The Fourth Article of Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/10
Article 4
1. Adoption by States Parties of temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women shall not be considered discrimination as defined in the present Convention, but shall in no way entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate standards; these measures shall be discontinued when the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment have been achieved.
2. Adoption by States Parties of special measures, including those measures contained in the present Convention, aimed at protecting maternity shall not be considered discriminatory.
Now, of the documents covered in the last week or so including 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, and the Istanbul Convention Article 38 and Article 39.
The purpose of the CEDAW or the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women is based on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. It is a set of independent experts who function as a body. That body is responsible for the monitoring of the implementation of the convention.
There are, internationally, 23 experts from around the world who have specializations in women’s rights. Inside of the convention, there are several instantiations, important ones, of women’s protections and the need for their equality.
Article 4 of the CEDAW contains two sub-sections representative of the equalities instantiated for women through adoptions by states parties. People signed onto this document, so remain bound to it; that means the adoptions cannot be ignored for the importance of the implementation of the rights. In reflection on the overall philosophy of the documents, we find the adoption by the representative and signatory nations an imperative to implement the documentation; while also acknowledging the fact of the lack of integration between the social contract underpinning of the documents and reality of their coming to fruition, especially as they pertain to the equality of women, the notion, at a minimum connected to general principles, comes to the fore in the representation of women in rights as equal to men but not in talents and temperaments for a start.
In Article 4(1), there exists he statements about the temporary measures for the acceleration of the equality between men and women. That does add some nuance to the discussion because not everyone agrees with the general conceptualization of seemingly imposed equality between the sexes.
In one sense, we find the imposition as an integral part to the equality of the sexes. Another sense seems to need to take into account the historical discrimination against women and how this has impacted progress right into the present and the ways in which women can be treated more as equals within the society through temporary measures to offset the impacts of those historical discriminations – only for them to be repealed because the counter-weight or opposition-balance has been set in motion through those temporary measures for the equality of women with men.
Those measures that can provide for the equality of women with men, as the equality is to have the means by which women can become equal with men – as delineated by Harriet Taylor Mill and John Stuart Mill decades ago. The notion of a reality is women as lesser than men for a long time and so the two trajectories continue on their trendline or due course of greater freedom but with the caveat or justification of women moving at a more rapid pace than men at present to indicate a greater tightening of the gap between men and women in general or overall – but, of course, some can note temporary declines or regresses in the equality of women with the men
The definitions of equality lay not only in other documents than the CEDAW but within this one itself, which leads to the genuine actualization from the paper presentation of equality of women with men.
To reiterate subsection (1) of Article 4:
Adoption by States Parties of temporary special measures aimed at accelerating de facto equality between men and women shall not be considered discrimination as defined in the present Convention, but shall in no way entail as a consequence the maintenance of unequal or separate standards; these measures shall be discontinued when the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment have been achieved.
The first sections of Article 4(1) seem covered in their considerations, but the next portions pertain to the potential misapprehension of these temporary measures as outright discrimination or unbalanced in the provisions of the rights for women against men; the purpose of the convention and the statements therein lie with the intention to create a basis for some ideals in civil societies for greater equality of the women with the men for the women to be able to gather apace with the men.
Women deserve equality. If the men across the board did not have the right to vote or to work, or in some manner went through ubiquitous and pervasive discrimination based on the fact of their being men, e.g. the draft, then this would equally apply to them if such a convention was broad-based; however, within much of the current conversation and the historical considerations, the case has been as such for most women most of the time.
The measures thus were given to women for further equality then shall not be considered “unequal or separate standards” as they are temporary and so by definition not indefinite articles but only permanent statements within the CEDAW for period-bound implementations. Then the measures once implemented will undergo processes of cessation and atrophy as the equality in both “opportunity and treatment” becomes closer to a reality and achieved for the women of the world or in particular States Parties.
Article 4(2) continues in a similar pathway of thinking:
2. Adoption by States Parties of special measures, including those measures contained in the present Convention, aimed at protecting maternity shall not be considered discriminatory.
The Convention or CEDAW is not to be considered a loose document. It is intended to provide a basis for the equality of the sexes through the provision of some protections, which are present in pervasive values around the world in international documents but also represented within specific stipulations of the CEDAW itself. The special measures unique to women and also represented in documents such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Those stipulations or parts of articlesésections devoted to the protection of biological female concerns with childbirth and so maternity. You can see Article 25 in full here but in particular 25(2):
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Motherhood amount to things “entitled to special care and assistance.” Similar or itemizing and same principle behind the statements in the CEDAW for the protection of maternity for women, the special care provisions for maternity. Whatever form and whenever time the provisions for special care and assistance are considered for women’s maternity concerns, the international community who are signatories to these documents are required and indeed obligated to help women in these areas.
Without such protections, women have a much harder time to work against the discriminations traditionally found in the state, the community, the religion, and in many families around the world because women are seen as chattel, as property, and lesser than men and even their male children, which becomes a particularly stark problem for the implementation of those rights for women when most of their leaders and the advisors to those leaders are men without knowledge and, in fact, acknowledgement of the difficulties and pains of maternity for many women.
Even the lightest of help with the discrimination that can happen with maternity for women, these can work towards the implementation of Article 4 of the CEDAW and in more general terms the notions of women’s equality as provided by the international consensus on a universalist ethic and in the Golden Rule in a Utilitarian Consequentialist ethic found in John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill.–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.
- The Istanbul Convention Article 38 and Article 39.
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
- 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).
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