ABSTRACT
One response to the critique of gender essentialism’s failure to pay sufficient attention to third world women and to the diversity of women’s lives has been the reiteration of the need to take account of national and cultural differences among women. Culture and cultural diversity have entered into the women’s human rights discourse primarily through VAW campaigns. However, in an effort to avoid the critique of exclusivity and gender essentialism, the move to address violence across difference has sometimes resulted in the reification of culture. I discuss the ways in which cultural essentialism is reproduced through the VAW agenda.
