Today marks the centenary of International Women's Day. Originating from labor movements in North America and across Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, International Women's Day is now a global celebration. As the United Nations says, it is an occasion ???for looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, and more importantly, for looking ahead to the untapped potential and opportunities that await future generations of women???.
With the official launch of UN Women (the new United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) last month, there is much to celebrate this International Women???s Day. Its establishment has the potential to accelerate progress over the next century on achieving gender equality; a goal that has underpinned the international system since it was enshrined in the Preamble of the United Nations Charter over 65 years ago.
In her International Women???s Day address, Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, outlines the organization???s vision as ???a world where women and men have equal opportunities and capacities and where principles of gender equality are embedded in the development, peace and security agendas???. Achieving this, she argues, requires opening up space for women???s political leadership; freeing women from gender-based-violence; and convincing key policy makers that where women fully contribute to their economies and societies, the gains for everyone are greatly increased.
Bachelet is right to point to evidence that when women have access to good education, good jobs, to land and other assets, national growth and stability are enhanced. Such instrumentalist arguments for women???s socioeconomic advancement have great political leverage. But they risk marginalizing key aspects of women???s human rights and creating a fragmented normative approach to gender equality; women should have access to education, to jobs, to land and to resources, not because it is good for the economy, but because they are human beings who???like men???are entitled to these fundamental rights.
Human rights, and in particular the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, are identified as a key focus area for UN Women. The Convention elaborates the norm of non-discrimination by providing that???generally and in specific circumstances???women should be treated the same as men. Non-discrimination is a prerequisite of equality.
But the goal is not simply to treat women the same as men; to retain a male benchmark and to remove the barriers that prevent women from reaching that benchmark. The goal is to redefine the scope of the benchmark to more fully encompass women???s lived reality, in the public sphere, but even more crucially, in the private sphere as well. This more holistic understanding of equality, which aims to respond to the economic, social and cultural dimensions of women???s lives, has been increasingly reflected in international law and global UN policy commitments.
Despite much progress, socio-economic deprivations continue to be a lived reality for many women around the world. We have made less progress on MDG 5: Improving Maternal Health, for example, than any other goal. As the Center for Reproductive Rights highlights (PDF download), the grave statistics on maternal mortality and morbidity around the world confirm the severity of ???systematic inequality and discrimination suffered by women throughout their life cycle, perpetuated by formal laws, policies and prejudicial social norms and practices harmful to women.???
Thus, for supporters of UN Women, this International Women???s Day is a timely reminder of the importance of mainstreaming human rights language in the new entity's operational framework as it continues to evolve and ensure, in particular, that the framework includes a strong focus on women???s economic, social and cultural rights as a means to achieving meaningful gender equality. Human rights must be not only at the heart of the content of UN WOMEN???s future programs, policies and planning, but also in its strategic partnerships as well, including involvement from the special procedures and mechanisms, the different treaty bodies and the OHCHR as well as substantive engagement and participation from civil society, grassroots groups, gender experts and human rights practitioners.
In times of economic crisis, it is more important than ever that UN Women address women???s social and economic exclusion and marginalization as the underlying factors that prevent women from accessing jobs, a decent education and a political voice. Rather than merely treating the symptom without treating the cause, UN Women should strive for coherence and alignment with the human rights framework as a means of rendering its work on women???s empowerment more meaningful, accountable and based on principles of equality and non-discrimination. A human-rights based approach should have a synergistic relationship on driving the agency???s direction and completing its objectives in a way that marks the new international gender architecture from its precedents.
UN Women produced the following video, The Journey of Women's Rights 1911-2011, to commemorate today's anniversary: