Book Description
More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? If women were regarded as human, would they be sold into sexual slavery worldwide; veiled, silenced, and imprisoned in homes; bred, and worked as menials for little or no pay; stoned for sex outside marriage or burned within it; mutilated genitally, impoverished economically, and mired in illiteracy--all as a matter of course and without effective recourse?
The cutting edge is where law and culture hurts, which is where MacKinnon operates in these essays on the transnational status and treatment of women. Taking her gendered critique of the state to the international plane, ranging widely intellectually and concretely, she exposes the consequences and significance of the systematic maltreatment of women and its systemic condonation. And she points toward fresh ways--social, legal, and political--of targeting its toxic orthodoxies.
MacKinnon takes us inside the workings of nation-states, where the oppression of women defines community life and distributes power in society and government. She takes us to Bosnia-Herzogovina for a harrowing look at how the wholesale rape and murder of women and girls there was an act of genocide, not a side effect of war. She takes us into the heart of the international law of conflict to ask--and reveal--why the international community can rally against terrorists' violence, but not against violence against women. A critique of the transnational status quo that also envisions the transforming possibilities of human rights, this bracing book makes us look as never before at an ongoing war too long undeclared.
Customer Reviews:
Freedom TO or freedom FROM?.......2007-09-29
Catherine MacKinnon is back, and she's still fighting the good fight. Like her deceased colleague Andrea Dworkin, a much more obstreperous feminist, MacKinnon came out of the Sixties with a grounding in Marxism, all the better to give her feminist militancy a historical perspective. Here she gives Aristotle's conception of equality ("if men don't need it, women don't get it") the boot. Postmodernist cuties receive their caustic due, too (and it's refreshing to see someone finally point out that the poststructuralist stance is actually cribbed from M+E). 'Free speech' liberals, multicultural apologists and essentialist feminists also get a taste of the lash. So-called Human Rights charters, treaties, declarations and proponents are treated to a megablast of deconstruction. But, in the main, MacKinnon is after the REAL criminals, and, as always, her argument is acute and tenacious.
As she sees it, pornography and prostitution are the same (rendering conflicting US laws, however ineffectual, against only one ridiculous) and are sustained upon gender inequality - in turn perpetuated by economic oppression. It is here MacKinnon's push for CIVIL instead of (old-same-old) CRIMINAL action provides women a fighting chance to hit their oppressors back. "Sexualization of inequality" is MacKinnon's primary target, reaching all the way to the horror of Serbian rape atrocities, where "pornography emerges as a tool of genocide." (We must wonder what free rein US troops 'enjoy' in Iraq.) From there, MacKinnon notes, in the wake of 9/11, how almighty forces of 'justice' can be unleashed upon evildoers who attack civilians (buildings, really) but not unleashed to protect women, thousands of whom die every year - year after year - at the hands of their so-called 'natural' protectors, men.
And yes, MacKinnon still quotes Dworkin.
SUPERB!.......2007-07-22
MacKinnon is a force of nature, ruthlessly brilliant and uncompromising. Are Women Human? shimmers in its breadth and force.
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The Gender of Constitutional Jurisprudence
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521823366 |
Book Description
Describing the constitutional rights of women in twelve countries, the contributors to this collection draw on a wide range of legal cases covering issues such as abortion, sexual harassment, employment discrimination, sexual abuse, pornography, family relationships, access to health and social assistance benefits, and electoral rights, among others. Their analysis reveals how essentially male judges decide cases that are mainly about women's equality claims. The volume's comparative perspective provides readers with the basis for independent pursuits of constitutional equality for women.
Book Description
Human rights law and the legal protection of women from violence are still fairly new concepts. As a result, substantial discrepancies exist between what is decided in the halls of the United Nations and what women experience on a daily basis in their communities. Human Rights and Gender Violence is an ambitious study that investigates the tensions between global law and local justice.
As an observer of UN diplomatic negotiations as well as the workings of grassroots feminist organizations in several countries, Sally Engle Merry offers an insider's perspective on how human rights law holds authorities accountable for the protection of citizens even while reinforcing and expanding state power. Providing legal and anthropological perspectives, Merry contends that human rights law must be framed in local terms to be accepted and effective in altering existing social hierarchies. Gender violence in particular, she argues, is rooted in deep cultural and religious beliefs, so change is often vehemently resisted by the communities perpetrating the acts of aggression.
A much-needed exploration of how local cultures appropriate and enact international human rights law, this book will be of enormous value to students of gender studies and anthropology alike.
Book Description
Can the state respect cultural differences while protecting the rights of vulnerable group members, in particular women? Shachar argues that it is both theoretically needed and institutionally feasible. Rejecting prevalent solutions to this "paradox of multicultural vulnerability", Multicultural Jurisdictions argues for enhancing minorities' autonomy, while providing viable legal-institutional solutions to intra-group rights violation. This new "joint governance" approach reduces the injustice between minority groups and society, while enhancing justice within them. This book will interest students of political and social theory, law, religion, institutional design, and cultural and gender studies.
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Is it possible for the state simultaneously to respect deep cultural differences and to protect the hard-won citizenship rights of vulnerable group members, particularly women? This book argues that it is not only theoretically needed, but also institutionally feasible. Rejecting prevalent normative and legal solutions to this 'paradox of multicultural vulnerability', Multicultural Jurisdictions develops a powerful argument for enhancement of the jurisdictional autonomy of religious and cultural minorities while at the same time providing viable legal-institutional solutions to the problem of sanctioned intra-group rights violation. This new 'joint governance' approach is guided by an innovative principle that strives for the reduction of injustice between minority groups and the wider society, together with the enhancement of justice within them. This book will interest students of political and social theory, law, religion, institutional design, as well as cultural and gender studies.
Book Description
While the United States was founded on abstract principles of certain "unalienable rights," its legal traditions are based in British common law, a fact long decried by progressive reformers. Common law, the complaint goes, ignores abstract rights principles in favor of tradition, effectively denying equality to large segments of the population.
The nineteenth-century women's rights movement embraced this argument, claiming that common law rules of property and married women's status were at odds with the nation's commitment to equality. Conventional wisdom suggests that this tactic helped pave the way for voting rights and better jobs. In Constitutional Context, Kathleen S. Sullivan presents a fresh perspective.
In revisiting the era's congressional debates, state legislation, judicial opinions, news accounts, and work of political activists, Sullivan finds that the argument for universal, abstract rights was not the only, or best, path available for social change. Rather than erecting a new paradigm of absolute rights, she argues, women's rights activists unwittingly undermined common law's ability to redress grievances, contributing heavily to the social, cultural, and political stagnation that characterizes the place of women and the movement today.
A challenging and thoughtful study of what is commonly thought of as an era of progress, Constitutional Context provides the groundwork for a more comprehensive understanding and interpretation of constitutional law.
Amazon.com
Central to David Richards's elegant and provocative Identity and the Case for Gay Rights is the injustice of what he calls "moral slavery." This concept describes the cultural construction of stereotypes that dehumanize the affected group and are rationalized in the context of historical structural injustices. The burdens moral slavery places on individual's identity formation are similar to those associated with discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and religion, and are similarly unconstitutional and inhumane. Richards finds the analogy to religious toleration most apt and useful as a model for those struggling for recognition of gay rights. One of the strongest points here is that such an approach neatly sidesteps the biological reductionism that shadows women's rights and race-based rights, and that could attach to gay rights if the "gay gene" theory becomes the dominant theme in mobilization around the issue. By aligning gay rights most closely with religious liberty and other First Amendment values such as free speech and association, Richards is able to preserve both the ideas of identity and choice: like spirituality, sexual orientation is part of who you are and a matter of individual conscience.
This is a beautifully written and powerfully argued piece of scholarship from a highly regarded and prolific constitutional philosopher. Though a slim volume, the book contains historical analysis of case studies that is sophisticated and challenging, as well as a prescription for a model that finds "homosexual" to be a suspect classification. It's intelligent reading not only for those interested in gay rights but also those who follow the civil rights fortunes of African Americans, women, and religious minorities. --Julia Riches
Book Description
How should we chart a course toward legal recognition of gay rights as basic human rights? In this enlightening study, legal scholar David Richards explores the connections between gay rights and three successful civil rights movements—black civil rights, feminism, and religious toleration—to determine how these might serve as analogies for the gay rights movement.
Richards argues that racial and gender struggles are informative but partial models. As in these movements, achieving gay rights requires eliminating unjust stereotypes and allowing one's identity to develop free from intolerant views. Richards stresses, however, that gay identity is an ethical choice based on gender equality. Thus the right to religious freedom offers the most compelling analogy for a gay rights movement because gay identity should be protected legally as an ethical decision of conscience.
A thoughtful and highly original voice in the struggle for gay rights, David Richards is the first to argue that discrimination is like religious intolerance-denial of full humanity to individuals because of their identity and moral commitments to gender equality.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant Case for Gay Rights.......2000-08-10
Richards has advanced the constitutional argumentation for gay rights in a profound way. He has analogized the case for gay rights to arguments for racial, gender, and religious equality and concluded that attempts to find a genetic or "innate" basis for homosexuality are no more likely to provide grounds for equality than to provide grounds for continued inequality and discrimination.
Instead, Richards argues that the manner in which gay men and lesbians deal with life, love, birth, and death is ultimately a profound conscious and CONSCIENTIOUS choice that warrants the same type of respect accorded freely chosen religious beliefs.
Thus, the denial of equal rights to gay men and lesbians imposes an impermissible "moral slavery" that advances a sectarian view (of the immorality of homosexuality) while dehumanizing homosexuals and relegating their conscience, feelings, and choices to a sphere of "unspeakability." This goes against the very nature of freedom of religious belief. He finds such "moral slavery" against gay men and lesbians unsupportable, in part, because it relies on inaccurate and negative stereotypes, and it applies a double standard to same-sex relations that it does not similarly apply to heterosexual relations (e.g., no compulsory procreation for heterosexual marriage).
On the whole, an excellent piece of scholarly research that every lawmaker, jurist, and attorney should read to respond to the call of gay equality.
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Land, Law and Islam: Property and Human Rights in the Muslim World
Siraj Sait , and
Hilary Lim
Manufacturer: Zed Books
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ASIN: 1842778137
Release Date: 2006-12-26 |
Book Description
In this pioneering work, Siraj Sait and Hilary Lim address Islamic property and land rights drawing on a range of socio-historical, classical and contemporary debates and their practice. They address the significance of Islamic theories of property and Islamic land tenure regimes on the "webs of tenure" prevalent in the Muslim societies. They consider the possibilities with Islamic legal and human rights systems for the development of inclusive, pro-poor and innovative approaches to land rights. They also focus on Muslim women's rights to property and inheritance systems. Engaging with institutions such as the Islamic endowment (waqf) and principles of Islamic microfinance, they test the workability of "authentic" Islamic proposals. Located in human rights as well as Islamic debates, this study offers a well researched and constructive appraisal of property and land rights in the Muslim world.
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What Happened to the Women: Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations
Ruth Rubio-Marin
Manufacturer: Social Science Research Council
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ASIN: 0979077206 |
Book Description
The first volume of the International Center for Transitional Justice's new Advancing Transitional Justice Series.
Published with the support of the International Development Research Centre.
What happens to women whose lives are transformed by human rights violations? What happens to the voices of victimized women once they have their day in court or in front of a truth commission? Women face a double marginalization under authoritarian regimes and during and after violent conflicts. Nonetheless, reparations programs are rarely designed to address the needs of women victims. What Happened to the Women? Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations, argues for the introduction of a gender dimension into reparations programs. The volume explores gender and reparations policies in Guatemala, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste.
Customer Reviews:
A great resource!.......2007-07-07
This is a great resource on the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). It focuses on what exactly the amendment was and what it was expected to accomplish. The author also focuses on the amendment process and why it failed in the United States. A great read, and a must read!
Fight Ignorance With The Truth!.......1999-08-08
This book is comprised of a number of short, thought-provoking radio reviews. Also looks at how women will never have equality and freedom as long as they cling to repressive religious ideas.
Book Description
Some say the fetus is the "tiniest citizen." If so, then the bodies of women themselves have become political arenas--or, recent cases suggest, battlefields; A cocaine--addicted mother is convicted of drug trafficking through the umbilical cord. Women employees at a battery plant must prove infertility to keep their jobs. A terminally ill woman is forced to undergo a cesarean section. No longer concerned with conception or motherhood, the new politics of fetal rights focuses on fertility and pregnancy itself, on a woman's relationship with the fetus. How exactly, Cynthia Daniels asks, does this affect a woman's rights? Are they different from a man's? And how has the state helped determine the difference? The answers, rigorously pursued throughout this book, give us a clear look into the state's paradoxical role in gender politics--as both a challenger of injustice and an agent of social control.
In benchmark legal cases concerned with forced medical treatment, fetal protectionism in the workplace, and drug and alcohol use and abuse, Daniels shows us state power at work in the struggle between fetal rights and women's rights. These cases raise critical questions about the impact of gender on women's standing as citizens, and about the relationship between state power and gender inequality. Fully appreciating the difficulties of each case, the author probes the subtleties of various positions and their implications for a deeper understanding of how a woman's reproductive capability affects her relationship to state power. In her analysis, the need to defend women's right to self--sovereignty becomes clear, but so does the need to define further the very concepts of self-sovereignty and privacy.
The intensity of the debate over fetal rights suggests the depth of the current gender crisis and the force of the feelings of social dislocation generated by reproductive politics. Breaking through the public mythology that clouds these debates, At Women's Expense makes a hopeful beginning toward liberating woman's body within the body politic.
Customer Reviews:
don't bother with this book.......2005-11-11
I also had to read this book for a college feminist course and it is completely outdated. This is the kind of material that makes some people resent feminism. It does not represent any rational school of feminism. Daniels argues for drug abuse and alcoholism among pregnant women. She also seems to think that companies which prohibit pragnant women from handling hazardious materials, like lead, have a secret agenda to keep women from working. In one chapter she sticks up for a woman who refused to have a ceserian because the baby would have complicated her life had it lived. Additionally, the medical information she uses to argue her points and the studies she cites in her favor date back anywhere from 12 to 30 years. I can't believe this book was ever published and I really can't believe it is still being taught.
Just Feminist Psychobabble.......2001-05-13
Throughout the entire book, Daniels continously and erroneously asserts that women are somehow subjugated by having certain policies that protect their fetus. Well, boo hoo. A woman should not have the right to drink alcohol if she is pregnant. I think she can go for a few months without intoxicating herself and her developing life. I found it very irritating and quite frustrating. It was assigned in a feminist college course.
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- Black's Law Dictionary (Pocket), 3rd Edition
- Bridging Cultural Conflicts: A New Approach for a Changing World
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- Calamari and Perillo on Contracts (Hornbook Series Student Edition)
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