Women's Sex-Based Rights: What Does (& Should) the Future Hold? panel event, 5 June 2019

"Women's Sex-Based Rights: What Does (& Should) the Future Hold?" featured a distinguished panel of speakers including Julie Bindel, Rosa Freedman, Louise Moody, Sarah Pederson, Lucy Hunter Blackburn, and Claire Heuchan.

The Institute for Education, Teaching and Leadership invited discussion on the future for women's sex-based rights. Earlier this year, feminists from across the world launched a Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. The Declaration is premised on the belief that women’s rights, as enshrined in the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), are at risk and need to be reaffirmed. The writers of the declaration say that, “Recent changes replacing references to the category of sex, which is biological, with the language of ‘gender’, which refers to stereotyped sex roles, in United Nations documents, strategies, and actions, has led to confusion which ultimately risks undermining the protection of women’s human rights. The confusion between sex and ‘gender’ has contributed to the increasing acceptability of the idea of innate ‘gender identities’… ultimately leading to the erosion of the gains made by women over decades.”

With sexism and misogyny still sadly much in evidence, are the writers of the Declaration justified in their belief that women’s sex-based rights are potentially being undermined? What protections are still needed? And what can, and should, be done to reassert and protect those rights, globally and in Scotland? This multi-disciplinary panel considered future ways forward for women’s rights in a world of complex sex and gender relations.

Speakers:
Julie Bindel: Writer; co-founder of law-reform group Justice for Women
Professor Rosa Freedman: Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development, University of Reading
Claire Heuchan: Author and award-winning blogger
Lucy Hunter Blackburn: Policy analyst, MurrayBlackburnMackenzie
Dr Louise Moody: Research Associate, Philosophy, University of York
Professor Sarah Pedersen: Professor of Communication and Media, Robert Gordon University

Chair: Dr Gale Macleod, University of Edinburgh

2019