Topic > The responsibility of legal structures in the enforcement of women's rights

Since 1948, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was ratified, individuals have complained about the exclusion of certain types of people from the idea of ​​rights universal humans. While the United Nations preaches that the treaties and declarations it creates are in favor of guaranteeing human rights for all, it can be seen that religious groups, indigenous peoples and other minorities are facing disadvantages that the United Nations does not recognize or do not include in their ideas about human rights. . One specific group of people whose rights were oppressed by the first Universal Declaration of Human Rights are women. Treaties have used gender-specific language that sometimes excludes women, and countries have failed to respect women's rights that conflict with public and cultural opinion. The lack of rights for women, however, depends on legal institutions and their inability to guarantee and enforce rights that allow women the same opportunities as men. In order to provide equal opportunities and equal human rights to women, legal institutions must recognize and guarantee the specific rights that women need to be equal to men, review human rights treaties and laws using gender-neutral language gender to include women and pressure countries to change national laws and views on women to ensure women's rights everywhere. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Hilary Charlesworth's criticism of human rights discourse in "Human Rights as Men's Rights" is that human rights inherently favor males. Charlesworth argues that legal institutions guaranteeing human rights lack female representation. An example she uses is that “only one woman has been a judge of the International Court of Justice and no woman has ever been elected to the International Law Commission” (Charlesworth 1995: 105). Due to the lack of representation in these legal institutions, the voice of women in their struggle for human rights is never heard and therefore never established. Furthermore, Charlesworth notes that, through male dominance, human rights for men are considered human rights for all, which further ignores the human rights needs of women (Charlesworth 1995: 105). Through this patriarchal system, women's rights in their private, economic, social and cultural lives are ignored. For example, violence committed against women is not classified as a violation against women, but as a violation of people as a whole, even when the violence committed is specifically targeted at women (Charlesworth 1995: 108). In order to ensure equal rights for women, Charlesworth believes that women must be represented in the legal institution. Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Stefanie A. Lindquist seem to agree with female representation in legal institutions in their article "Critiquing Gender-Neutral Treaty Language", where they state that "interpret(ing), apply(ing) and enforce) the laws” are important to women (Kaufman & Lindquist 1995: 118) and that women's ability to make their voices heard will help ensure women's rights. The ways in which women use their representation in legal institutions they appear to differ however, as Charlesworth believes that gender-neutral language is necessary while Kaufman and Lindquist believe that language that specifically includes women is necessary for change.Charlesworth points out that the use of gender-inclusive language within human treaties would break the bias of human rights for males and create equality (Charlesworth 1995: 110-111). Kaufman and Lindquist oppose the use of gender-inclusive language in legal texts. institutions and would support a revision of the treaties that includes the specific experiences of women in the language of human rights. Kaufman and Lindquist argue that women deserve specific consideration and receive different rights than men because of the different experience they have from men. Charlesworth says similar things in that an “incorporation (of) women's experiences” must be included and that this would “challenge the gender dichotomy”, but states that this would “broaden ideas of rights” (Charlesworth 1995: 111) and would not satisfy the specific needs of women. Kaufman and Lindquist would take an opposite approach and argue that the problem lies in the creation of a broad idea of ​​human rights and that a gender-specific idea of ​​human rights must be included. An example given by the authors is the importance of maternity leave for women in the workplace (Kaufman and Lindquist 1995: 121). Men do not need these same rights in the same workplace and therefore gender-neutral language would not provide specific rights that cater only to women. To ensure these rights, remedial language is needed because remedial language would recognize gender-specific rights. Through these revisions to the language in human rights discourse, women can be on an equal footing with men, in this case in the workforce, as employers will not be able to exploit an inherent disadvantage of women as a way to discriminate against women from the social context. workplace. In addition to maternity rights, Kaufman and Lindquist also explain that women need specific rights regarding child care because the responsibility for child care falls on women. This idea of ​​child care and motherhood seems to be a common feature between the authors and Aida Seif El Dawla in her article “Egyptian Women's Reproductive Rights: Issues for Debate” in which Dawla also describes how reproductive rights are rights that are not delineated in human life. rights discourse and must be recognized and provided to women. The authors differ in how they think the problem should be solved as Dawla believes that these women's rights can be guaranteed through recognition of their lack of rights and fight to change cultural thinking about them while Kaufman and Lindquist seek a change in language. of human rights. In Dawla's case, she uses a case study on "reproductive rights" in Egypt to highlight the lack of rights for women. One criticism Dawla appears to make in changing the language of human rights is that a change in language will have little effect on human rights in some countries. In Egypt, for example, where it is a predominantly Arabic-speaking country, there is no translation of “reproductive rights” and the “concept is not self-explanatory… since it has no meaning in Arabic” (Dawla 2000: 46), so it changes the language of human rights would not actually institute change. If the concept of reproductive rights is not recognized, it would appear that more than just a change in language is needed to ensure these rights for women. Most people in Egypt see women's “reproductive rights” as “alien to Egyptian culture and imposed by “Western agencies”” (Dawla 2000: 50), which highlights how women's rights.