Description
Women of the world want to rescue the spirit of the law in the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women -CEDAW, to truly serve women. CEDAW helps us ensure the full development, advancement, and fundamental freedoms of women. It also offers us the keys to understanding why and how we are discriminated, as well as the types of measures needed to achieve equality between women and men. This video informs and offers practical tools for decision makers, policy makers, judges, media, authorities and society as a whole. We are grateful to all the women who have advanced women’s rights in law and practice.
Chapters
1. Women Challenge you to use CEDAW
2. Discrimination on the Basis of Sex
3. Sex and Gender
4. Violence Against Women
5. Equality Between Women and Men
6. Substantive Equality
7. Measures to Achieve Equality
Transcript
1. Women Challenge you to use CEDAW
For centuries, we have been subordinated as women, constrained by sociocultural norms and stereotypes.
Wall scene reads:
- Breast ironing, honor killings, marry your rapist, dowry deaths, infanticide
- Crimes of passion, foot binding, torture, witch trials, stoning
- No inheritance, forced marriage, slavery, chastity belt
- No contraception, no property, no divorce, no voting, no professions
- No interruption of pregnancy, no maternity rights, no pension, no political participation, no holding office
- Reproductive exploitation, online harassment, pornography, prostitution
Many of us have fought tenaciously to advance our rights—despite a clearly unequal context.
Books and documents under Women’s Rights that transforms to Men’s Rights, read:
- Declaration of Women’s Rights
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 1949 Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others
- Commission for the Status of Women (CSW)
- Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
- CEDAW Committee General Recommendation No. 19
- Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women
- Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women (Belém do Pará)
- Protocol to the African Charter of Human and Peoples Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol)
- SRVAW Report on Prostitution and Violence Against Women
We would think our situation has improved significantly. Yet, we now find ourselves in a world where even the very word that defines us, is being contested, redefined, and at times, erased. In this climate of appropriation, renaming, and distortion, many of us feel overwhelmed and uncertain, our advocacy diluted and even undermined.
Added to this, we experience how global cultural practices and profit-driven industries systematically exploit women on a massive scale today.
Balloons Read:
- Beauty and Fashion Industry
- Sex Reassignment
- Porn Industry
- Surrogacy
- Sex Industry
These industries mask exploitation under the rhetoric of free choice, consent, and rebranded stereotypes, while simultaneously profiting from the commodification of women’s biology.
Prostitution Scene reads:
- Cam Girl on Call
They deny harm to women, and normalize men’s entitlement to women’s bodies.
Newspapers read:
- Women Joins Marathon: on Kathrine Switzer running the men-only Boston Marathon for the first time in 1967
- Laurel Hubbard, first openly “transgender woman” to compete in the Olympic Games in 2021.
As a result, once again we are loosing our human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Signs of suffragette march read:
- I am a woman, why don’t I count?
- Votes for Women
- A Woman’s place is in the house… and the Senate!
- Taxation without Representation is Tyranny
- Equal Rights for Women!
- All Men are Created Equal and Women Too!
- The Ballot is a Matter of Liberty
- Deeds Not Words
Signs of 2025 march read:
- No Man has the right to a Womans Space!
- Safeguarding is not hate!
- Protect Womens Sports, Sex Matters
- Sex not Gender
- Women are not a feeling
- My sex is not a costume!
Women of the world want to rescue the spirit of the law in the UN CEDAW Convention, to truly serve women. CEDAW helps us ensure the full development, advancement, and fundamental freedoms of women. It also offers us the keys to understanding why and how we are discriminated.
2. Discrimination on the Basis of Sex
Discrimination on the basis of sex occurs when laws, policies, or practices exclude or restrict women from enjoying their human rights.
Discrimination may be direct. Or may be indirect—where a seemingly neutral policy results in disadvange to women in practice.
3. Sex and Gender
In CEDAW, Sex refers to the biological differences between women and men.
Book pages, read
Sex Female (Egg), Male (Sperm)
Differences related Sex, read:
- Chromosomes
- Gene Expression
- Gonadal Tissue
- Hormone Production
- Genital Morphology
- Height and Weight
- Muscle Mass and Bone Density
Gender: Feminine / Masculine
Gender, on the other hand, refers to socially constructed roles and stereotypes that systematically disadvantage women, reinforcing power imbalances that favour men.
These terms cannot be used interchangeably.
4. Violence Against Women
Violence against women, is any act of violence directed at a woman because she is a woman or that disproportionately affects women. It includes physical, mental, or sexual harm, as well as coercion, threats, and restrictions on liberty.
Scenes read:
- Female Genital Mutilation
- Sex-Selective Abortion
- Domestic or Intimate Partner Violence
Violence against women also extends to laws or practices that under the guise of tradition, culture, religion, or a fundamentalist ideology, justify the subjugation of women to men.
Document reads:
Education, Travel, Driving, Public Speaking for Women: Banned
Most acts of violence against women, are perpetrated by men.
5. Equality Between Women and Men
While they have biological differences, women and men are born equal in dignity and rights.
States must uphold this equality in law and practice, both in the public and private sphere.
When referring to women, all human females and their specific realities are included.
Scene reads:
It’s a boy! – It’s a girl!
6. Substantive Equality
True equality means equality of results for women. CEDAW calls it substantive equality. To achieve it we need to:
a. Eliminate direct and indirect discrimination against women.
Sign reads: Harassment is prohibited
b. Repeal unjust laws and policies.
Document reads: Education, Travel, Driving, Public Speaking for Women: Allowed
c. Address historical discrimination and unequal power.
Signs read: Vote for Change, Elected, Victory, We Won!
d. Ensure biologically related needs of women are met.
Signs read:
- Women’s Clinic, Abortion, Contraceptives, Family Planning
- Perimenopause, Understanding Menopause, 10 Common Symptoms
e. Protect the status of maternity.
Email on phone reads: New Maternity Policy: Job Protection, Paid Leave, On-site Daycare
f. Eliminate harmful stereotypes and violence against women.
Sign reads: Police Department. Buying Sexual Acts is a Crime. Other sexual crimes: trafficking for sexual exploitation, Sexual Harassment, Rape.
g. Provide equal opportunities and ensure development of our full potential.
7. Measures to Achieve Equality
Several types of measures are necessary to achieve substantive equality. Lets take for instance, judges of a Supreme Court.
a. General measures will improve fundamental human rights in areas such as education, health, employment, freedom of expression, among others.
b. Temporary special measures will correct the consequences of past and present discrimination and are discontinued once equality is achieved for women and girls, such as quota systems, preferential treatment, and targeted support.
Document reads: List of Female Judges
c. Differentiated measures will address needs related to women’s biological differences.
Signs read: Onsite Daycare, Courtrooms, Female only, Men, Judges Office
Importantly, these measures do not constitute discrimination against men.
We challenge you to use CEDAW to truly serve women of the world.
Sources:
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)
- CEDAW Committee General Recommendations No. 19 (1992), 24 (1999), 25 (2004), 28 (2010), 38 (2020)
- Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (1993)
- Reports on Prostitution (2024), Sex based Violence (2025), Surrogacy (2025), the Concept of Consent and Violence Against Women (2025), UN Special Rapporteur on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Reem Alsalem
