Facing the “Sledge Hammer of Truth”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Pace Vetter
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Universal Human Rights ◽  
Belles Lettres

In 1837, Angelina Grimké and the education reformer Catherine Beecher engaged in a highly charged public interchange over the abolition of slavery and the rights of women. To explore her unique theoretical contributions, Grimké’s rhetoric of sympathy is compared with Adam Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Grimké advances a powerful defense against Beecher’s critique by offering a theory of sympathy that, unlike sentimentality, carefully balances reason with emotion. Employing rhetorical strategies similar to those outlined by Smith, Grimké conveys a moral and political teaching, in particular, a theory of universal human rights, which is crucial to abolitionism and the advancement of women’s rights. Yet she expands Smith’s understanding through poignant examples in which sympathy can unite the enfranchised and the marginalized and lead to change.

DIALECTS OF WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT: THE INTERNATIONAL CIRCUITRY OF THEARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005

2009 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lila Abu-Lughod
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Political Imagination ◽  
The Past ◽  
Universal Human Rights

The ethical and political dilemmas posed by the construction and international circulation of discourses on women's rights in the Middle East are formidable. The plight of “Muslim women” has long occupied a special place in the Western political imagination, whether in colonial officials' dedication to saving them from barbaric practices or development projects devoted to empowering them. In the past fifteen years or so, through a series of international conferences and the efforts of feminist activists, women's rights have come to be framed successfully as universal human rights. Building on the U.N. conferences on women that started in 1975 and led to other initiatives, the appropriate arena of women's rights work has been redefined from the national to the international.

Islam, Gender, and Democracy in Comparative Perspective

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Comparative Literature ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Shed Light

This volume reframes the debate around Islam and women’s rights within a broader comparative literature. It examines the complex and contingent historical relationships between religion, secularism, democracy, law, and gender equality. Part I addresses the nexus of religion, law, gender, and democracy through different disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, law). Part II localizes the implementation of this nexus between law, gender, and democracy, and provides contextualized responses to questions raised in Part I. The contributors explore the situation of Muslim women’s rights vis-à-vis human rights to shed light on gender politics in the modernization of the nation and to ponder over the role of Islam in gender inequality across different Muslim countries.

Human rights and women's rights

Midwifery ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights

Hina Jilani on her Satyagraha for Women’s Rights in Pakistan

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 246-253
Author(s):  
Juanita Kakoty
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Military Regime ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Rights Consciousness

This piece is based on a conversation the author had with lawyer and human rights activist from Pakistan, Hina Jilani, in May 2016. It captures Jilani’s account of the ‘Satyagraha’ she has waged in her lifetime for the rights of women in her country; and as she narrates her story, she interweaves it with the ‘Satyagraha’ that shaped the women’s movement in Pakistan. One can read here about Jilani’s struggle for truth, for a human rights consciousness in a political climate of military regime; and how she challenged courts in the country to step outside the realm of conventional law and extend justice to women and girls. And in the process, learn that her struggle for truth has been intertwined with that of the women’s movement in the country.

Women and Gender

2008 ◽  
pp. 495-510
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bunch
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
Peace And Security ◽  
And Gender

This article discusses women and gender, and first identifies the differences between the concepts. It moves on to a critical examination of the norms and their institutional manifestations, along with selected UN system efforts to promote women's rights in development, peace and security, human rights, and health. The article also provides a balanced evaluation of how much things have changed for girls and women over the last sixty years.

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