Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
ISSN
0272-5037
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
Since the American Journal of International Law published the ground-breaking article, "Feminist Approaches to International Law" by Professors Hillary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin, and Shelley Wright in 1991, there has been significant increase in the material written about the ways in which international law has failed to take account of the challenges faced by women or to appreciate women as relevant. The aim of the article was to urge a rethinking and revising of the structures and principles that exclude most women's experiences. It highlighted the fact that feminism in the Third World was doubly at odds with the dominant male discourse in society. As feminist approaches gained appreciation in the academy and women gained power in the policy arena, divisions appeared over difference. While there was great interest on the part of Western feminists to intervening to halt harmful cultural practices that injured women, there was less appreciation for the work of African women activists and writings published by women from Africa and the African Diaspora. A new literature acknowledging the insights of earlier scholars seeks to address the differences that have divided feminists over questions of difference and invites the women's human rights movement to reconsider the myriad ways in which women on the continent and in other developing countries could secure the equal dignity promised in international human rights instruments not by demanding autonomy but by strategically deploying social connections.
Recommended Citation
Erika George,
Feminism and the Future of African International Legal Scholarship
,
in
107
American Society of International Law Proceedings
192
(2013).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3860
