This dissertation analyzes how transnational feminist advocacy and ideas about gender shaped modern human rights doctrines that remain central to this day. After World War II, United Nations delegates drafted and adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). During this process, international feminist activists disagreed about how to incorporate women's long-standing rights claims into the emerging human rights framework. Fiery interwar debates about laws and standards that regulated female labor persisted, prompting influential U.S. feminists to oppose the inclusion of gender-specific rights. To challenge U.S. opposition, key delegates to the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) forged an unofficial coalition. Despite the fact that these CSW delegates held competing ideas about gender and represented distinct national governments, they collectively crafted a significant but little-known women's human rights agenda and lobbied UDHR drafters to adopt it. Their proposals not only included political and civil rights, but also promoted particular economic and social rights for women as a group. They maintained, for instance, that child care and maternity leave should be obligations of the state. Indeed, the CSW insisted that recognition of their women's human rights agenda was essential to building a socially-just postwar order. While Anglo-American women dominated interwar NGOs, the CSW showcased myriad international voices and won critical allies among liberal and conservative UN delegations by linking the advance of women's human rights to notions of modernity and democracy. As a result, the CSW made substantial political and civil rights gains, such as the guarantee of equal rights in marriage and divorce. Yet feminist delegates had to juggle their internationally-minded agenda with the interests they were to serve as national representatives. This task was further complicated by nascent Cold War politics and a growing anti-feminist backlash at the UN. In this context, UDHR drafters ultimately rejected the CSW's call for women's economic and social rights--a "social revolution" for women--in favor of the perceived stability of the "traditional" family. By the early 1950s, anti-communist pressures led the CSW to sever the pursuit of women's rights from the developing human rights framework at the UN. Feminists' absence from the UN human rights debates over the next several decades removed a forceful challenge to U.S.-led efforts to privilege political and civil rights over economic and social rights, and fostered a tacit hierarchy of rights that persists to this day. This dissertation places the CSW's competing vision of universal human rights at the center of the postwar human rights project, and expands our understanding of the history of international women's activism and human rights. By analyzing official UN records, delegates' papers and memoirs, and the records of governmental and non-governmental organizations, it reveals that postwar human rights advocacy was critically shaped by women's activism of the interwar period. Furthermore, this dissertation demonstrates that the CSW's demands for women's rights shaped the context from which the universal human rights framework emerged. Indeed, feminist activism and debates about the rights of women influenced UDHR drafters' views about human rights in ways that expanded, but also significantly curtailed postwar human rights standards. As a result, feminist activists continue to fight today for full recognition of women's rights as human rights.

This study documents a process of planned social change. In 1967, the Canadian government appointed the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW) following a campaign mounted by a coalition of women's groups to promote women's rights. The Commission helped to define the status of women as a legitimate social problem, recommended changes in social policy, and helped to mobilize a constituency which pressed the government to implement the recommendations. The existence of an organized and vocal women's movement strengthened the Commission's demand for "simple justice." / The Report of the Commission was tabled in 1970, and the government responded to it by creating a federal policy system for promoting women's rights. The study assesses the different outcomes of the 167 RCSW recommendations over a ten-year period and it discusses the relationships between the women's movement, a governmental commission of inquiry (RCSW), and public policy on the status of women in Canada.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 548-564).

No description available.

This item contains the agenda, minutes, and attachments for the Faculty Senate meeting on this date. There may be additional materials from the meeting available at the Faculty Center.

[pt] A presente dissertação tem como objetivo oferecer uma reflexão acerca da necessidade de desenvolvimento institucional dos espaços públicos no mundo globalizado. Para tanto, pretende-se enxergar quais são as perspectivas teóricas oferecidas por Nancy Fraser e como suas ideias podem ser observadas na prática através de um estudo crítico da Comissão para o Status da Mulher (CSW) da ONU. Em um primeiro momento, busca-se fazer um estudo do modelo de justiça global construído por Nancy Fraser em sua obra acadêmica, analisando as categorias de redistribuição, reconhecimento e representação como defendidas pela autora e em contraste com outros autores que dialogam nesta área. Este assunto é dividido em dois capítulos. Um primeiro onde se observa a proposta de integração entre redistribuição e reconhecimento e os problemas decorrentes desta relação e um segundo no qual se busca aprofundar as questões de representação de primeira e segunda ordem à luz de uma nova conjuntura política provocada pelo desgaste do enquadramento institucional vestfaliano e da soberania estatal para resolver problemas de justiça social em decorrência do fenômeno da globalização. No segundo momento, o trabalho pretende investigar a operacionalidade do modelo defendido por Fraser buscando vislumbrá-lo no processo e nos produtos da Comissão para o Status da Mulher (CSW) da ONU, indagando em que medida este espaço reflete uma nova proposta de enquadramento para o conhecimento, a discussão e a decisão de demandas de modo democrático e se - e como - ocorre a integração de políticas de redistribuição, reconhecimento e representação de primeira ordem nas decisões tomadas por este órgão. / [en] The present dissertation aims to offer a reflection on the need institutional development of public spaces in a globalized world. For such, it is intended to see which are the theoretical perspectives offered by Nancy Fraser and how her ideas can be observed in practice through a critical study on the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) of the UN. In a first moment, it aims to make a study of the model of justice constructed by Nancy Fraser in her academic production, analyzing the categories of redistribution, recognition and representation as defined by the author and in contrast with other authors that dialog in this area. This subject is divided in two chapters. A first where it is observed the proposal of integration between redistribution and recognition and the resulting problems of this relation and a second in which is aimed to deepen the question of representation in both first and second orders in the light of a new political conjuncture triggered by the detrition of the Westphalian institutional framing and of the state sovereignty to solve the problems of social justice provoked by the phenomenon of globalization. At the second moment, this work intends to investigate the operability of the model defended by Fraser trying to behold it in the process and in the products of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) of the UN, inquiring in what measure is there a new proposal of framing for the acknowledgment, the discussion and the decision of claims in a democratic way and if - and how - occurs the integration of politics of redistribution, recognition and representation of first order in the decisions taken by this organ.

This item contains the agenda, minutes, and attachments for the Faculty Senate meeting on this date. There may be additional materials from the meeting available at the Faculty Center.