“The infringement of women’s rights is usually exercised in the name of tradition, religion, social cohesion, morality, or some complex of transcendent values. Anyway, it is justified in the name of culture.” Gender Apartheid, Cultural Relativism, and Women’s Human Rights
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
“We must pose the question: why is it that the denial of the most rudimentary rights to civil treatment for women is always based on some fundamental point of culture? Is this culture real, or is it a fetish that is used to maintain some economic, social, or simply psychological privilege?” A Vision of Gender [...]
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
“To the extent that Islam, defined and interpreted by traditionalist “Muslim” men, is allowed to determine the context and contour of the debate on women’s rights, women will be on the losing side of the debate because the conclusion is already contained in the premise and reflected in the process. This is the heart of [...]
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
“Rights and empowerment are interconnected: unless a substantial number of women in a community come to believe that they have rights and demand to exercise them, right remains an abstraction.” – Faith and Freedom
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
“The crass infringement of women’s rights we see in the Muslim world has more to do with power, patriarchy, and misuse of religion as political weapon than with religion properly understood as individual faith.” – Gender Apartheid, Cultural Relativism, and Women’s Human Rights
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The New York Times / By Janine Zacharia Internationally, women want to leverage Mrs. Clinton’s enthusiasm for advancing the rights of women and girls to win U.S. ratification of the 30-year-old Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. “I’ve never seen such awareness” in Washington, says Mahnaz Afkhami. “There is all sorts of hope that maybe this degree of seriousness will bear fruit.”
Monday, November 16, 2009
Washington TV / By Amir Irani-Tehrani
Monday, November 9, 2009
Ms. Magazine / By Carole Joffe Despite shortcomings in its enforcement, CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women)—the United Nations’ international women's rights treaty—has brought progress to women in the Middle East, according to women leaders from the region at a recent panel celebrating of its 30th anniversary.
Monday, October 26, 2009
In Iranian Women's One Million Signatures: Campaign for Equality The Inside Story by Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani / Women's Learning Partnership Translation Series Iran's One Million Signatures Campaign for the Reform of Discriminatory Laws is an extraordinary phenomenon. It is democratic, nonhierarchical, open, and evolving in a polity that is none of those things. The campaign brings to mind the image of raindrops falling, forming rivulets, and then converging on an ever-larger scale until they become a river. The genius of the movement lies in its capacity to connect its members’ thoughts and deeds in ways that adapt and change as conditions require. The context is on the one hand the clash between an Iranian civil society with a century-old record of growing sophistication and important roles for women, and on the other an archaic legal...
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sabah / By Bilge Eser “I didn’t choose politics; I chose women’s rights.” Mahnaz Afkhami looks back on her time as Minister of Women’s Affairs in Iran before the revolution and looks forward to the future of Iran, where she believes, “women are on the winning side which is the side of history.”
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009