“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
– Article 1, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Introduction
Gender Justice will focus on issues and concepts related to gender expansion and liberation in various global contexts: past, present, and future. This intersection will inevitably strive to provide an intersectional perspective with attention to how complex dynamics of power and privilege work alongside (and within) gender to create both opportunities and barriers to human flourishing. To paraphrase Donna Haraway, Gender Justice will “stay with the trouble” inherent in bringing together a resource dedicated to rendering the best insights available to understand a complex, polyvocal, and multifaceted human identity.
The concept of guaranteeing equal rights and opportunities for all individuals, irrespective of gender, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity, is known as justice through a gendered lens. It is a complex issue that involves many factors, including:
- Access to justice: it is frequently impeded for women and girls by procedural, substantive, and cultural hurdles. For instance, women can be barred from the legal system or forced to use unofficial conflict settlement procedures.
- Equal rights in law: Equal legal rights are at the heart of gender justice, but they only have significance when the law is applied equitably by state actors.
- Transformative justice: Women should receive justice that transforms rather than only punishes the offender. In addition, it ought to be inclusive and take participation, agency, and results into account.
- Recognition, redistribution, and representation: These are essential elements of peace that is gender-just. For instance, women should be allowed to take part in transitional justice procedures and acknowledged as survivors and victims of conflict.
- Technology: Women’s pre-existing issues, such limited or insufficient access to technology, may be made worse by the use of technology for remote hearings.
- Unpaid care work: Women are frequently disproportionately responsible for providing unpaid care, which can leave them with little time for paid employment, education, and health care.
Conclusion
Every person’s gender is a part of who they are and affects every part of their lives. It is a complicated topic that spans numerous academic disciplines and intellectual domains. To address the underlying structural barriers that sustain gender discrimination and inequality, promoting and protecting gender justice requires not only the reform of discriminatory laws and policies but also efforts to combat harmful social norms and practices, institutionalized discrimination, lack of access to resources, services, and opportunities, as well as gender roles and stereotypes resulting from patriarchal power relations.