Sunday Lecture - Human rights: are women human enough to have human rights?

Human Rights campaigner, Naomi McAuliffe, talks about how women's rights are treated as an optional extra to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Why do we often use the phrase "women's human rights"? Are they distinct from "human rights" and what exactly are "men's rights"? And which out of these take precedence?
All too often women's rights are ghettoised, delayed or characterised as not exactly vital for human existence. Rights such as the right to education and health are "feminised" and many in the UK deny that these are fundamental human rights at all but merely aspirational policies. Women's rights activists expose the outdated Cold War dichotomony of economic and social versus civil and political rights as harmful to women. Issues such banning abortion and negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan can only happen if we characterise human rights in a way that fundamentally excludes women. Women will only be considered fully human when the rights necessary to their survival are considered human rights.
Naomi McAuliffe works as a Campaign Manager for Amnesty International leading a programme of campaigns on economic, social and cultural rights. She writes regularly for The Guardian's Comment is Free on women's rights and issues, as well as writing for the New Statesman and her neglected blog VaginaDentata.

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