Gender and Rights

Gender and Rights presents twenty five essays by leading international scholars and advocates the relationship between rights and gender inequality. The essays are organized into six categories: rights, sources of harm and well-being, work, family, violence and political process and participation. Particular attention is paid throughout to the relationship between cultural practices and legal rights. The volume also highlights the conceptual and the political development of rights claims and rights regimes for women and sexual minorities. The essays therefore focus not only on the theoretical justifications for rights but also on the contextual complexities of their enactment, implementation, enforcement and consequences. Contents: Series preface; Introduction: asserting rights in the twenty-first century, Carol Sanger; Part I Gender and Rights: The problem of rights, Carol Smart ; Alchemy or fool's gold? Assessing feminist doubt about rights, Elizabeth Kiss; When justice replaces affection: the need for rights, Jeremy Waldron; Victims in the shadow of the law: a critique of the model of legal protection, Kristin Bumiller; That we are human, we have rights, Carlos A. Ball. Part II Sources of Well-Being and Harm: More than 100 Million women are missing, Amartya Sen; Women and cultural universals, Martha Nussbaum;Gender, property, and land rights: bridging a critical gap in economic analysis and policy, Bina Agarwal;Reflections on law in the everyday life of women, Catharine A. MacKinnon; The 'no problem' problem, Deborah L. Rhode; The right to care, Robin West. Part III Family: Relational rights and responsibilities: revisioning the family in liberal political theory and law, Martha Minow and Mary Lyndon Shanley; Group identity and women's rights in family law: the perils of multicultural accommodation, Ayelet Shachar; Vulnerability by marriage, Susan Moller Okin; Comparative law and the same-sex marriage debate: a step-by-step approach toward state recognition, William N. Eskridge, Jr. Part IV Violence: Identity within: cultural relativism, minority rights, and the empowerment of women, Radhika Coomaraswamy; Law as a Trojan horse: unintended consequences of rights-based interventions to support battered women, Ren Römkens; (Mis)identifying culture: Asian women and the 'cultural defense', Leti Volpp; Give me liberty or give me death: political asylum and the global persecution of lesbians and gay men, Suzanne B. Goldberg. Part V Work: 'Whether from reason or prejudice': taking money for bodily services, Martha C. Nussbaum; Dignity or equality? Responses to workplace harassment in European, German, and US law, Susanne Baer; For the children: trends in international policies and law