for their economic well-being. This is not to say that the privatization of the commons and move to wage earning was without hardship for men. The value of labor was so little it led to devastating poverty, which in turn led to a reduction in population as families that could not feed themselves were no longer having children. To counter the fall in population, women’s bodies were soon regulated, transferring control of women’s bodies from the women themselves to the state and men in general.

The state countered the stress on population size by emphasizing the importance of marriage, family, and reproduction. As a result, women’s bodies were highly regulated. Abortion and birth control were outlawed and demonized and the priority of the fetus took precedence over the life of the mother. In some countries, providing housing for unwed mothers was illegal.   Mid-wives, neighbors, and family members were reduced to spies, reporting ‘suspicious’ activity to the government: women entertaining men in the home, walking about by themselves, suspected sexual activity without the goal or procreating. Women were required to register their pregnancies and faced death should an unregistered pregnancy result in death for the infant prior to being baptized. Women were reduced to their role in procreating and lost all sense of agency.

Centuries later, we still find ourselves fighting for the same rights. The advent of capitalism devalued women’s labor, particularly labor performed in the home, and criminalized women’s bodies. Understanding Federici’s argument that capitalism requires on the subjugation of women, we cannot help but wonder if we will ever have fully equal rights under a capitalist system.

In their essay, “Are women human? It’s not an academic question”, Peterson and Parisi examine how human rights protect, or rather fail to protect, women by looking at human rights through the lens of heterosexism rather than androcentrism. Before we can examine their argument, it is beneficial to define both androcentrism and heterosexism. Androcentrism quite simply refers to rights as being centered on men and masculine characterisitics. Hetersexism, meanwhile, refers to normalizing the notion that heterosexuality is the only acceptable form of relationships and basis for families. Now that we understand the terms, we can take a closer look at the authors’ argument.

Peterson and Parisi contend that human rights should be examined through the lens of heterosexism not only because heterosexism institutionalizes ideas of masculinity and femininity based on the socially constructed idea of gender, but it also renounces all but heterosexual couplings as the acceptable base for families and groups. The latter normalizes discrimination against non-heterosexual sexual identities and the former any gender outside of the two acceptable masculine and feminine gender identities. In addition to discrimination, analyzing human rights through heterosexism helps to explain how human rights fails to protect women while also hindering women from identifying with one another across groups based on culture, ethnicity, race, and class. Peterson and Parisi identify a number of ways in which this is done through the three generations of human rights, but we will examine the two overarching themes: the sepeartion of the public and private sphere and the role of group identity.

Peterson and Parisi assert that the socially constructed notion of binary gender identities is tied to heterosexualism which is in turn linked to the notion of the sovereign state and is then connected to human rights. At the same time, heterosexism enforces the separation of the public and private sphere. While the state is tasked with protecting against human rights violations, it focused almost solely on the public sphere. By keeping the public and private separated, the state fails to protect women where she is most vulnerable to violence and rights violations – in the private sphere. While there is minimal protection in the private sphere, there is plenty of regulation.

Heterosexism is connected to group reproduction, continuing the group, whether based on race, religion, ethnicity and so on. This subverts the personhood of women for two reasons – placing the identity of the group over the identity of the woman as an individual and by placing political control over women’s bodies. The former not only fails to recognize a woman as an individual but it also places the identity of the group in a higher place of importance than the identity as a women, which in turn hinders women identifying with women outside of their group. This then works to normalize inequality both within the groups (by gender) but also amongst the groups (by race, religion, etc). The latter removes agency away from women by taking away their ability to make their own decisions as it relates to their body and moving that decision making to either the state or their male partners.

Although written twenty years ago and while there have many gains in rights for the LGBTQ community, Peterson and Parisi make an incredibly compelling argument. The concepts they discuss surrounding gender identity, heterosexism, and group identity are so institutionalized it takes a dense twenty pages to just scratch the surface. We must understand how these ingrained cultural norms affect not only rights but our inability to organize across racial, ethnic, religious, and class lines.

The common refrain in regards to human rights today is the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Man and Citizen began to establish rights as we know them today. Continuing chronologically, World War II and the Holocaust lead not only to the creation of the United Nations but also the eventual Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Which in turn lead to the promotion and politics of human rights as we know them today.

In The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, Moyn argues that the current politics is much newer than the UN Declaration and further, the declaration’s true intent was not the promotion of human rights but rather a power play by Allied forces. Additionally, rights today differ drastically from the rights that came out of the American and French revolutions. I had read Moyn’s book a few years ago and at the time I did not find his argument convincing. I found them compelling and intellectually interesting, but not convincing.

Rereading chapter one and a bit of chapter two for this assignment, I still do not find his argument entirely convincing but some rings more true than it did with the first reading. Before Moyn can dive into the meat of his argument as outlined above, he must set the stage by making a distinction between the rights of man, as understood from the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Man and Citizen, and human rights as they are recognized today. He meanders through the concept of universalism and social and economic rights versus civil rights, but the true distinction is one of rights from within versus rights from outside.

Moyn convincingly makes an argument that the rights of man are tied to the formation of society whereas human rights are tied to the individual regardless of the sovereign state (12). Rights of man dealt with the establishing of rights for members of a new government, they looked internally. Human rights as they are known today, are based on a collective membership beyond the sovereign state. Human rights are tied to the individual and extend past the authority of the sovereign state.

Of all of his arguments, I found this to hold the most sway with me. To my knowledge, prior to WWII, the holocaust, and the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, there were no protections available to individuals outside of the sovereign states where they resided if and when their rights were violated. And while the protection available today is still limited and wildly dependent on politics and economics, we now have international laws and courts and tribunals to address human rights violations. I would not argue that either have been terribly successful just yet, but it is a start.

Wendy Brown directs her essay, “’The Most We Can Hope For…’: Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism” as a response to a series of lectures given by Michael Ignatieff.  Along the way, Brown identifies ways in which human rights activism is more than the antipolitical movement attempting to defend the innocent against abusive states and actors it claims to be.  Firstly, by challenging the assertion that human rights activism is antipolitical, Brown then identifies the unintended consequences of human rights activism and lastly claims it to be used as a tool to further imperialist international policy and of the global capitalist economy. Let us first look at the claim that human rights activism is antipolitical.

While human rights activism attempts to cast itself as morally antipolitical, Brown argues the mere fact that human rights exists within a political framework and their actions result in political consequences beyond their intended scope makes them political. Brown continues, identifying ways in which human rights activism can result in unintended ramifications (as the saying goes, the best of intentions…). Most glaringly, because human rights activism focuses on individual rights and justice, it has the tendency, purposeful or not, to supersede all other collective justice projects (p454-455). While some of the political consequences of human rights activism may not be intended, the use of human rights language to further global free trade and imperialist policy does seem to be purposeful.

Brown clearly identifies that Ignatieff’s focus on individual rights over collective rights creates an environment ripe for global free-trade capitalism, with the assumption that social and economic rights will follow. While the focus on individual rights may lead to an environment in which capitalism can thrive, Brown rightfully points out that history shows economic and social rights to not generally follow, at least not without organized activism (p. 457-458). Moving from global capitalism to imperialism, Brown identifies how the umbrella of human rights was used to invade Iraq and to justify the war on terror. Both not only resulted in gross human rights violations abroad, but also a limit on political and civil rights at home (p. 460).

While not an easy read for someone like myself with an optimistic bent, I cannot help but to agree with Brown. The examples she provides, the invasion of Iraq and the war on terrorism, illustrate how the pursuit of human rights can easily be distorted by imperialist and capitalist powers. Further, if we are to look at how the United Nations operates, focusing on human rights abuses by developing countries and ignoring the abuses (or not being allowed to investigate and publish the abuses) of the superpower and permanent security council member states, we are provided with yet another example. This isn’t to say that human rights activism should be dismissed outright. As Brown states in the closing of her essay, we need to find a way to address both collective and individual injustices, in addition to the imbalance of power, outside the current political framework of human rights activism.

1. Introduction

Hi All. My name is Gabrielle and as I mentioned in class I have been a student at CWE since the fall of 2013. My career as the VP of eCommerce at a fashion accessories company keeps me fairly busy, so I am slowly chipping away, taking one or two classes every semester. I am happy to say the end is finally in sight! I expect to graduate either end of Fall ’17 or Spring ’18. My concentration is The Americas and within the context of the Americas I have been working towards focusing on human rights. Some past courses include the Human Rights Forum, History of Human Rights, and International Conflict. I am also hoping to focus in some way on human rights once I move on to graduate school. All of which is why I chose this class. And of course, it now seems to be more timely as ever. I am looking forward to learning alongside all of you.

2. The Evolving Notion of Rights and The Role of Education and The Arts

According to Hunt, two key documents laid the foundation for the Universal Declaration for Human Rights: The Declaration of Independence and The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. While both both can be used in context to the conversation around human rights today, I will be focusing on the Declaration of Independence for the following two reasons. Firstly, Hunt’s overall thesis which states that education and the arts fostered an environment of empathy which in turn helped to lead to the invention of human rights (p. 32), lastly, the idea of who should be included under the umbrella of self-evident rights is ever evolving and eventually shifted from particularistic to universal (p. 117).

Hunt’s thesis that education and the arts fostered an environment which lead to the Declaration of Independence including the notion of rights is particularly interesting given that we are currently in an environment in which both education and the arts are under attack. Those that are educated are considered ‘elitist’, the proposed Education Secretary possess a palatable disdain for public education, and the current proposed federal budget cuts funding for the arts and humanities completely. Given Hunt’s argument that education and the arts leads to an environment in which empathy is fostered and rights are recognized, one must wonder if the attacks on education and the arts we see today is a purposeful attempt to divide the populace in such a way that the concept of rights for all is no longer supported. In an effort to balance the somewhat fatalistic with the hopeful, I turn to the second reason for focusing on the Declaration of Independence, the evolving concept of rights as universal.

When the Declaration of Independence was written, the concept of rights was far from universal. At the time, rights applied to white, property owning men. Eventually, propertyless white men, black men, and women were included. In our own lifetime we have seen rights advance even further to include the gay and lesbian community and conversations around the rights of the transgender community. This must continue to give us hope. While again, movement is slow and may appear to currently be moving backwards, it is important for us to remember how far we have progressed and continue to push society forward. Rights are rarely, if ever, given, they are fought for. Today, we need to fight not only for the further advancement of human rights but to also keep the rights which those who came before us fought so hard for.