II: WOMEN AND HEALTH

The law is a well-known tool in fighting gender inequality, but which laws actually advance women’s rights? This book unpacks the complex nuances behind gender-responsive domestic legislation, from several of the world’s leading experts on gender equality. Drawing on domestic examples and international law, it provides a primer of theory alongside tangible and practical solutions to fulfil the promise of the law to deliver equality between men and women. Part I outlines what progress has been made to date on eradicating gender inequality, and insights into the law’s potential as one lever in the global struggle for equality. Parts II and III go on to explore concrete areas of law, with case studies from multiple jurisdictions that examine how well domestic legislation is working for women. The authors bring their critical lens to areas of law often considered from a gender perspective – gender-based violence, women’s reproductive health, labour and gender equality quotas – while bringing much-needed analysis to issues often ignored in gender debates, such as taxation, environmental justice and good governance. Part IV seeks to move from a theoretical goal of greater accountability to a practical one. It explores both accountability for international women’s rights norms at the domestic level and the potential of feminist approaches to legislation to deliver laws that work for women. Written for students, academics, legislators and policymakers engaged in international women’s rights law, gender equality, government accountability and feminist legal theory, this book has tremendous transformative potential to drive forward legal change towards the eradication of gender inequality.

This unique book analyses the impact of international human rights on the concept of gender, demonstrating that gender emerged in the medical study of sexuality and has a complex and broad meaning beyond the sex and gender binaries often assumed by human rights law. The book illustrates which dynamics within the field of human rights hinder the expansion of the concept of gender beyond binaries and which strategies and mechanisms allow and facilitate such an expansion.

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.

Gender equality is a moral and a business imperative. But unconscious bias holds us back and de-biasing minds has proven to be difficult and expensive. Behavioral design offers a new solution. Iris Bohnet shows that by de-biasing organizations instead of individuals, we can make smart changes that have big impacts—often at low cost and high speed.

This volume counters one-sided dominant discursive representations of gender in human rights and transitional justice, and women’s place in the transformations of neoliberal human rights, and contributes a more balanced examination of how transitional justice and human rights institutions, and political institutions impact the lives and experiences of women. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the contributors to this volume theorize and historicize the place of women’s rights (and gender), situating it within contemporary country-specific political, legal, socio-cultural and global contexts. Chapters examine the progress and challenges facing women (and women’s groups) in transitioning countries: from Peru to Argentina, from Kenya to Sierra Leone, and from Bosnia to Sri Lanka, in a variety of contexts, attending especially to the relationships between local and global forces

This book looks how trade unions and other membership based workers' organizations worldwide may support gender equality. Traditionally, collective agreements cover only male dominated industries and the public sector and sub-contracted workers are usually not included. However, collective bargaining agendas more often address issues such as workplace discrimination, equal pay for equal work and female leadership. The book considers new ways of organizing workers in informal employment and the support by trade unions in networks developed with ngo's. Concluded is that a broader perspective focusing on citizen's and labour rights is crucial for amplying the the effect of collective bargaining on gender equality in the future.