ABSTRACT
In 1948 Eleanor Roosevelt, together with other women delegates of United Nations (UN's) Member States from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, lobbied the UN's to get the word "sex" to be part of the types of discrimination mentioned in the then draft Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Gender analysis has to unpackage the systemic nature of discrimination and reveal the complex processes by which social norms practiced on the private and community level, underpin the manner in which institutions reproduce discrimination through law and policy. Formal notions of equality premised on the assumptions of sameness between people situated in similar circumstances have not benefitted disadvantaged groups. State responsibility for the defense of women's human rights has also evolved toward understanding the pervasive and structural nature of discrimination against women. Realizing women's rights requires the political will of governments. The use of the "rights" language appears to be one of the main obstacles to the respect for women's rights worldwide.
