Toward a Feminist Theory of Human Rights: Straddling the Fence Between Western Imperialism and Uncritical Absolutism
Author(s)
Kim, Nancy
Abstract
Feminists who advocate the recognition of women’s rights as human rights have encountered opposition from both cultural relativists and liberal human rights activists. This Article explores how feminist theory, as an alternative to both relativism and liberal human rights theory, can be used to reconceptualize women’s rights as human rights. Relativist criticism of feminism as a form of Western imperialism is misguided because gender oppression is systemic and cross-cultural. Neither feminism nor gender oppression is endemic to the West. Rather, feminism is a multi-cultural response to the oppression of women.
