Frontiers of Gender Equality
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Rebecca Cook ed
University of Toronto
Frontiers of Gender Equality: Transnational Legal Perspectives (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) aims to enlarge our understanding of gender inequality and equality. Part I introduces discourses about the wrongs of gender inequality and explores different dimensions of equality and investigates the global forums where gender equality debates are ongoing. Part II examines how particular international and regional human rights treaties address the overt and covert nature of gender discrimination and how those forms of discrimination intersect with other axes of subordination, such as indigeneity, religion, and poverty, to create new forms of intersectional discrimination. Part III rethinks, and in some cases rewrites, specific court decisions and policy documents to achieve more robust forms of gender equality in different contexts. The conclusion takes stock of what has been accomplished and suggests areas of future research.
What inspired you to take up this project?
I had authored or co-authored many amicus briefs before national, regional and international courts, advocating for them to decide in favour of gender equality. Few of these courts were persuaded. That failure was a motivating factor in convening these authors to think together about how we could be more persuasive in our thinking and advocacy about substantive gender equality.
Whose work was influential on you throughout the project?
I was influenced by the various feminist rewriting projects because of how they use theory to rewrite court decisions. I was particularly inspired by the Women’s Court of Canada because of its aim to rewrite Canadian court decisions to envision a more fulsome gender equality (See ‘Rewriting Equality’, Canadian Journal of Women and the Law (2006) 18(1); (2018) 30(2)).
What challenges did you face in writing the book?
This book project had challenges and great rewards. The challenges were due to COVID causing some chapter authors to bow out, leaving gaps that had to be filled. We were supposed to meet in Toronto in the summer of 2020 to discuss draft chapters but COVID intervened. We resorted to three online workshops. We were greatly aided by a common Dropbox where we shared drafts and scholarship.
The rewards were working and learning with a remarkable group of authors with whom I continue to collaborate to breathe life into gender equality, to use Naina Kapur’s words.
What do you hope to see as the book’s contribution to academic discourse and constitutional or public law more broadly?
How theories of gender equality can inform doctrine and how the practice of gender equality law in various international, regional and national human rights and constitutional forums can better inform theory and doctrine. Some of the theories that are explored in the book include: Sophia Moreau’s chapter on the wrongs of gender inequality, Sandra Fredman’s chapter on dimensions of gender equality for women at work and Shreya Atrey’s prioritarian account of gender equality. These and other theories, such as intersectionality, are taken up in subsequent chapters illuminating how theories can inform practice in concrete situations.
In Part II of the book, we learn how the different human rights treaty systems are innovating substantively and procedurally. Regarding substance, Veronica Undurraga explores how the Inter-American Court of Human Rights is giving new meanings to transformative equality. Regarding procedure, Karin Lukas and Colm O’Cinneide explain how the collective complaint procedure of the European Social Charter moves from an individual victim-centered mode of redress to a mode of redress that allows civil society organizations to bring complaints that aim to address the underlying causes of discrimination.
The authors in Part III look back to move forward. For example, Marta Machado and Mariana Prado in their chapter, “Institutional Dimensions of Gender Equality”, draw on scholarship on institutional design to suggest how the Brazilian apex court might have more effectively addressed the uneven application of the Brazilian Law, known as the Maria da Penha Law, to secure equality in fact.
What’s next?
I hope Francisca Pou’s concluding chapter, “Taking Stock of Gender Equality” will inspire other scholars to examine diversifying and converging tendencies of gender equality law with a view to identifying, in her words, “those areas in need of additional normative discussion”.
I am teaching this year with the book, and have developed a syllabus, which is available to anyone who would like to use it or amend it. It can be found at https://frontiersofgenderequality.ca/.
This book is already being used to inform practice. For example, I am currently working with advocates on how to expose the gender dimensions of adolescent rape and sexual abuse by reading in ‘defilement status’ as a ground of discrimination, as Fareda Banda explores in her chapter “African Gender Equalities”.
I am collaborating with various chapter authors to think about how best to advance the frontiers of gender equality in different regions. For example, Mervat Rishmawi, the author of the chapter, “Advancing Gender Equality through the Arab Charter on Human Rights,” is organizing a hybrid webinar on Frontiers of Gender Equality in the Arab World hosted by the Arab Institute on Women of the Lebanese American University in Beirut. Scholars and activist from the region will comment on the book, with the aim of generating further scholarship on advancing the frontiers of gender equality in the Arab World. More generally, I hope the book and its reviews will inspire further scholarship on gender equality, as no one book can exhaust a subject as vast as gender equality.
Rebecca Cook is Professor Emerita and Co-Director, International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.
Frontiers of Gender Equality is available from University of Pennsylvania Press. Use the discount code COOK30 for a 30% discount.