A Peace Activist Reflects on Women's Rights as Human Rights
by Rus Ervin Funk

March 2001
Volume 38, No. 2

Throughout the development of human rights discourse over the past 50 years, the role of, and impact on, women has largely been minimized, denied, and often outright ignored. The primary reason for women's absence from the discourse and planning, is the "public private" dichotomy that is imbedded in, and the foundation of, most human right language, discussion, planning and activism. This has resulted in women being absent from the perspectives of those who have drafted human rights legislation; from the strategic planning to address human rights; and thusly, not benefiting from the application of human rights efforts on any level. To the degree that our peace efforts are connected with and based on human rights discourse, we share in these sexist practices. By placing women in the center, or at least as part of the discourse about human rights, the implications for peace efforts become profound.

The Public-Private Split: The Personal is Private

The foundation for this split is the view that there is a distinction between our public and private lives. That which occurs in the so-called private sphere is deemed as off-limits for intervention from the international community and thusly, has been removed from any of the "human rights" discourse. Human rights, as currently understood and practiced, only occur in the public spheres of our lives.

This current understanding is problematic on at least two basic levels. Firstly, none of our lives can so easily be distinguished between public and private. Most people flow back and forth between what is considered public and private space quite frequently. The boundary between goes unnoticed and ill defined. Secondly, in most countries of the world, including the US, public space is disproportionately occupied by men. As such, by focusing the human rights discourse only on the public sphere, the language of "rights" and solutions that flow disproportionately focus on men, and thusly discriminate against women.

Human rights violations are considered those violations, those crimes, that occur in the public sphere: police brutality, the death penalty, genocide, internments, voting irregularities, etc. These violations, truly horrendous and deserving of an international response, more often target men and most directly impact on men. Those violations, those crimes, that occur in the private sphere: child abuse, domestic violence, most sexual assaults, stalking, pornography and prostitution (unless involving young children), sexual or gender harassment, etc. are not recognized as part of the human rights agenda. But these are exactly the crimes that are targeted at women. These kinds of crimes impact on women's ability to fully enjoy their full human rights. It seems insincere, arbitrary and ultimately cruel to define being imprisoned against one's will, beaten at whim, verbally abused, refused medical treatment, refused access to defense counsel...as a human right violation...unless the prisoner is a wife or girlfriend.

The public/private split in human rights discourse has profound implications for women on a number of levels. Firstly, because women, in most countries, are not proportionately represented in the public sphere, and are most frequently relegated to the private sphere of home, kitchen, bedroom, and nursery; their voices are not adequately heard in the general human rights discourse. The result is that the forms of human rights violations experienced by women are not part of the discussion. Secondly, even when women are victimized in the public sphere, it is rarely recognized as such. For example, in the US during the late 1990's, there was a series of high-profile shootings and mass murders at suburban schools. Other than the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, all of these shootings consisted of boys aiming at and shooting girls or women. Because this was described as "school shootings" and thusly presented as gender neutral, the gendered nature of the killing and shooting was ignored. In this situation, the clamor has been to keep our schools safe - not keep our girls and women safe. Had there been a recognition of women's rights as human rights during these conversations, the understanding and nature of school safety would likely have a very different ring to them.

Because men disproportionately occupy the public sphere that is covered under human rights discourse, men are disproportionately protected by human rights efforts. Those forms of rights violations that impact on women because they are women, are not addressed. For example, although health care is considered a human right, reproductive health care is not (with the exception of the UN Convention for the Rights o the Child - still not ratified by the U.S.). As such, although general health care is covered by current human rights efforts, those efforts that specifically effect women are not. As a result, it is by and large only feminist organizations that address these issues, while the main of the human rights community remains silent.

A fourth way that the public/private split in the human rights discourse impacts on women is that those violations of woman's human rights are not defined as such, not recognized at all, and thusly not considered when planning or organizing for human rights occurs.

In addition, women are not a monolithic group - in any society. There are groups of women who experience "double" or "triple bind" oppression (for example, women of color, lesbian or bisexual women, working class and poor women, girl children in the United States). For these women, excluding their voices from the human rights dialogue means that they are further disenfranchised from the relief offered by the human rights efforts. They are oppressed and victimized as women within their cultural group, as women again within the larger society, and as members of their oppressed cultural group - all with no real recourse.

Perhaps most pressing, because of this split, women's pain is not considered at any level. Local jurisdictions continue to think of sexual assault and domestic violence as somehow "personal" crimes and don't respond as seriously as they do to street crime. On the national level, crimes against women and girls are seen as "private" and thusly, relegated to local or state jurisdictions. Internationally, crimes against women, with the rare exception of public gendered crime (such as the rape camps of Bosnia [or any other war for that matter]) is not even recognized as a crime. And, few peace activists or organizations address violence against women as part of the peace agenda. Thusly, women are afforded no real recourse and are offered no real allies.

Implications for Peace Activists

Recognizing women's rights as human rights can mean a dramatic and ultimately powerful redefinition of local human rights work (civil rights, peace work, social justice...whatever term is used on the local level). By recognizing women's rights as human rights, the kinds of issues that we address becomes broadened and the potential for alliances is expanded. Working for peace, which over the past few years has been expanded to include police brutality and the death penalty, could be broadened even further to include battered women, sexual assault and child abuse. Pro-hate literature, already considered to be part of the agenda for much of the peace movement, could be expanded to include pornography and other forms of women-hate propaganda. By working on these kinds of issues on the local level, as peace activists, we can effectively build bridges with the local feminist activists addressing these issues. By doing so, we deepen our understanding and broaden our analysis such that we strengthen our efficacy on local, state, and the global levels.