The article, “Cultural Relativist and Feminist Critiques of International Human Rights – Friends or Foes?” by Oonagh Reitman seeks to address how cultural relativist and feminist sees the existence of the international human rights, specifically women’s human rights. The research problem being addressed is the similarities between these two critiques of international human rights and how these two critiques have come to defy one another when it comes to the term of women’s international human rights. The author has made it clear that this is a debatable issue. The cultural relativist argued on the universality of human rights, which contradicts with the statement that human rights are those held simply by virtue of being human and whose substance, form and interpretation are not subject to variations in culture (Donnelly 1989: 109-110). Cultural relativist uphold that culture is the principle source of any rights or rules, they argued that the existence of women’s human rights cannot be universally applied.
GENDER: Gender is range of characteristics pertaining to and differentiating between masculinity and femininity. It is linked to socially constructed notion of masculinity and femininity, it is not necessarily a direct product of an individual’s biological sex. GENDER DISCRIMINATION: Gender discrimination means discrimination based on a person's gender or sex, which is very common in our society and it more often affects girls and women. Because of gender discrimination, girls and women do not have the same opportunities as boys and men for education, meaningful careers, political influence, and economic advancement. The society we are living in discriminate individual on the bases of one’s sex.
The third wave feminism has derived from radical and socialist feminism. The third wave feminists re-evaluate and extend the issues taken up by the second wave. They also critically re-assess themes and concepts of second wave feminism. They don’t take up “women” as a general category but focus on the factual and theoretical implication of difference among women. The difference not biological but those that resulted from the unequal distribution of socially produced goods and services on the basis of position in global system, caste, class, race, ethnicity, religion, age and affectional preference.
The debate over equality, its meaning and how or if it may be achieved, and its relevance to women’s liberation – a debate that is often referred to in feminist writings as the equality-difference debate – is, as was argued in the introduction, central to feminist analysis and discussion. This equality-difference debate is all the more difficult to overcome as it is a debate whose terms are not easily defined. Put crudely, it is a debate over whether women should struggle to be equal to men or whether they should valorize their differences from men. But the terms equality and difference are themselves contested terms with a multitude of meanings, and so the equality-difference debate is a highly complex one. If women are claiming equality with
On the other hand, on the side of feminist, they rather believe that in the real life the one who holds the human rights are not women but men, and ‘that gender equality, and freedom from discrimination for women, is given a low priority in the international arena’ (Donnelly in Reitman 1997, 100). This journal attempts to explain to the readers how both cultural
However the consequences of this silencing and also the doable solutions for a modification is essentially divided in associate understanding of essentialist ‘female nature’ and a construction primarily based understanding of gender as a discursive follow. For a feminist theory on peace the analysis of war and conflict is essential. The variety of approaches vary from historical accounts of girls in war to the psychological scrutinizing of gendered upbringing of youngsters. Critical writings by ladies in liberation movements in Latin America, Africa and Asia as well because the critique on western feminism by labor, Black and lesbian scholars have additional formed the discussion. 4 Feminist Peace and Conflict Theory reflects on the need of visibility of girls in conflicts and has crystal rectifier to a broader understanding of security problems.
The assumption is that gender is socially constructed category that comes of out whole systems and layers of meaning that is structured into the way in which the world works and can be unstructured or deconstructed. In that sense, feminism is a part of a constructivist agenda. However, there are tensions between feminist and constructivist works. One of the interesting areas of this is that some constructivists have started to take gender seriously as a kind of cause or variable, and started to talk about the way that gender can influence the actors and people involved in international politics. For example, during the evacuation of people in the wars that lead to the splitting of Yugoslavia in the mid 1990s, It is argued that because of the way that some humanitarian organizations and other organizations took for granted certain assumptions about gender, they failed to notice that it was the men who were the most vulnerable category of the population that were most under threat from the invading forces, and the priority was given to the old, the sick, the women and the children by
As for a solution for radical feminism I believe there must be a change in approach to the issue of gender inequality. Feminism advocates for gender equality but the name suggests it’s in favor for women and it is more focused on empowering women because they are that perceived as the only ones being shut down in society. Although that giving the women the same privileges of men in society it is a necessary action to take I believe the approach should be different we have to make clear of the goal of such an action is, we have to be clear about what feminism means or even change the name for the movement such that it does not cause any misunderstandings, and lastly we have to make sure that men are able to speak freely about the issues with being a male. Men in society are very quite of their problems because of the supposed gender role they have to play which is that of a hard, providing and unfeeling masculine figure which puts pressure on men and this hast to go if we plan to reach gender equality in society. In short the solution to radical feminism words what we need to do is to eliminate stereotypes of men and women, be clear of the movements goals and have different approach than just empowering women.
This resulted into the division of its advocates and the emergence of different feminist paradigms, which now induces stereotypical beliefs (Rocha). For some, feminism is needed because discrimination between the sexes is still present, but as aforementioned, modern feminism focuses more on the importance of women’s perspectives. Even though women are now esteemed and respected, their strength is still viewed poorly and G.D. Anderson has the perfect quote to address this issue. It says, “Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong.
They are trying to liberate themselves from the conjusted patriarchal setup. They have reacted sharply and strongly against the constructed roles of woman. This reaction results in feminist movement and feminist criticism. Feminist criticism concerned itself with changing woman’s position in society by liberating her from the oppressive restraints of patriarchy. Central to these restraints are the essentialist definitions of what it is to be a woman: definitions that assume human nature is universal and which refuse to see how culture plays a significant part in constructing and fixing identity.