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Charlotte Bunch is an internationally renowned women’s
human rights activist and Founder and Executive Director of
the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers
University. She has authored numerous publications that
reflect her interests in feminist theory’s application to public
policy questions, civil liberty, gender, sexuality, and global
development, including Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory
in Action and Demanding Accountability: The Global
Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women's Human Rights.
Bunch has been the recipient of an assortment of honors
and awards, such as the 2006 Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey Board of Trustees Award for
Excellence in Research; the 2002 International Women's
Forum Women Who Make a Difference Award; and the 1999
Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights presented by
former president William Jefferson Clinton. Charlotte Bunch
was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in
1996 in recognition of her committed, pioneering service as
an educator, advocate, writer, and strategist.
Abstract:
Cultural rights and women's human rights are often posed as
opposites that arouse passionate debate, but too often this
discourse does not probe deeply enough the multiple
political aspects of culture and how these intersect with
gender constructions in various settings. Culture has not
only traditional, but also contemporary forms, is a strong
force in the global North, as well as the South, and is
always changing and under negotiation in all parts of the world. The pursuit of human rights always involves cultural change, but the association of women with culture makes this process more fraught and easily manipulated.The universality of women's right to human rights and the recognition of the specificity of women's diverse experiences are not opposites, but the dialectical tension needed to construct a more effective approach to realizing rights for all women in our diversity and to building cultures of support for human rights.
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