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Title of Thesis Perplexities of the Personal and the Political How Women’s Liberation Became Women’s Human Rights Valgerður Pálmadóttir Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies Umeå 2018 This work is protected by the Swedish Copyright Legislation (Act 1960:729) Dissertation for PhD ISBN: 978-91-7601-947-4. Cover illustrations: “When the photographer arrived, these women were undermining the patriarchy” and “Everywhere she went, there was a conference” by Björg Sveinbjörnsdóttir. Composition: In house Umeå University. Electronic version available at: http://umu.diva-portal.org/ Printed by: Umeå University Printing Service Umeå, Sweden 2018 To my family Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ......................................................................... v 1. Introduction ................................................................................ 1 Subversive Stories ...................................................................................................... 1 UN Conference on Women Provokes a Grassroots Response .................................4 New Strategies: Advocating for Women’s Human Rights at the UN .....................6 From Anger to Compassion .......................................................................................9 Aims of the Study and Research Questions ................................................................... 13 Selection of sources ........................................................................................................ 15 Dissertation Outline ...................................................................................................... 20 Methodological Perspectives .......................................................................................... 21 History of Ideas and Genealogy .............................................................................. 21 Narratives and Threads.......................................................................................... 23 Theoretical Perspectives .................................................................................................25 Conflict or Consensus ...............................................................................................25 Politics and Human Rights ..................................................................................... 28 The Janus face of Justice.......................................................................................... 31 Testimony and Politics .............................................................................................33 Testimonies, Stories and Politics ............................................................................ 36 The Narrated Self and Politics................................................................................ 38 Research Context ........................................................................................................... 39 Human Rights Critique ........................................................................................... 40 Conflicting Narratives about the ‘Second Wave’ .................................................... 47 2. Genealogies and the Search for Commonalities .......................... 53 The Russell Tribunal....................................................................................................... 53 The Virtue of the Powerless ..................................................................................... 55 Global Consciousness at the Turn of the 20th Century................................................. 60 Infrastructure: Facilitating International Activism and Lobbyism ..................... 61 Universalism and the Search for Common Denominators .................................. 64 White Slavery and Storytelling .............................................................................. 66 The Human Rights Turn: A Common Language ........................................................... 73 3. The Brussels Tribunal: “The Start of a Radical Decolonization of Women” ....................................................................................... 81 Ideas and Organization ................................................................................................. 82 Global Speak-Out .................................................................................................... 86 Women’s Liberation as de-Colonization ................................................................ 89 Testimonies and Authenticity .................................................................................. 91 Discussing Power .................................................................................................... 93 Controversies over Method ......................................................................................95 Notions of the Political and the Personal at the Brussels Tribunal ............................. 99 Transcending Politics .............................................................................................. 99 Political Awakening and Empowerment .............................................................. 101 i Politics as Structural Violence ............................................................................... 103 From Self-Blame to Anger ..................................................................................... 105 The ‘Personal’ as Private and Authentic ............................................................... 107 Mexico – “Where Governments spoke, not Individuals” .....................................108 4. Women’s Liberation Theoretically Contextualized .................... 111 Feminist Politics and the Private-Public Distinction ................................................... 111 Politics and Therapy ..................................................................................................... 113 Thinking about Feminist Politics with Arendt ............................................................ 118 5. The Vienna Tribunal: “They have the Power to be heard” ..........122 Demanding Accountability from the International Community ................................ 122 Background: Leadership and Strategizing in New Brunswick .......................... 124 Translating Feminism into a Human Rights Language ..................................... 125 Raising Public Awareness ..................................................................................... 127 The Vienna Tribunal on Women’s Human Rights ............................................... 131 The Double-edge of Right(s) Strategies ....................................................................... 133 6. The Human Rights Turn of Global Feminism Theoretically Contextualized .............................................................................136 Literature, Empathy and Human Rights Consciousness ............................................ 136 Gaining a Voice in Something Larger: Memoirs from an Activist ........................... 138 A Coming of Age Story ........................................................................................... 139 “Remold Feminism and Make it More Viable” ..................................................... 140 Bunch’s Ideas on Women’s Abuse, Human Rights and Politics ........................... 142 MacKinnon and the Question of Humanity ................................................................ 144 Compassion and Poetic Justice .................................................................................... 146 Women’s Human Rights and the United Nations ....................................................... 151 7. Consciousness raising Theoretically Contextualized .................. 154 People’s Tribunals as Consciousness-raising practices............................................... 154 Conflicts Concerning the ‘Politics of the Self’ .............................................................. 156 Gender: An Ideological Consent ............................................................................ 161 Gender: The Objectifying Look.............................................................................. 162 Consciousness raising as a Search for Identity .................................................... 164 Against Theory .............................................................................................................. 166 The Pro-Woman Line – Women are not Brainwashed ....................................... 167 8. Concluding Discussion ............................................................. 171 Politics of People’s Tribunals: “We are Not Judges, We are Witnesses” .....................171 Contexts: A change of Scene demands a Change of Script .................................. 173 Witnesses and Political Subjects .................................................................................. 175 Crisis in the Relationship between Theory and Practice? ................................... 177 Feminist Success Stories and the Risk of Co-optation ......................................... 181 Was Feminism Hijacked? ...................................................................................... 185 The Affective Power of the Personal Story ........................................................... 187 Enkel sammanfattning på svenska .............................................. 190 References ...................................................................................193
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