After two years of planning, Friday marked the beginning of a three-day conference, titled ‘Seeking Gender Justice Beyond The Beijing Conference: Reflections, Dialogue and Strategic Action,’ sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs’ Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs and headed by Linda Alcoff, the director of women’s studies.

Twenty-four esteemed scholars from all over the world participated in a round-table discussion addressing gender justice on a global level. The issues discussed at length included honor-killings, in which a man is bound by ‘honor’ to kill any woman of his family who commits a crime, the George W. Bush administration’s alleged manipulation of feminist arguments and the difference between human rights and women’s rights.

The main issue, however, which provided the backbone throughout the conference, was the difficulties in crafting transnational feminism, and devising potential alternatives for gender injustice.

‘Women in the United States cannot achieve liberation without making common cause with women around the world,’ said Alcoff. ‘This conference is about building solidarity.’

Payal Banerjee, a sociology graduate student on the panel, talked about how this issue affects the young women of America.

‘To an extent, students are no longer vested in these issues,’ said Banerjee. ‘This conference addressed how to talk to young American men and women about these things to bring some relevance to global issues in the classroom and to educate them on why they should be concerned with gender justice.’

While it may not seem an like issue to some students, many of the young men and women who attended the conference hailed from countries in which gender justice is an extremely relevant matter.

‘Some people are unaware of gender inequality,’ said Disha Tewari, an anthropology graduate student who attended the event. ‘I am from India, where you can really see the discrepancy between the two genders.’

It has been a while since women’s rights were on the minds of America’s young adults, but a global conscience is necessary for growing up in today’s world and it should once again become an issue, Banerjee said.

Published on September 17, 2005 at 12:00 pm