Course Description
The course will focus on US ratification of the United Nations treaty on women's rights, the Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, known as CEDAW. The United Nations adopted CEDAW in 1979; since then, 187 countries have ratified it. Countries that ratify CEDAW commit to an obligation to pursue “all available measures” to eliminate discrimination against women in all areas of life. The US is one of only 7 countries in the world that have not ratified this treaty—along with Iran, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Tonga. US failure to ratify CEDAW is surprising given the prominent role that the United States played in promoting women’s rights within the United Nations and in drafting the convention itself. US failure to ratify CEDAW is not for lack of trying: the US Senate has held hearings on CEDAW ratification five times—in 1988, 1990, 1994, 2002, and 2010. CEDAW enjoys both strong support and strong opposition in the United States. The course will examine broader questions about gender and American politics by looking through the lens of the history and politics surrounding CEDAW. We will examine the history of women’s rights within the UN, the development of the treaty, US efforts to ratify it, and what impact it would likely have in the US if it were ratified. In this class you will engage in close and critical readings of assigned texts, demonstrate an understanding of the kinds of claims that authors make about the ways in which gender is or has been relevant to American politics and critically evaluate the kinds of evidence they provide to support those claims, and conduct research and write research papers on various questions related to CEDAW. Our aim will be to produce papers that inform public debate and contribute to the academic literature.
Click the link below to view the syllabus for this course: Syllabus UN Treaty and Its Critics