Gender and Human Rights

Expanding Concepts

Elgar Studies in Human Rights

Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko, Senior Lecturer, Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland

This unique book analyses the impact of international human rights on the concept of gender, demonstrating that gender emerged in the medical study of sexuality and has a complex and broad meaning beyond the sex and gender binaries often assumed by human rights law. The book illustrates which dynamics within the field of human rights hinder the expansion of the concept of gender beyond binaries and which strategies and mechanisms allow and facilitate such an expansion.

‘Yahyaoui Krivenko's compelling analysis reveals just how structurally embedded international human rights law’s (mis)understanding of gender, as male/female duality and biological fact, is. This not only restricts law’s capacity to fully comprehend how gender hierarchies impact on the enjoyment of human rights, but also implicates human rights law itself in perpetuating gendered harms. Yahyaoui Krivenko's call for disrupting this damaging gender script, and the openings she identifies as places to start, present a challenge to us all.’
– Dianne Otto, The University of Melbourne, Australia