Legal Commentary

Following Paul Horwitz?s advice for writing incendiary blog posts, I?ve decided to come out with a point of mine that?s been incendiary in some quarters. My forthcoming piece, ?Unsex CEDAW: What?s Wrong with Women?s Rights, which I?ll present at U.S.C. and U.C.L.A.?s Williams Institute in March, argues that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (?CEDAW? or the ?Convention?) has failed to foster gender equality because its scope remains limited to women.  First, I argue that CEDAW?s focus on women enshrines an understanding of sex as a binary of men/women and a consequent presumption of their relationship as perpetrator/victim.  It reifies rather than undermines gender disparities.  Second, CEDAW mistakenly frames the problem with regard to a specific identity ?women? rather than a category such as ?sex? or ?gender? that would address the broader inequalities at hand.  CEDAW would have addressed this wider frame had it adopted a category reference, such as that in the Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (?CERD?). Third, CEDAW presents men as the comparator for women?s equality and the implicit perpetrator of their inequality.  Instead men and other sexes should figure as a key part of any advancement gender inequality.  Regulations such as parental leave invoke complex relationships among private individuals, families, the market and the state.  Solely remedying women?s inequality in this context may in fact perpetuate continued workplace disparities.  Unsexing CEDAW, whether by amendment or reinterpretation, would move beyond the counterproductive identitarian focus.