Congratulations to Joanna N. Erdman and Mariana Prandini Assis, whose chapter “Gender Equality in Health Care: Reenvisioning CEDAW General Recommendation 24″ (“Women and Health”) is now published in the new book, Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives, edited by Prof. Rebecca J. Cook (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023), and also online here in Portuguese translation, as published by the Brazilian law journal Revista Direito e Práxis. Joanna Erdman is the MacBain Chair in Health Law and Policy at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Mariana Prandini Assis is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Goiás, in Brazil, and a co-founder of the Margarida Alves Collective for People’s Legal Aid.

Their reenvisioning of CEDAW General Recommendation 24, (“Women and Health”) appears in Part III of the book, “Looking Back to Move Forward,” and serves as one of the two chapters that seek to improve reproductive and sexual health law by analyzing and rewriting official pronouncements from the past.

We are therefore pleased to circulate the authors’ abstract of their analysis and radical rewriting of CEDAW’s 1999 guidance document, along with the Table of Contents of the entire book, Frontiers of Gender Equality, which links to abstracts of every chapter (including chapter 20, which also concerns reproductive health).

Joanna N. Erdman and Mariana Prandini Assis, “Gender Equality in Health Care: Reenvisioning CEDAW General Recommendation 24,” In Rebecca J. Cook, ed., Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023).

Abstract: Article 12 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) carries the specific promise to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women in the field of health care. Written in 1999, General Recommendation 24 (GR 24) interprets this article within a particular gender equality paradigm that over time has been subject to critique and that today invites a rewriting. We pursue this project by engaging with the sex and gender essentialism of GR 24 to rework the category of “women” under Article 12, and to thereby rewrite what it means to “eliminate discrimination against women” in health care “on a basis of equality of men and women.” We then turn to the neglect of the political economy of health and its institutions in GR 24 to rewrite what it means to eliminate discrimination against women “in the field of health care” to ensure “access to health care services.” In this interpretation of Article 12, we reimagine sex and gender from the experiences of those who live them and seek to recreate the institutional structures of state and economy from the lives of those who experience them. We thus pivot away from a traditional alliance between the right to health and the fields of medicine and public health, which has tended to isolate health from other public goods in economic and social life and frame the field of health care as a site for the building of gender-just societies. In this radical rewriting of GR 24, we reimagine the political form and function of general recommendations in international human rights law, and in that political vision, we propose text for a future general recommendation on gender equality in health care under Article 12 of CEDAW.

PORTUGUESE EDITION of this chapter
Igualdade de Gênero nos Cuidados de Saúde: Reimaginando a Recomendação Geral 24 da CEDAW, Joanna N. Erdman and Mariana Prandini Assis. Rev. Direito e Práxis,, Rio de Janeiro, Vol.14, N.04, 2023, p.2770-2804, a Portuguese translation of Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives, Chapter 16: Portuguese edition online.

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK: ”Many Paths to Gender Equality,” by Rebecca J. Cook, in Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives, is NOW ONLINE HERE.
—————————————————————————————————————–
FRONTIERS OF GENDER EQUALITY:
TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PERSPECTIVES
ed. Rebecca J. Cook
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

Foreword by Cecilia Medina Quiroga

Introduction: Many Paths to Gender Equality Full text online.
by Rebecca J. Cook .

Part I. UNDERSTANDING GENDER INEQUALITY AND EQUALITY

1. Faces of Gender Inequality
by Sophia Moreau. Abstract online.

2. Challenging the Frontiers of Gender Equality: Women at Work
by Sandra Fredman. Abstract online.

3. A Prioritarian Account of Gender Equality
by Shreya Atrey. Abstract online.

4. Queer Rights Talk: The Rhetoric of Equality Rights for LGBTQ+ Peoples
by Daniel Del Gobbo. Abstract online.

5. CEDAW Reservations and Contested Equality Claims
by Siobhán Mullally. Abstract online.

6. Gender Equality and the Sustainable Development Goals:
Discursive Practices in Uncertain Times
by Marieme S. Lo. Abstract online.

Part II. ADVANCING GENDER EQUALITY THROUGH HUMAN RIGHTS TREATIES

International Treaties
7. Fifty Years On: The Curious Case of Intersectional Discrimination
in the ICCPR, with a Postscript, by Shreya Atrey. Abstract online.

8. Like Birds of a Feather? ICESCR and Women’s Socioeconomic Equality
by Meghan Campbell. Abstract online.

9. Gender Equality Untethered? CEDAW’s Contribution to Intersectionality
by Loveday Hodson. Abstract online.

Regional Treaties
10. Gender Equality in the European Court of Human Rights
by Stéphanie Hennette Vauchez Abstract online

11. Gender Equality within the Framework of the European Social Charter
by Karin Lukas and Colm Ó Cinnéide. Abstract online.

12. Transformative Gender Equality in the Inter-American System of Human Rights
by Verónica Undurraga. Abstract online.

13. African Gender Equalities,
by Fareda Banda. Abstract online.

14. Advancing Gender Equality through the Arab Charter on Human Rights
by Mervat Rishmawi. Abstract online.  Executive Summary in English.
Panel discussion held Oct 9, 2023.

Part III. LOOKING BACK TO MOVE FORWARD
15. Breathing Life into Equality: The Vishaka Case
by Naina Kapur. Abstract online.

16. Gender Equality in Health Care:
Reenvisioning CEDAW General Recommendation 24
by Joanna N. Erdman and Mariana Prandini Assis.
Portuguese translation of article. Abstract online in English.

17. Equality for Indigenous Women: McIvor v. Canada
by Cheryl Suzack. Abstract online.

18. Gender Equality and the Scope of Religious Freedom in S.A.S. v. France
by Ilias Trispiotis. Abstract online.

19. Institutional Dimensions of Gender Equality: The Maria da Penha Case
by Marta Rodriguez de Assis Machado and Mariana Mota Prado.
Portuguese translation. Abstract online in English.

20. Restoring Mai Mapingure’s Equal Citizenship
by Charles G. Ngwena and Rebecca J. Cook. Abstract online.

Conclusion. Taking Stock of Gender Equality
by Francisca Pou Giménez. Abstract online.

Table of Cases
Table of Legislation, Treaties, and Other Relevant Instruments
Notes
Index
Contributors
Acknowledgments

FRONTIERS OF GENDER EQUALITY: TRANSNATIONAL LEGAL PERSPECTIVES, Ed. Rebecca J. Cook, (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) Purchase options: North and South America, Rest of the World
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Contributed by: The International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca.   See Program website for our Publications,  Research resources, and Reprohealthlaw Commentaries Series.  TO JOIN THE REPROHEALTHLAW BLOG: enter your email address in the upper right corner of this blog, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 4th, 2024 at 11:59 am and is filed under CEDAW, Resources, United Nations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.