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Can Human Rights Accommodate Women’s Rights? Towards an Embodied Account of Social Norms, Social Meaning and Cultural Change

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Can Human Rights Accommodate Women’s Rights? Towards an Embodied Account of Social Norms, Social Meaning and Cultural Change
Author(s)Gatens, Moira
AbstractThe paper is in four parts. The first part offers a brief reminder of the historical context for human rights as women’s rights. The second part notes the relative lack of attention in human rights theory to the roles of social meaning and what has been called the ‘social imaginary’. The third part suggests that the social imaginary – understood in terms of the always present backdrop to meaningful social action – may be seen as a fruitful ‘middle ground’ upon which negotiations may take place between human rights and cultural norms. The fourth part examines a case where women’s entitlements to basic human rights are compromised by men’s claims to cultural or group rights. I conclude by arguing that if human rights are to accommodate women’s rights then women must be recognized as legitimate stakeholders in, and valuable contributors to, the necessarily ongoing re-invention and recreation of social meaning and cultural identity.
IssueNo3
Pages275-299
ArticleAccess to Article
SourceContemporary Political Theory
VolumeNo3
PubDateDecember 2004
ISBN_ISSN1470-8914


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