The Diffusion of International Women’s Rights Norms to Individual Attitudes

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-492
Author(s):  
Jessica Kim
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
National Level ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
World Society ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Norm Diffusion ◽  
World Polity ◽  
Unique Effect ◽  
International Linkages

Although existing studies of international women’s rights norm diffusion demonstrate the importance of international linkages for fostering change, few examine their influence on individual attitudes. Of those that do, none consider how ties to different world cultural domains—world polity vs. world society—impact this process, despite their divergent roots. Whereas world polity via CEDAW facilitates diffusion by holding states accountable, world society via women’s international NGOs (WINGOs) appeals to citizens by encouraging activism and awareness. Focusing on trends in developing nations, which remain underexamined but theoretically relevant, I assess the unique effect of each on diffusion to attitudes. I further expand the literature to examine the direct and interactive effects of national-level compliance (quotas) on this process. Using a multilevel analysis of World Values Survey data from 31 developing nations, I demonstrate that the duration of CEDAW ratification (world polity) and nationally mandated legislative quotas (national-level compliance) directly facilitate this diffusion, but WINGOs (world society) alone do not. Yet, where quotas exist and global ties are sufficient, WINGOs become significant, and CEDAW’s effectiveness increases. These results suggest that world polity and world society are both salient for diffusion to attitudes but should be considered separately and in conjunction with national-level outcomes that moderate their effects.

The Transnational Women's Rights Movement and the World Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi E. Rademacher
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Small Body ◽  
World System ◽  
World Society ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Society Perspective ◽  
The Impact

Promoting the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was a key objective of the transnational women's movement of the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, few studies examine what factors contribute to ratification. The small body of literature on this topic comes from a world-society perspective, which suggests that CEDAW represented a global shift toward women's rights and that ratification increased as international NGOs proliferated. However, this framing fails to consider whether diffusion varies in a stratified world-system. I combine world-society and world-systems approaches, adding to the literature by examining the impact of women's and human rights transnational social movement organizations on CEDAW ratification at varied world-system positions. The findings illustrate the complex strengths and limitations of a global movement, with such organizations having a negative effect on ratification among core nations, a positive effect in the semiperiphery, and no effect among periphery nations. This suggests that the impact of mobilization was neither a universal application of global scripts nor simply representative of the broad domination of core nations, but a complex and diverse result of civil society actors embedded in a politically stratified world.

Linguistic Origins of Gender Equality and Women’s Rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy H. Liu ◽  
Sarah Shair-Rosenfield ◽  
Lindsey R. Vance ◽  
Zsombor Csata
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
National Level ◽  
Legal Rights ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
World Values Survey ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Gender Based

In this article, we examine how the language spoken in a country can affect individual attitudes about gender equality and subsequently the level of legal rights afforded to women. This is because the feature of a language—specifically whether it requires speakers to make gender distinctions—can perpetuate popular attitudes and beliefs about gender inequality. To test this argument, we first identify a correlation between the gender distinction of a language and individual gender-based attitudes among World Values Survey respondents. We then isolate the causal mechanism using an experiment involving bilingual Romanian–Hungarian speakers in Transylvania, Romania. Finally, we examine one observable implication of our argument: the effects of gender distinction of official state languages on women’s rights at the national level. Our results confirm the importance of the gender distinction of language on support for gender equality and women’s rights.

International human rights regime, neoliberalism, and women’s social rights, 1984–2004

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (6) ◽  
pp. 503-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunhye Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
World Polity ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Neoliberal Restructuring

World polity scholars posit that the diffusion of world culture and norms increasingly influences human rights as well as women’s rights. However, previous research on women’s rights and policies often neglects women’s social rights and focuses mainly on women’s political rights. In part due to neoliberal restructuring, women’s social rights still lag behind women’s political rights. This research focuses on changes in women’s social rights, as measured by the CIRI human rights index, in 140 countries from 1984 to 2004. To interpret these data, I incorporate world institutionalism and neoliberalism into one single theoretical frame. My analysis reveals that the longer a country is exposed to a neoliberal structural adjustment program, the more governments’ practices regarding women’s social rights deteriorate. Among various linkages to the world polity, only the ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) increases nation-states’ likelihood of having improved women’s social rights. These findings suggest that global neoliberal restructuring has a deleterious effect on women’s social rights and challenge the claim that the spread of global culture necessarily leads to improvements in governments’ practices relating to women’s social rights.

Legal Mobilization, Transnational Activism, and Gender Equality in the EU

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (02) ◽  
pp. 209-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel A. Cichowski
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
National Level ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Transnational Activism ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Eu

Abstract This article examines how EU rights and laws serve as legal opportunity structures for women’s rights activists in Europe. Further, it examines what effects this transnational activism has on the permanence and inclusion of public interests and gender equality in EU legal and political processes. The analysis examines the legal domain of EU women’s rights over a thirty-year period. Methodologically, the study relies on case law analysis, primary document collections, and interviews with non-governmental organizations and governmental elites at both the EU and the national level. I ask how legal mobilization can serve as a catalyst for institutional change (by influencing litigation and legislative action), and how this effects subsequent EU-level women’s rights mobilization and public inclusion.

Extra-Parliamentary Reporting: The Under-Reported Life of the Working Class

2020 ◽  
pp. 593-611
Author(s):  
Andrew Calcutt ◽  
Mark Beachill
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Advocacy Journalism ◽  
Overseas Development

This chapter will explore the range of periodical publications that have engaged with politics on a regional or national level without an overemphasis on the workings of the Westminster parliament. These might be serving geographically distinct communities or they may be circulating among politically disaffected with radical aims. Some periodicals have taken advocacy journalism to petition for causes and movements outside the normal mechanics of the Westminster cycle such as the publications fighting for women’s rights from Votes for Women in 1907 to Spare Rib from 1972. Specific campaigns and causes have been facilitated through such as the pacifist Peace News in 1936 and the New Internationalist which started to encourage greater awareness of overseas development issues in 1973. Other peridocials have addressed a particular political community, for example the Socialist Labour Press out of the Red Clydeside era, the left-wing Irish Republican, An Phoblacht from 1906 and other constituencies have more recently drawn upon publications such as Living Marxism, Schnews, Class War.

John Stuart Mill Translated by Siegmund Freud

1999 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Molnar
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Women’S Rights

Freud's translation of J.S. Mill involved an encounter with the traditions of British empirical philosophy and associationist psychology, both of which go back to Locke and Hume. The translation of Mill's essay on Plato also brought Freud into contact with the philosophical controversy between the advocates of intuition and faith and the advocates of perception and reason. A comparison of source and translated texts demonstrates Freud's faithfulness to his author. A few significant deviations may be connected with Freud's ambiguous attitude to women's rights, as advocated in the essay The Enfranchisement of Women. Stylistically Freud had nothing to learn from Mill. His model in English was Macaulay, whom he was also reading at this period.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document