CEDAW and Women’s Intersecting Identities: A Pioneering New Approach to Intersectional Discrimination

Abstract

CEDAW is committed to eliminating all forms of discrimination and achieving gender equality so that all women can exercise and enjoy their human rights. This article argues that this implicitly includes a commitment to understanding and addressing intersectional discrimination. Women experience disadvantage and discrimination based on their sex and gender and that is inextricably linked to other identities, factors and experiences such as a race and poverty. Under CEDAW, if sex and gender is one of the bases for the discrimination, it is necessary to examine how other identity and factors contribute to gender discrimination and inequality. The CEDAW Committee has been pioneering this approach in the General Recommendations, Individual Communications, Inquiry Procedure and Concluding Observations, but it has not been consistently applying this fluid and expansive approach. The article poses three complementary solutions to these inconsistencies: a transformative equality analytical framework, a General Recommendation on intersectionality and workshops and training for CEDAW Committee members.

Women's Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women: Unlocking the Potential of the Optional Protocol

“…The Committee explains 'the discrimination of women based on sex and gender is inextricably linked with other [identity characteristics] that affect women.' 64 If women experience discrimination that is rooted in their sex and/or gender and this intersects with other aspects of their identity or experiences and results in a denial of human rights, it is addressed through CEDAW 65. The Committee has used this approach to address the relationship between sex/gender and migrant status, statelessness, age, ethnic minority, disability and homelessness 66.…”

When Universalism Becomes a Bully: Revisiting the Interplay Between Cultural Rights and Women's Rights

“…Campbell has also criticized CEDAW for failing to 'capture the diversity of women'. 72 The Human Rights Committee also noted in General Comment 28 on article 3 that discrimination against women is often 'intertwined with discrimination on other grounds'. 73 In its General Recommendation 25, CERD also addressed the relevance of gender in racial discrimination 74 and committed to integrate gender analysis throughout their work.…”

Intersectionality, Race-Gender Subordination, and Education

“…Intersectionality has been somewhat more successfully incorporated into international human rights law and European Union (EU) law. With respect to international law, Campbell (2015) explains that the United Nations (UN) recognizes two "mainstream" human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These treaties contain antidiscrimination clauses that are phrased, like Title VII, in terms of a list of protected "grounds" or categories of discrimination.…”

“…A similar structure of multiple "grounds" articulated within antidiscrimination legislation has apparently retarded attempts to legally recognize intersectionality in Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom(Campbell, 2015).16Campbell (2015) explains,…”