Embracing the Language of Human Rights

International Women's Organisations, Feminism and Campaigns Against the Marriage Bar, c .1919–1960

Bibliographic Data

ID12226196
AuthorsHelen Glew (0000-0002-3501-3261, School of Humanities, University of Westminster London UK, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume35
Issue3
Pages780-794
Publication date2023-05-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGender & History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0953-5233 • E-ISSN: 1468-0424
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-0424.12705
OpenAlexW4378627647
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited14

This article considers four international women's organisations – the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, the International Federation of University Women and the Open Door International – and their campaigns for the right of married women to undertake paid work. It examines how each organisation adopted and engaged with the language of human rights in the late 1920s and 1930s. It is argued that after 1948, precisely because of its formal adoption by the UN, the language of human rights became less usable as a way to make the point that women still faced inequalities, and so other framings became more significant. This article contributes to historiographies on international women's organisations, offers a detailed discussion of their activism against the marriage bar, and challenges the conventional chronology of the concept and language of human rights

Blueprint · Citizenship · Feminism · Human rights · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Suffrage · Engineering · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Law

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