I am especially gratified by the honor offered to me by the
University of Geneva—an institution of great age, prestige
and commitment to humanities, social sciences along with its
universal recognition in pure sciences.
Even more pleased am I by the topic I was encouraged to
address: human rights and women's rights. And it is
interesting, if troubling that human rights is still not naturally
and automatically understood to include women. It's as
though there are humans and then there are women—a
supplement to, if not separate from, real human beings.
But I do understand the need if not to separate at least to
dramatize the necessity of reminding ourselves how hard it
has been, historically, for women to enter the terrain of
human rights; how difficult it has been garnering attention to
the routine repression of our gender as well as our erasure
from the concept of human rights.
This erasure has exacerbated a number of problems in the
discourse on women's rights. And I have gathered a few
examples:
1. Emphasis on equity as an end in itself rather than its
moral and ethical obligations. The struggle, the
poisonous controversy in 19th Century America was
whether to include black men in the press toward
universal voting rights or to expand that right only to
white women. As provocative as that battle was, for me
the signal erasure was the elimination from discussion
those who occupied both camps of race and gender—
black women.
2. Years ago I gave a commencement address which I
titled "Cinderella's Sisters" in order to draw attention to
the glorification of the harm women do to each other.
Cinderella is a fairy tale about a household of women
gathered together and held together in order to abuse
another woman. The theme of my lecture was to
discourage women from the oppression of other women
and to call attention to the violence women do to each
other, to remind the audience of that Women's College
that mothers who abuse children are women and
another woman has to stay her hand, that women who
beat and enslave their domestic help are women and
another woman must stay her hand, that mothers who
sell, abandon or slaughter their children are women and
other women have to stay her hand. What I hoped to
convey was that women's rights are not merely an
abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not
only about the collective "us"; it is also about you and
me. Just the two of us.
3. In the US there has surfaced a general condemnation
Affirmative Action laws—laws designed to end
discrimination in the work place, at educational
institutions etc. Because 'racial discrimination' in the
United States is so prevalent, so central, the public has
come to see these laws as purely and solely about
race. But the largest group of beneficiaries under this
law are white women, women who seem reluctant to
counter the vicious and prevalent notion of so-called
"reverse racism" or to raise their voices for vigorous
support of these laws, in spite of the fact that feminists
movements in the United Stated have always followed
black freedom movements. It was so in the 19th century
following the Civil War against slavery; it was so in the
1960's following the Civil Rights movement for voting
rights, jobs and the elimination of segregation.
4. The discourse surrounding sexual assault is another
area in which the language of women's rights is
becoming twisted. Violence against women is
understood primarily as sexual assault or domestic
violence. But viewing such assault through only the
victim's eyes is vital but also limiting. Where is the
scholarship, the analysis on men who rape? Are they
simply the mindless Grendels born to monstrosity when
given a chance? Or are they our husbands, sons,
brothers, fathers? Something is missing. Why does
rape, this most flesh bound attack, remain so focused
on the victim? Where is the analysis of the masculinist
coupling in these abuses? I would like to see an
examination of homoeroticism in gang rape, which has
nothing to do with homosexual males but everything to
do with the eroticism of heterosexual men. Sharing,
watching increases and distributes the joy. The
legitimate focus on female victims must not erase or
diminish the aggressor.
5. Fortunately, and most gratifying there are powerful
signs of change—signs that assume women's rights are
indeed human rights. The lashing of women for walking
alone in public, having a cell phone and other equally
childish prohibitions has outraged men and women in
the Middle East and elsewhere. The crowds demanding
to be heard, demanding accountability, responsibility
from the corrosive marriage of money and politics;
insisting on value instead of costs—these crowds that
are springing up everywhere assume the equity of
females in the battle.
En quête de cours anglais en ligne ?
6. The most gratifying sign of the seamless merger of
women into the human race are the three women who
have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their
work not for women, but for humans: the environment,
the cessation of war, the democratization of a nation.
All of which suggests that the supplement term
'women's rights' may finally be redundant.
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