Women's Rights as Human Rights : Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights
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Abstract
Since 1948 the world community has continuously debated varying interpretations of human rights in response to global developments. Little of this discussion however has addressed questions of gender and only recently have significant challenges been made to a vision of human rights which excludes much of womens experiences. The concept of human rights like all vibrant visions is not static or the property of any one group; rather its meaning expands as people reconceive of their needs and hopes in relation to it. In this spirit feminists redefine human rights abuses to include the degradation and violation of women. The specific experiences of women must be added to traditional approaches to human rights in order to make women more visible and to transform the concept and practice of human rights in our culture so that it takes better account of womens lives. In the next part of this article I will explore both the importance and the difficulty of connecting womens rights to human rights and then I will outline four basic approaches that have been used in the effort to make this connection. (excerpt)