In Frontiers of Gender Equality, editor Rebecca Cook enlarges the chorus of voices to introduce new and different discourses about the wrongs of gender discrimination and to explain the multiple dimensions of gender equality. This volume demonstrates that the wrongs of discrimination can best be understood from the perspective of the discriminated, and that gender discrimination persists and grows in new and different contexts, widening the gap between the principle of gender equality and its realization, particularly for subgroups of women and LGBTQ+ peoples. Frontiers of Gender Equality provides retrospective views of the struggles to eliminate gender discrimination in national courts and international human rights treaties. Focusing on gender equality enables comparisons and contrasts among these regimes to better understand how they reinforce gender equality norms. Different regional and international treaties are examined, those in the forefront of advancing gender equality, those that are promising but little known, and those whose focus includes economic, social, and cultural rights, to explore why some struggles were successful and others less so. The book illustrates how gender discrimination continues to be normalized and camouflaged, and how it intersects with other axes of subordination, such as indigeneity, religion, and poverty, to create new forms of intersectional discrimination. With the benefit of hindsight, the book's contributors reconstruct gender equalities in concrete situations. Given the increasingly porous exchanges between domestic and international law, various national, regional, and international decisions and texts are examined to determine how better to breathe life into equality from the perspectives, for instance, of Indigenous and Muslim women, those who were violated sexually and physically, and those needing access to necessary health care, including abortion. The conclusion suggests areas of future research, including how to translate the concept of intersectionality into normative and institutional settings, which will assist in promoting the goals of gender equality.
Rebecca J. Cook is Professor of Law Emerita at the University of Toronto.
"This is a substantive publication, whose primary task is to analyze international and regional human rights treaty legislation designed to eliminate gender discrimination and to secure gender equality. Divided into three parts, the publication presents a series of very thoughtful essays from a number of renowned legal experts on (a) what is gender equality; (b) how human rights treaty systems can advance the case of gender equality better; and (c) how can the concept of gender equality evolve continually to meet new social realities?..." (New York Journal of Books) "[A] solid account and does well to touch upon developments in recent years. Authors illustrate their theories on inequality and discrimination with the experiences of, for example, transgender women athletes, indigenous women and water access, the under-representation of women in clinical research and the spike in domestic violence during the COVID-19 lockdown. The book therefore offers newcomers a foundational text while for others, it is a thought-provoking addition to the scholarship, with reconfigured theories on how to strengthen the institutional structures, both internationally and domestically, that have been designed to protect rights and particularly for those individuals currently left behind. " (Asian Journal of Internaitonal Law) "Frontiers of Gender Equality is required reading for those wanting to learn about the evolution of gender equality law and where additional analysis is warranted to secure the democratic ideals of gender equality." (from the Foreword by Cecilia Medina Quiroga, Former Judge, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and former member and Chair, the UN Human Rights Committee)
