Good Morning Heartache: International Law and the Global Challenges Facing Women
Oct. 30, 2014
By Amy Sessler Powell
In the torch song, "Good Morning Heartache," Billie Holiday sings:
“Good morning heartache, thought we said goodbye last night,
I turned and tossed 'til it seemed you had gone,
But here you are with the dawn.”
Some say the lyrics refer to a lover and others believe they relate to her struggle with heroin addiction, but Law Professor Fareda Banda sees the lyrics as a metaphor for the "two steps forward — one step back" pace of the global struggle for women’'s rights.
"You think things are getting settled. Huge progress is being made. Then you wake up, hear the news and learn that 493 million women still can't read," she said.
Prof. Banda studies the role that international human rights law can play in reducing discrimination against women around the world. She is the author of "Women, Law and Human Rights: An African Perspective," the leading text on the struggle for gender equality in Africa. She will address the tug-of-war that represents global women's rights when she delivers "Good Morning Heartache: International Law and the Global Challenges Facing Women," the Fifth Annual Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights on Nov. 9 at Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library, Brandeis University.
Uniquely qualified to speak on these topics, Banda is a leading international scholar on human rights and a professor of law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Currently a Hauser Global visiting professor at New York University School of Law, she has consulted to the United Nations and taught on three continents.
"There is no region in world where women enjoy de facto equality, but in most they do have de jure equality," Banda said.
What actually happens in every region of the world is quite a bit different than what the law promises. The gulf between the two relates in part to gender stereotyping and in part to a need to move toward transformative equality, to look beyond the law and focus on attitudinal change.
"What happens now is that people think we need law, but in most jurisdictions we have enough law guaranteeing women rights. On some issues, we need to stop making law and start practicing, enforcing and implementing laws we have," Banda said.
The laws give a starting point so women can make complaints, but law is not the only answer. Her lecture will look at normative gains — the body of important international legal work done in the last 20 years that protects women's rights and equates women's rights with human rights. But, she will also detail egregious violations in every region of the world. For example, the World Health Organization, in the 2013 report, noted that one in three women would experience violence in her lifetime.
The lecture will offer a "balance sheet, a state-of-the-union" showing examples such as progress in violence prevention and in greater participation by women in education, but areas where women are still being held back such as reproductive rights.
Dr. Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, director of the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law said, "Professor Banda brings to bear a deep understanding of the operation of domestic and international law and the practical challenges in implementing these rights. She also has a complex understanding, based on her study of law reform efforts across Africa, of the ways in which culture and tradition can be involved, to enable as well as to impede, legal change that will benefit women."
The Markowicz Lecture Series was created by the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law by Project Founder Sylvia Neil and her husband Dan Fischel in memory of Sylvia’s late sister, Diane, to honor her commitment to gender, equality and social justice. The series features internationally renowned scholars, judges, and activists discussing ways of negotiating the tensions between gender, equality and religious or cultural norms.
Amy Powell is the HBI Communications Director.