United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Gender Equality: Heritage and Creativity 9 789231 000508 This publication is supported by Gender Equality Culture Sector United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Heritage and Creativity Published in 2014 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris 07 SP, France © UNESCO 2014 ISBN 978-92-3-100050-8 This publication is available in Open Access under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC-BY-SA 3.0 IGO) license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/). By using the content of this publication, the users accept to be bound by the terms of use of the UNESCO Open Access Repository (http://www.unesco.org/open-access/terms-use-ccbysa-en). The present license applies exclusively to the text content of the publication. 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Graphic design: Aurélia Mazoyer Copy-editing: Richard Lo Giudice (English) Translation: Chantal Connaughton (French) Printing: UNESCO/CLD Printed in France Gender Equality Heritage and Creativity ©UNESCO/ M.Ravassard Foreword by Irina Bokova Director-General of UNESCO t a time when States are defining the contours of the Convention for the Protection and Promotion of of the post-2015 development agenda, there the Diversity of Cultural Expressions – especially in least A is rising recognition of the role of culture in developed countries – have generated positive social promoting inclusive social development, in eradicating changes, such as enhancing gender equality through poverty and in advancing environmental sustainability. As cultural entrepreneurship. a driver and enabler of sustainable development, culture determines the way in which individuals and communities The key lesson is clear – we need to recognize women understand today’s world, and envisage and shape their and girls as agents of change within their communities future. Gender equality is an essential part of the equation and value their achievements. This must include post- for more inclusive and sustainable development. conflict situations, where we can draw on the leadership of women in rebuilding peace and in forging equitable A UNESCO Global Priority, gender equality refers to public policies. Building a better future for all requires the roles and responsibilities of men and women, along the full and equal participation of all women and men in with gender dynamics, created and embedded in the cultural sphere. As we move forward, every society families, societies and cultures. UNESCO’s approach to must support the empowerment of all of its citizens as promoting gender equality is based on a commitment to wellsprings for innovation and dynamism. cultural rights and cultural diversity, underpinned by the international human rights framework. From this angle, In this spirit, this publication provides a first global overview cultural diversity and human rights must be seen to be of the status of gender equality with regard to access, mutually beneficial, with gender equality as a precondition participation in and contribution to culture. Focusing on for genuinely people-centred development. This was the UNESCO’s mandate in the field of culture, the analysis argument that I brought to the 2014 Commission on the builds on United Nations reports and General Assembly Status of Women, where I joined other UN leaders in resolutions, including the 1998 Stockholm Conference highlighting the need to tackle all forms of discrimination Action Plan on Cultural Policies for Development, against women and girls, including through discriminatory UNESCO’s 1995 Our Creative Diversity, drafted by the laws, social norms, practices and stereotypes. In all World Commission on Culture and Development, as well development efforts, we must ensure that culture is never as responses to a questionnaire sent to all UNESCO invoked to justify the infringement on, or limitation of, Member States, and also case studies from across the human rights. world. I am confident that this will deepen understanding of the importance of gender equality to achieving both While there has been progress across the world, inequality human rights and development goals, and provide useful persists with regard to who participates in, contributes insight for creating new strategies for a gender-equal to and benefits from culture. I believe we must do far future beyond 2015. more to harness culture for the empowerment of women – for this, UNESCO’s standard-setting instruments provide a unique springboard. The implementation of the World Heritage and Intangible Heritage Conventions shows the importance of understanding gendered roles in safeguarding heritage and fostering dialogue and empowerment. Activities carried out in the framework ©OHCHR/Danielle Kirby Foreword by Farida Shaheed Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights t is a privilege to write this foreword to ‘Gender Equality, contribute to all aspects of cultural life on a basis of Heritage and Creativity’. As Special Rapporteur in the equality with men and boys. This includes the right to I field of cultural rights appointed by the United Nations equally determine and interpret cultural heritage; decide Human Rights Council, but also as an activist engaged in which cultural traditions, values or practices are to be kept defending women’s rights for more than thirty years, this intact; which are to be retained but modified, and which complex subject is particularly dear to me. I am therefore are to be discarded altogether. The right to participation delighted that UNESCO has released this important includes the right not to participate in any ritual, custom or report on Culture and Gender Equality. practice which contravenes the human dignity of girls and women, regardless of cultural justifications. Women and To start with, I want to stress that the tendency to view girls must enjoy the freedom to join, leave and re-join as culture as largely an impediment to women’s human well as create new communities of shared cultural values rights is over-simplistic. It is also problematic as it diverts around any markers of identity they want to privilege, attention from the specific actors, institutions, rules without fear of punitive actions, including any form of and regulations that keep women subordinated within violence. patriarchal systems and structures. The struggle for women’s human rights, and in particular As I underlined in my 2012 report to the General Assembly, cultural rights, is not against religion, culture, or tradition. on the enjoyment of cultural rights by women on a basis From the human rights perspective, the critical issue is not of equality with men, it is time for a paradigm shift: from whether and how religion, culture and tradition prevail over viewing culture as an obstacle to women’s rights to one of women’s human rights, but how to ensure that women ensuring women’s equal enjoyment of cultural rights. This own both their culture including religion and tradition, and shift is crucial because culture, manifested in individual their human rights. In practical terms, a key challenge is and collective self-expression, permeates all aspects of how to ensure women’s equal participation in discussions life and is inevitably gendered. Defining the parameters and decision-making on these issues and enable them to for social engagements, culture imposes the normative create new cultural meanings and practices. rules and roles for each gender and the penalties for transgressing these. Consequently, the realization of Culture is in constant motion and is always linked to cultural rights of women is pivotal to the realization of their power relations. Cultural rights must be understood as human rights in general. also relating to who in the community holds the power to define its collective identity. Belonging does not At present, gender-discrimination is so frequently confer equality within the community, and there can be defended by reference to culture, religion and tradition multiple views within a community as to the elements that that it seems safe to conclude that no social group has constitute the essentials of one’s culture. It is imperative suffered greater violation of human rights in the name of to ensure that all voices within a community, representing culture than women. For example, women are denied the the interests, desires and perspectives of diverse groups, right to vote, subjected to violence and customs that deny are heard without discrimination. them personhood, for instance, by being forcibly married (or denied the right to marry), being prevented from Discourses that essentialize cultures, presenting cultures earning, or disallowed freedom of movement, association as monolithic, static and ahistorical, must be vigorously and expression, all in the name of culture.