Bio:
Jena McGill is a professor at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law and a graduate of the joint LLB/MA program offered by the University of Ottawa and the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University and the LLM program at Yale University Law School, where her graduate work focused on legal theory and emerging international norms related to sexual rights. Jena has worked at the United Nations International Law Commission in Geneva, Switzerland and has researched and written on international law topics including human rights, sexual exploitation and abuse in United Nations peacekeeping missions and sexual violence during conflict. Key publications include 'Survival Sex in Peacekeeping Economies: Re-Reading the Zero Tolerance Approach to Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse in United Nations Peace Support Operations' (2012) Journal of International Peacekeeping (forthcoming); 'What Have You Done for Me Lately? Reflections on Redeeming Privacy for Battered Women,' in Ian Kerr, Carole Lucock, and Valerie Steeves, eds, Lessons from the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society (USA: Oxford University Press, 2009) 157; and 'Discrimination by the Correctional Service of Canada Against Federally-Sentenced Aboriginal Women in Violation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women' (2008) 2 Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 89.
Title of paper:
'UN Women: Rhetorical Commitments or Equality-Based Change?'
Abstract:
In July 2010, following a period of intense lobbying led by the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) campaign, a network of over 300 women's, human rights, and social justice non-governmental organizations from around the world, the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to merge four existing UN bodies to create a new entity intended to hasten progress in meeting the needs of women and girls worldwide. The advent of UN Women has been deemed a success story for international feminism, and has been heralded by the UN as 'an historic step in accelerating the Organization's goals on gender equality and the empowerment of women.' This presentation will take a step back from the uncritical celebration of the GEAR campaign and UN Women to ask two related sets of questions about UN Women specifically and feminist engagement in international institutions more broadly: First, the discussion attempts to probe the creation, character, and potential consequences of the new UN entity. Does UN Women represent a transformation in the normative approach of the UN to gender equality? Is the creation of this new entity a turning point in the way that the UN 'does' gender equality in the international arena, or an entrenchment of the dominant gender mainstreaming approach? What are the risks/benefits of preserving the existing gender equality regime at the UN? Second, considering the broader question of feminist engagement in international institutions using the example of the GEAR campaign, the presentation will query the character and power of feminist ideas and engagement in international institutions like the UN. What work is feminism doing at the UN, and to what ends? Should feminists continue to engage in international institutions, or are the costs and compromises of institutional integration - including depoliticization and cooption - too great?