Vakulenko, Anastasia --- "Gender and International Human Rights Law: The Intersectionality Agenda" [2010] ELECD 197; in Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam (eds), "Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Human Rights Law

Editor(s): Joseph, Sarah; McBeth, Adam

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203687

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Gender and International Human Rights Law: The Intersectionality Agenda

Author(s): Vakulenko, Anastasia

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

8. Gender and international human rights law:
the intersectionality agenda
Anastasia Vakulenko*



1 Introduction
The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, was a true
turning point for feminism. It was then that the concerted feminist effort to
challenge the historic male bias of international human rights law finally led
to formal recognition, giving birth to the global human rights strategy of
gender mainstreaming. The importance of this strategy, which essentially
means incorporating a gender perspective into all human rights action,1 was
subsequently restated in numerous UN resolutions,2 as well as in the work of
the UN General Assembly and Security Council.3 At least nominally, gender
was accepted by the mainstream.
Productive feminist engagement with international human rights law did
not stop there, however. Since then, feminism has consistently targeted the
very category of gender as it provides the basis for gender mainstreaming poli-
cies. It has done so by bringing the idea of intersectionality to the fore of its
engagement with international human rights discourse. Intersectionality is
about exploring how gender interacts with `multiple social forces, such as



* The author thanks the anonymous reviewer for her helpful comments and the
editors for their wonderful editorial support.
1 The United Nations (`UN') Economic and Social Council (`ECOSOC')
defines gender mainstreaming as `the process of assessing the implications for women
and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies and programmes, in all
areas and at all levels, and as a strategy for making women' ...