The Importance Of Gender Rights

Although the scope of inalienable human rights is not entirely agreed upon, the concept has restructured political landscapes and is one of the few commonly recognized moral visions throughout the globe. This widely accepted notion provides a useful framework to support transnational activism to challenge injustices encompassed in civil, political, economic, and social spheres that affect lives worldwide. Using this backdrop, the global movement for women rights strives to enhance the human rights discourse by redressing gender vulnerabilities. Even though there are still continuing political struggles in making central the concerns of gender abuse, it has achieved considerable rethinking of the human rights doctrine as formerly understood.

Despite the gender-neutral language, the original conception of the declaration was man-centric as it was formulated with male household heads in mind, thus symbolizes male bias of human rights thinking. This lack of understanding in gender relations hinders the early conception of human rights to fully recognize the idea of women's rights as human rights, much less address the tension between women's rights and its relevance in different cultures. The first step to uncover the invisibility of gender-based violations is to change priorities that were derived by its male model and equally take into account women's life experiences. Only with that we can analyze its validity in all cultural

One example is Will Kymlicka (1989, 1995) who bases his claims on strict liberal ideals. His argument is twofold: he emphasizes the need of group rights for the development of self-identities, but he also sets limitations on the granting of group rights that does not fit into certain criteria. The reason that a rich and protected cultural structure is essential for the development of a person is that they act as the background in which the members are able to build self-respect and the capacity to make independent choices. Language and history are tools for individuals to build a strong identity and the context in which the can build the capacity to make choices about future aspirations. However, critics like Okin counter-argues that instead of focusing on the importance of the role of cultures in the development of self-esteem and social roles, we need to pay attention to where one is placed within than culture and whether the instilled social roles are enforced by that culture. If, for instance, patriarchy is rooted in the culture, girls' development of self-esteem and their understanding of social roles are endangered. For this reason, Kymlicka emphasizes in Liberalism, Community, and Culture that his main purpose is the liberalization of all cultural group, which means that only those cultural groups that accept liberal principles, that do not suppress individual right or liberty,