Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women: Article 5
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/15
Article 5 States Parties shall take all appropriate measures: (a) To modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women;(b) To ensure that family education includes a proper understanding of maternity as a social function and the recognition of the common responsibility of men and women in the upbringing and development of their children, it being understood that the interest of the children is the primordial consideration in all cases.
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979)The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) becomes important circa 1979 and should have come far earlier in the history of the world. As has been covered in the previous 4 articles of the CEDAW, we can develop general theories about what has been considered acceptable in a historical context and what has now been seen as universally or mostly within the realm of the unspeakable with respect to the treatment of women, by men and, of course, by other women too.It is important to remember the role familial females play in the travesties around the world with non-consensual female genital mutilation. In Article 5, we can observe the continued emphasis on the states who are relevant to the document. This then carries forward in (a) into the relevant areas of the considerations of women’s equality within what is called “social and cultural patterns of conduct.”
In a sense, the social patterns overlap with the cultural patterns as culture is a set of patterns and the social life remains embedded in them. The social and cultural patterns considered together provide a sound foundation for the equality of the sexes conversation regarding the CEDAW as the document is intended to frame the thinking about the equality of women through not only the prevention but ultimately the elimination of violence against women.
As one reading prior related articles in this series, we can see a continual development of the ability of women to have formal national and international recourse for their protection from violence, and in particular gender-based violence. The means by which we can protect ourselves means that we can participate in all areas of a society without fear of injury or death because of who we are; in these cases, the fact of women being women becomes a basis for discrimination and violence.
It seems like a strange phrasing to even think of violence against the person on the basis of their sex to me, but it does not mean I can neglect the nature of the world and some of the – in Abrahamic terminology – fallen nature of human beings; where in the case of the female of the species, they undergo and have undergone centuries of violence against them simply for being women.
Thus within this context of a set of social and cultural patterns of the conduct of men and women, we are having a set of re-imaginings and, in fact, this creates a sense of terror as the dismantling of the systems of the past while, at the same time, providing something exhilarating where we can attempt to restructure and reimagine the forms of human relationships bounded by our natures.
With these modifications in the socio-cultural patterns, we can see the development of a more wholesome sense of life for everyone, whether atheist or theist or what-have-you; our natures bound us, but they do not by necessity have to bind us. As Article 5(a) states: Article 5 States Parties shall take all appropriate measures: (a) To modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women;Some can note the sensitivity to the changes or the ‘modifications’ in the social and cultural patterns of the conduct of men and women in either those who want the status quo or in those who would want the complete restructuring of the conducts based on some idealized version of the world.While both have merit in their attempts, their fundamental substructure should be reached but then tempered by one another with the sense of a need for change as the current systems were based in massive systems and epochs of scarcity; in the other, we need to bear in mind that we are not angelic or demonic beings but, rather, biologically bounded organisms in need of some modifications but only insofar as our biologically bounded natures permit of us.Within the context of the Golden Rule and the Utilitarian ethics set forth by John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, we can see the necessity of a reduction and eventual elimination of the prejudices against either of the sexes; furthermore, this should extend into the areas of customs and practices deeming by default the inferior or superior nature of either of the sexes or in either of the stereotypical gender roles for men and women.We see men working in the caring fields and making homes as a profession of sorts; we women entering into the scientific and other professional disciplines and simply eschewing having children altogether. Although, at some future point, the birth rate below replacement level will be a concern for the overall structural changes in societies, as we see in Western Europe and East Asia and some of North America. The work being done for structural change tends to be coinciding with some changes to the emphasis on getting to the coveted 2.1 replacement level birth rate around the advanced industrial economies where this is a concern.However, in the process of the working towards the equality of the sexes and furtherance of general gender equality, there can be a dual-emphasis on the relationship between the sexes not having an assumed inferior or superior status while at the same time rubbing up against the hard realities of our biological limitations and need to maintain a society with a sufficient number of people. The outmoded customs and practices of most cultures now seem more like window dressing on the ways in which human beings define themselves because of the deeply interconnected world in terms of social mores and cultural traditions in addition to – as Lee Kuan Yew would say – the multipolar world in which we find ourselves.No one can reign absolute, supreme, and without question; the simple fact of the matter is the great interconnectivity of the modern world provides the basis for seeing beyond the thin veil of socio-cultural contexts of individual human beings and, therefore, see the essential equality of everyone in rights, especially in regards to the alteration of the social and cultural patterns that may deem one sex or the other automatically better or worse, inferior or superior.Article 5(b) states:Article 5 States Parties shall take all appropriate measures: (b) To ensure that family education includes a proper understanding of maternity as a social function and the recognition of the common responsibility of men and women in the upbringing and development of their children, it being understood that the interest of the children is the primordial consideration in all cases.The family education should become part and parcel of an overall education on the nature of an individual human being. People who do not have this form of maternity as a social function education can appear uneducated or bereft of a proper and full education on the nature of a person and a family.That the responsibility to family and childcare, and homecare, comes not only in the relations beyond mother and child but also in the relation of the father and child; the family unit as a whole requires pluralistic roles for everyone with guardianship status. The nature of the relation of the sexes is changing, with those alterations comes a need to acknowledge the fundamental basis for agreement around the world with the CEDAW in the absolute need for responsibility of both mother and father for the healthy upbringing and overall wellbeing of the child.Furthermore, the best interest of the child becomes a “primordial consideration” and “in all cases,” which leaves most or all objections moot in the light of those final claims in Article 5. That fundamental responsibility to the child is paramount over mother or father, or to themselves, but to the child and so the family as a whole.This then connects to the first statements about the need for the fundamental equality of the sexes in not having one seen as inferior or superior, e.g., in the roles and responsibilities of parenting for the best interests of the child. –One can find similar statements in other documents, conventions, declarations and so on, with the subsequent statements of equality or women’s rights:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3 and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1993).
- Beijing Declaration(1995).
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 