ABSTRACT
Part I of the book raised a number of general and theoretical questions on gender, citizenship, and human rights, and gave some insights into how these issues are experienced on the ground at both the local and the global level. In Part II we will further these discussions through a number of case studies that relate to some current controversies and challenges concerning gender equality, citizenship and human rights in China and the Nordic countries. One issue that was addressed by both Ai and Rosenberg was that of gender and sexual orientation. This is a fundamental issue for both gender equality and respect for basic human rights. Yet in both Nordic and Chinese societies this remains a fairly controversial issue. Whereas queer ideas have been embraced by the Nordic academic community, Rosenberg herself personally experienced that the general public and the political establishment were not yet ready to see these ideas realised in more practical terms. Ai in her work on sexuality and date rape was also met with suspicion in society and had difficulties in producing The Vagina Monologues. In this section Sun documents and analyses the emergence of gay and lesbian identity terms in China, and the slow but nonetheless dramatic changes concerning the acceptance of homosexuals in society. Sun argues that using or inventing terms to address lesbian and gays is a form of ‘speaking out’ that has wideranging implications. While struggling to define their identity and make public space, lesbian and gay groups have gained visibility and in the process also achieved public recognition and acceptance. However, this process is still not complete as gay and lesbians continue to face discrimination and social pressure, and furthermore do not enjoy full and equal rights. Whereas there are new possibilities for people from marginalised sexualities in China to come out, receive recognition and start claiming rights, the interview with Rosenberg showed that in the Nordic countries, where lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals have for some time received recognition and gained rights, their voices and ability to shape and take active part in the public sphere is not yet fully realised and can still prove controversial. The example of the Swedish Feminist Initiative and the often fierce debates between the more traditional women’s movement and queer activists within the party showed that gender struggles are far from over, and that they also take new forms in contemporary
society. Sun’s chapter, like the interviews with Ai and Rosenberg, shows how important access to and participation in global movements for women’s rights and gay and lesbian rights have been for individuals and communities. Another central issue raised in Part I was the notion of citizenship beyond the nation state. In Part II the chapters by Gavanas, Tan and Kinnvall focus on different aspects of migration that illustrate the tensions between the rights of individuals as humans (and of women as individuals/humans) and as members of a particular state (or states). In Part I, Rosenberg, Hom and Siim emphasised the importance of the use of an intersectional approach in gender and human rights analysis. The chapters by Gavanas, Tan and Kinnvall in Part II give some examples of how this can be done in different local and national settings. Gavanas’ chapter on the position of migrant domestic workers in Sweden, the UK and Spain shows the usefulness of an intersectional approach to gender, class and ‘race’ in discussions on rights and citizenship. She illustrates how the ‘crisis of care’ in many European countries reflects a widespread lack of affordable and flexible public child care arrangements at the same time that women’s share of the labour force has increased. This crisis has mainly been solved by means of exploitable migrant domestic workers in informal markets. Gavanas shows that the ‘servant problems’ revolve around contrasting political ideologies and socioeconomic realities in the three national settings of her study. She argues that employers in her three cases use different preoccupations with egalitarianism, motherhood and otherness to make sense of contradictions in perspectives of privileged irresponsibility and structural responsibility. Whereas the privileged irresponsibility of employers raises issues concerning the lack of available and affordable workers willing to carry out domestic services, a perspective of structural responsibility raises issues of the existence of a new class of servants consisting of exploitable migrant domestic workers whose availability builds on global injustices. While cosmopolitan democratic theorists often have addressed problems associated with democratic deficits and disjunctures concerning political rights, few have tackled questions of global economic injustice. Gavanas’ chapter illustrates the urgency of focusing on this issue. The globalisation of reproductive labour and the resulting so-called global care chains (Yeates 2009) raise important questions not only as to the economic rights of migrant workers but also as to their social rights as parents and children of spouses who sometimes live in other parts of the world. Tan’s chapter on domestic migrant workers in China also gives examples of both domestic and global economic injustices and the linkages between them. Tan focuses on the health and safety of female migrant workers in China who often work in factories owned by global companies. As opposed to the ones in the study by Gavanas, the migrants in this case are Chinese citizens who have migrated from rural areas to the cities. Tan outlines the many difficulties that migrant workers face due to their vulnerability as outsiders in the cities and their concomitant precarious social status and lack of rights. Although domestic migrant workers in China are formally citizens, their socio-political status can be, due to the state’s household registration system and systematic discrimina-
tion, as precarious as those of international migrant workers in Europe. Tan also shows that female migrant workers are more vulnerable than male workers. Despite recent improvements and many new laws the situation for migrant workers remains very difficult. Gavanas’ and Tan’s chapters illustrate problems with citizenship and human rights within national borders, but also how flows of labour and capital across borders give rise to new issues and challenges concerning the safeguarding of migrant workers’ rights. As movements by women and gay and lesbians have been able to build on and receive international support, migrant women have also started to organise themselves. In Europe today there exist numerous migrant, anti-racist and anti-fundamentalist organisations that work on issues related to legal status, citizenship rights and human rights. A good example is Babaylan, the Philippine Women’s Network in Europe, which has existed for over fifteen years (see www.babaylan-europe.org). Although much of the legislative and political work in China is very topdown and paternalistic, migrant workers are not passive subjects of migrantfriendly laws and policies but they also try to speak up and push their own issues. However, for political reasons migrant workers in China face more difficulties in organising themselves, though some organisations have appeared, giving migrant workers a voice. Most of these organisations focus on legal support and advice rather than trying to seek a political platform. These organisations also receive support from more established organisations in China, such as the All China Women’s Federation, as well as from international donors. Focusing on the intersection of the local and the global, Kinnvall’s chapter on Muslims in Sweden raises important questions regarding intersections of gender, ethnicity and class while also bringing in the issue of religion. Multicultural policies in Sweden have, according to Kinnvall, been institutionalised to privilege a Swedish reading of cultural norms, in the process constructing Muslim migrants in stereotypical terms. Global narratives of terror and Islamophobia in the media have reinforced this, as have processes of structural discrimination in terms of housing, employment and education. Islamophobia has at the same time also been used by hegemonic traditionalists to institutionalise and culturalise their own narrative reading of Islam. Kinnvall points out that we are witnessing a gradual radicalisation of certain minority groups, especially in religious terms. Within this struggle between majority and minority, secularism and religion, and the global and the local, Muslim women are increasingly being caught in the middle as visible symbols of religious and nationalist discourse. Kinnvall explores the central role of post-diasporic (second and subsequent generations) struggles and patriarchy in processes of securitisation. She emphasises how generational conflicts occur within particular post-diasporic contexts and how these conflicts are predominantly gender-based. The chapter shows how women, and especially young girls, turn into victims of representation rather than subjects in their own right as patriarchal relationships are reproduced in this struggle for religion and identity. The discussion in the next two chapters by Liu and Skjeie moves the discussion to the state or institutional level. Both authors, like Hom in Part I, address
the incorporation of international law in domestic law and the difficulties encountered. These difficulties are partly technical in character but mostly political. The two chapters also touch upon issues of priorities and hierarchies in (human) rights, and, yet again, how to gender mainstream (human) rights. Liu traces the history of CEDAW in China and the preparation to ratify the ICCPR. Although gender equality had been on the political agenda since 1949, the official rhetoric hides many unequal practices and traditional patriarchal values. Liu argues that the ratification and focus on ICCPR provides an important opportunity to promote gender equality in a Chinese context. He provides many insights into how gender issues have been addressed in domestic law and the limited but still important impact international law has had on domestic law that can be contrasted with Hom’s and Tan’s discussions in previous chapters. Skjeie focuses on somewhat similar issues as Liu but in a Norwegian context, as she discusses the interesting issue of how to understand international restrictions on state power and sovereignty. Skjeie exemplifies this with a case study of the Norwegian debate on the status of CEDAW in domestic legislation. Parts of the Norwegian legal establishment opposed incorporation of this convention in the Norwegian Human Rights Act – which is part of the Norwegian constitution – and preferred incorporation in the Gender Equality Act, which implied a less privileged legal status. Skjeie’s chapter also raises important issues related to the priorities or the hierarchy among different human rights. Why would certain human rights be incorporated into a domestic Human Rights Act while others, such as gender equality rights, would be left to other legislation? Another issue, also addressed by Kinnvall, is whether or to what extent rights, such as the freedom of religion or freedom from racial discrimination, can trump other rights such as gender equality, and what the relationship should be between different rights in cases of conflict. Skjeie points out the loophole that existed in Norwegian law which made it possible to discriminate against women when such discrimination could be rooted in religious conviction. Fortunately, it seems as if international critique and domestic efforts helped to push the centre-left government to amend the laws with the aim to reduce the space for religiousbased discrimination. After many years of debate, the Norwegian parliament in June 2009 finally voted to incorporate CEDAW in the Human Rights Act. The topics discussed in Part II show that the struggle for gender equality and women’s rights are complex and unfolding. New challenges in the wake of globalisation force us to rethink more traditional understandings of rights and citizenship. Although the socio-economic and political realities between China and the Nordic countries differ, transnational movements and the international human rights regime provide a platform for women activists the world over.
