Women Rights
Domestic and child care responsibilities mean women are dramatically excluded from jobs that command high salaries, that mean power and visible decision making in management, the professions and politics. Meanwhile the work that women do in the home is unpaid and invisible contributing to the low status of women.
It is clear then, that within the international dimension, feminist writers attack the purported universality of human rights. The universal pretensions hide the fact that human rights discourse has been traditionally male dominated. It is interesting to note that the cultural relativistic critiques of international human rights instruments also undermine the claim to universality. Many non Western scholars note that the standards in international rights law reflect a specific moral philosophy which is not consistent with many non Western value systems.
However, advocates of cultural relativism have presumed that all members of society will benefit equally from society and generally overlook the issue of gender oppression in human rights discourse. On the other hand, the prevailing tendency in writing on women's international human rights is to strongly oppose cultural relativism. Feminists fear that challenging the cultural unity of women's experience will only prolong the recognition of the need to prioritise the concerns of women at an international level. Most feminists would perceive the arguments of cultural relativism as being in defence of men and not women. For example: The cry against 'interference in culture' is used as a defense of men's rights, not of women's; it is used to avoid creating a 'national shame' over the behaviour of one sex toward the other, at the expense of the second sex.
Domestic and child care responsibilities mean women are dramatically excluded from jobs that command high salaries, that mean power and visible decision making in management, the professions and politics. Meanwhile the work that women do in the home is unpaid and invisible contributing to the low status of women.
It is clear then, that within the international dimension, feminist writers attack the purported universality of human rights. The universal pretensions hide the fact that human rights discourse has been traditionally male dominated. It is interesting to note that the cultural relativistic critiques of international human rights instruments also undermine the claim to universality. Many non Western scholars note that the standards in international rights law reflect a specific moral philosophy which is not consistent with many non Western value systems.
However, advocates of cultural relativism have presumed that all members of society will benefit equally from society and generally overlook the issue of gender oppression in human rights discourse. On the other hand, the prevailing tendency in writing on women's international human rights is to strongly oppose cultural relativism. Feminists fear that challenging the cultural unity of women's experience will only prolong the recognition of the need to prioritise the concerns of women at an international level. Most feminists would perceive the arguments of cultural relativism as being in defence of men and not women. For example: The cry against 'interference in culture' is used as a defense of men's rights, not of women's; it is used to avoid creating a 'national shame' over the behaviour of one sex toward the other, at the expense of the second sex.
