Womens Rights in the USA Versus South Africa - Research Paper Example

 OUTLINE: THESIS/TOPIC – A comparative assessment of Women’s rights in the United States and South Africa. I. Nature of the Problem: * Gender inequality still prevalent, although it is worse in developing countries * Framework of the law may itself need to be changed, because there is reluctance on the part of the international community to address the issue of rights for women II. Gender Inequality in the two countries: * Domestic violence in the United States and failure to address measures for litigation of such offences * Tort law unable to address sexual harassment, no clear distinction between rape and consent. * In South Africa, problems arise due to the firm adherence to a patriarchal society. * Practices such as genital mutilation and male primogeniture still prevalent. III. Dynamics of the problem: * The Constitutions of both countries advocate equal rights for women * In practice, limiting the cultural context within which the legislation is still producing an unsatisfactory result for women, ex, the case of Rylands v Edros. * In the United States, cases such as Roe v Wade and United States v Virginia have improved the rights of women to some extent, but significant limitations still exist. IV. Solution to the Problem: * The problem may lie in the framework of the law, which is malecentric. * To ensure true equality, the scope of women’s rights needs to be expanded * The firm entrenchment of the patriarchal system must be dealt with, because it is the causal factor for violations to women’s rights. -------------------------- The nature of the problem: Gender inequality is one of the problems that are still prevalent throughout the world, although it may be comparatively worse in the developing countries as compared to the developed countries. Feminists have challenged the very framework of the law as being geared towards serving a male oriented view which does not support the problems faced by women. Through the application of legal principles based on those advanced by Rawls, which forms the cornerstone of jurisprudence, most of the problems faced by women, such as domestic violence or rape are relegated to a sphere of law that is deemed to be private, where the arm of the law cannot reach. Lori Heise has pointed out a consistent argument that women have been putting forth, i.e, the human rights community is always ready to increase the boundaries of State responsibility to accommodate the concerns of men, but when “it comes to the systematic violation of women’s bodies and minds, suddenly the hands of the international community are tied.(Heise, 1995, p 1208). Cook contends that as a general principle, States have either failed to or refused to accept the human rights violations that are being suffered by some individuals simply because they are female and the problems they suffer from, such as rape or intimate partner violence are considered to belong to a private realm where the law has no right to interfere. The problems of violence against women and a failure to uphold their rights to the extent that the human rights of other groups are prevalent in almost all countries of the world, even a developed nation such as the United States. The objective of this study is to examine the issue of women’s rights and to assess how well they have been applied in two countries – the United States and South Africa. The nature and extent of violation of women’s rights currently existing in both countries will be examined, followed by the dynamics of the problem and possible means of resolution. The nature and extent of gender inequality in the two countries: Violence against women is a violation of their fundamental human rights and is as common in the United States as it is in South Africa, where such violence against women is often perpetrated in the name of religion. Most of the violence against women in the United States is perpetrated by intimate partners and the feminist ideology propelling this belief views patriarchy as one of the fundamental causes for violence being perpetrated against women.(Brownmiller, 1975). Based upon findings from a national Violence Against Women Survey and U.S. census data, it has been estimated that annually, about 1.3 million women in the United States is physically assaulted by an intimate partner and over 200,000 women raped by an intimate partner.(Tjadden and Thoennes, 2000). Although the United States of America is a developed country, violence against women is still commonplace. Senator Joseph Biden has condemned the high rate of violence against women that exists in America and is of the view that America as a nation, has for too long, failed to grasp either the scope or the seriousness of the violence that takes place against women.(Biden, 1993). The United States led the discussions in the campaign for women’s rights which culminated in the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. The Beijing Declaration clearly stated at paragraph 14 that “women’s rights are human rights” (www.un.org) But it is significant to note that in terms of the Beijing Declaration, the United States never “formally acceded to any of the international enforcement mechanisms that allow for litigation of domestic violence complaints against the State.” (Culliton, 1993, p 510). In ratifying international agreements on human rights, Culliton (1993) points out that the United States often includes reservations to such international treaties which specify that the Treaty in question must be compatible with domestic or constitutional law and the grounds appear to be that some of the provisions in such treaties may conflict with U.S. constitutional law. The net result of such a policy in practice is that existing gender biases may continue to be propagated, with the means for redressal remaining limited, especially for women who are victims of domestic violence and other kinds of harassment. As pointed out by Mackinnon, a failure to redress the rights of women in respect to their sexuality results in a failure to address the root cause of many of the problems women face. She offers the view that women who become victims of sexual oppression tend to accept the dominant male beliefs in order to be able to survive, and this produces a lack of self respect within them that makes resistance almost impossible. (Mackinnon, 1987). The situation for women is worsened by the fact that adequate redress is not available under the law. She has highlighted the inability of tort law to address the problem of sexual harassment and the difficulty in registering it as an employment related social injury issue (MacKinnon, 1979:164-170). A tort may be actionable in an instance where a moral wrong has occurred, however sexual harassment is an intensely personal matter that falls into the private sphere where individual nature and ideas dictates the nature of sexual activity, therefore the emphasis placed upon individual moral injury in tort undermines the fact that sexual harassment is in fact a social injury. Compounding the difficulties of the law in finding for the woman in a case of sexual harassment is the fact that the perception of what exactly constitutes offensive conduct may be different for different people. Moreover, courts are also reluctant to be unfair to men. Estrich has pointed out how criminal law in the United States fails to make an effective distinction between sexual coercion and consent in the matter of rape (Estrich, 1986:1087-1184). She has dealt with the issue of her own rape and then examined various studies in order to show that in the eyes of the law as it currently exists requires that a sufficient level of resistance that must be demonstrated, other wise it fails as coercion and qualifies as consent. The level of resistance required is measured from a male perspective, so that a simple no fails to be a lack of consent and a man may override it and the law will construe it as consent from the woman. All this suggests that women’s rights have not yet been fully achieved, even in the United States. In the case of South Africa, violence perpetrated against women is often on grounds of religion, culture of linguistic group, due to the long history of apartheid that the country has gone through (Giliomee, 1989). The practice of apartheid in effect, made the rights of the Afrikaneers almost negligible, so that the basic identity and self preservation of the black race itself was challenged and the specific violations against women were accorded less priority in the general scheme of fighting for rights. Apartheid regimes used cultural differences as a means to legitimize White rule, but in a desire to appease local leadership, traditional chefs were given the power to apply tribal law in the case of black South Africans. This essentially placed women from these races outside the framework of the law. Dubow (1987, p 71,72) points out that the Black Afrikaners were regarded as a child like race that needed the firm and benevolent guidance of the White race. As a result, European laws were imposed by the State to the extent that they were considered essential to deal with those elements of tribal rule that were considered repugnant to British morality. But most matters pertaining to local laws, including several issues related to women, such as marriage, divorce and property were left to be dealt with in accordance with tribal customs. Since the existing practices were firmly entrenched in a patriarchal version of law, courts in South Africa have been reluctant to depart from this stand (Dubow, 1987:85) and have merely imbibed these practices in a rather indifferent manner, without bothering to reform the scope of the law to allow the inclusion of new social practices and address ethical concerns on the treatment of women. These cultural and racial differences existing between blacks and whites in South Africa and the practice of apartheid has only produced a system where women are controlled to an even greater extent. African men were moving to cities in search of work, but remained dependent on the presence of their women on land back home in order to retain possession of it and this produced a resurgence of traditional values formulated on patriarchal principles.(Giliomee, 1989, p 9-15). South Africa is also one among various other African nations where genital mutilation is still practiced, but there are few laws in place with Government doing little or nothing to alleviate the problem.(Rosenthal, 1993). Such practices which represent a gross violation of the rights of women are nevertheless condoned in African societies because of the prevailing belief that female sexuality is dangerous to society and as a result, must be controlled.(Ahmed, 1992). But most importantly, this has served as a means for men to exert control over women because it relegates women to the status of property (Harden, 1985) and ensures that a patriarchal society is kept firmly in place, with women forced to remain tied to their husband’s wishes. (Moneyclips, 1993). Modern South Africa still faces the problems associated with the entrenchment of traditional patriarchal views because it preserves the authority of traditional leaders or Chiefs, and has produced a system where the women are pitted against the Chiefs with the strength of the entire community behind them, especially in matters such as control of women’s labor.(Bozzoli, 1983). The major struggle for women in South Africa has been in pushing for their rights and equality as taking precedence over preserving existing patriarchal values. Dynamics of the problem: At the outset, it may be noted that both the Constitutions of South Africa and the United States address the fundamental protection of the rights of all human beings. The foundation upon which the principles of the US Constitution are based is that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” (www.ushistory.org). The first and fourteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States, in particular are geared towards ensuring that the law serves to protect the rights of all individuals. The Fourteenth amendment clearly states that “….no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…” (www. House.gov) The Republic of South Africa enacted its Constitution in 1996 and there are specific provisions within the Constitution that are geared towards achieving the objective of ensuring that cultural, religious and linguistic freedoms are preserved. Section 9 of the Constitution clearly spells out that “everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.” (www.info.gov.za). Under this provision of equality, one of the requirements that has been spelt out is the requirement that the State “may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability……..” (italics added for emphasis). Section 12 of the South African Constitution also allows for protection of the freedom and security of the person, and this includes the right to be “free from all forms of violence”, and to not be tortured or punished in any way. On the basis of the above, it may be noted that the Constitutions of both the countries have as their basic goal, the protection of the rights of all citizens, whether male or female and gender inequality does not appear to be the intent of the Constitutions, which expressly prohibits the States from engaging in any form or manner of discrimination. Both the Constitutions have been framed in such a manner that fundamental human rights are to be ensured and protected by the kind of laws that are framed by the State. But in practice, the exercise of the law may result in unfavorable outcomes for women. One example is the case of Rylands v Edros1 in South Africa, where a couple was married under the tenets of Islamic law. The husband in this case terminated the marriage after sixteen years and the birth of three children by uttering “talaq” three times and also sued for her eviction from the matrimonial home. The woman countersued for a fair share in her husbands assets and a consolatory gift for a woman divorced without just cause. But in passing judgment on this case, Farlam J applied a perspective on what constituted public policy in the wake of the Constitution, as being reflective of the general sense of justice of the community. He found that a cognizance of the views of Muslims as members of the community would not negate the recognition of contractual claims arising out of Muslim marriages. But the judge in his judgment, limited the cultural context in which the terms of the South African Islamic law contract are to be interpreted, to the parameters of orthodox Islamic law. He interpreted the right to equality as spelt out in the Constitution as the right of a particular cultural group to govern itself according to its own norms. He did not take the further step, as visualized by the Constitution, of determining whether a recognition of such cultural rights of one particular group is also consistent with the rights of women to equality under family law, for example as set out in Section 15(3) (b) of the Bill of Rights.(www.info.gov.za). By limiting the cultural context, the Judge therefore failed to include in practice, the actual practices of South African Muslims or the values enshrined in the Constitution. Male primogeniture is another issue that is a strong prevailing tradition where the question of succession rights in South Africa is concerned. Under this principle, it is only males that can inherit property, and Kerr has stated that the practice of allowing a male member to gain succession is not by itself a discriminatory practice, but primogeniture of males through males is discriminatory to women (Kerr, 1994:725-726). He has recommended that if the provisions of the South African Constitution are to be adhered to, then there must be provision for succession to the eldest child, male or female. But in the case of Mthembu v Letsela2 the judge had to consider the issue of succession and held that the primogeniture rule does differentiate between men and women, but does not necessarily discriminate in an unfair manner. On the basis of the above, it may be seen that the problems faced in securing women’s rights arise mostly out of existing patriarchal traditions, which have exerted too much control over women and placed them at the mercy of male family members and the whims of tribal chiefs. The interests of women may not be adequately served due to the need to address the needs of Afrikaners after the legacy of apartheid. In the United States, there is a similar kind of cultural bias or cultural relativism, which hinders the growth and preservation of fundamental human rights of women. In explaining why the United States appears to reluctant to ratify international treaties that seeks to enforce women’s rights, Cook (1994) offers the view that the causal factor is cultural bias or cultural relativism. The basic assumption under this approach is that it is difficult to establish universal norms on women’s rights or human rights within different cultural contexts. According to Thomas and Beasley, “Gender bias, if unchallenged, becomes so embedded in the social structure that it often assumes the form of a social or cultural norm seemingly beyond the purview of the state's responsibility.” (Thomas and Beasley, 1995, p 1122). The cumulative effective of such cultural relativism and the propagation of traditional male patriarchal systems have been best summed up by Lai and Ralph (1995), who point out that “women continue to have a subordinate social and economic status in all societies and are virtually invisible in leadership positions within national governments and international organizations.” (Lai and Ralph, 1995:203) In the United States, Mackinnon has even pressed for the curtailment of certain First Amendment rights of men through censorship and a restriction of their rights to free speech and expression in areas such as pornography that demean women3. Despite the outward debate and refinement of the Law to include provisions such as Equal Opportunity and anti discrimination laws, violence and oppression against women continues. The case of Roe v Wade4 for instance, established the rights of women over their own bodies, but there are still attempts to overturn it. In the state of South Dakota, a recent move to ban abortion was fiercely resisted (www.bbc.co.uk), thereby indicating how strongly women in particular across the nation, support the decision that was made in Roe v Wade. The Supreme Court in the United States has sought to enforce the mandate for equality existing in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and also extend it to issues of gender through an intermediate equal protection test, falling between rationality and script scrutiny. Applying this criterion, discriminatory legislation against women had to be substantially related towards achieving important governmental objectives. In the case of Reed v Reed5, the Supreme Court held that the Idaho statute preferring men over women in administration of estates violated the Equal protection clause. In Fronteiro v Richardson6 the Court applied a standard of strict scrutiny and almost came to the point of making gender a full fledged classification, such that legislation which used a characteristic such as sex which a born is born with, as a means to discriminate would be unconstitutional. In the case of Craig v Boren7, a new equal standard protection was born, based upon an intermediate standard that represented an acceptable compromise between strict scrutiny and tests of rational basis. The most recent standard that is applied by the Courts is that set in the case of United States v Virginia8 where the Supreme Court held that the policy of the Virginia Military Institute to admit only men was not justified especially in view of the existence of the Equal protection Clause. In this case, the Court also pointed out that barring women from professions such as law and the police had also tried to offer similar justification to that offered by VMI, i.e, that standards would be diluted, but this has not proved to be the case. According to Janet Rifkin, “….in the end, patriarchy as a form of power and social order will not be eliminated unless the male power paradigm of law is challenged and transformed.” (Rifkin, 1980:87). This is the basic principle underlying the question of equal rights before the law for both men and women. Jurisprudence has remained a traditional male bastion with existing legal theories conditioned upon the premise of the “individual” as the philosophical basis for the legal system. Hence, earlier struggles for equal rights by women were centered upon proving to the higher authorities that women deserved equal treatment, but this was still on the basis that they were individuals. MacLaughlin points out that the liberal perspectives of law as a fair and just system that protects is rights of all individuals is based upon treating all persons indiscriminately – but how can such a universal standard be defined in the context of differing constituencies and differing conceptions? She examines Rawls’ premise of the original position, where a society that has differing views about what constitutes the “good” will have a system of law in which certain areas exist behind a veil of ignorance where gender, age, beliefs or systems will not apply and argues that the rights of women as individuals must first be upheld. (Laughlin, 2003:26-41). Law is gender neutral; as a result, legal precepts tend to focus upon violations of rights that occur within the public sphere of male existence, such as in the civil and political realms. From a historical perspective, most States have demonstrated a tendency to keep women out of the political and legal processes and instead, confine them within the realm of home and hearth, whether by law or by existing customs in society. (Foucault, 1984). As a result, violation of women’s rights that occurred within the province of the home and social life were viewed as being beyond the scope of responsibility by the State. Baer (1999) argues that for women to truly enjoy equal rights, they must in fact be accorded more rights, both in terms of a more equitable distribution of the domestic and child rearing traditionally considered to be within the female bastion, as well as in addressing the gender asymmetry that exists. She contends that applying a Rawlsian model of equality to such maintenance work will result in men shouldering more of these responsibilities, and it is only through strict sexual equality that the male supremacy in law can be addressed and equal rights be accorded to women.(Baer, 1999, p 194). According to Defeis, the arguments which have been presented in justifying the lack of adequate enforcement of women’s rights suggest that there is a “malecentric approach to human rights norms and international law that addresses only the concerns of white males, leaving woman and children of all nations…to challenge those established norms for legal recognition of their human rights in the private and public sphere.”(Defeis, 1995). Solution to the problem: Addressing the problem of women’s rights may require an examination of the problem from a perspective outside the framework of existing legal systems. While human rights are being enforced internationally, cultural bias and relativism appears to play a significant role impeding the universal application of these rights. Gilligan has challenged the equal application of the law to men and women because there are differences in their moral and ethical development.(Kohlberg, 1981). She argues that the moral outlook of women is different and the justice standard of ethics was prevalent only because it was the view of ethics that had been advocated in a male dominated society and that such a universal standard of morality is no longer maintainable.(Gilligan, 1982). She believes that a person’s moral orientation varies according to the gender – while men are oriented towards the value of justice, women are oriented towards the value of care. The male justice view of morality has a standard of always doing the right thing even if it is at a great personal cost or requires the sacrifice of a loved one, but a female will place the interests of loved ones over strangers. From a legal standpoint, this raises the question of what should be considered morally right from the perspective of arriving at a judicial decision. Male jurisprudence will tend to hold most issues arising out of violations of the rights of women, such as rape, domestic violation, preventing abortions, not allowing women rights to succession of property, etc, as falling into the domestic realm. Similarly, international law on human rights will not be applied on a widespread basis to women because of the belief that what is right for one cultural context will not be right in another. From the discussion above, the United States has progressed much more than South Africa on the issue of women’s rights. In South Africa, the levels of implementing of patriarchal traditions are still very high, so that an unacceptable level of control is exerted upon their freedom and rights by males. In this country, the lack of women’s rights is represented in their poor representation in political and legal forums and most women are forced to remain at home and tend property in order to continue to possess it, while their menfolk go to the towns seeking work. In the United States, women have made more progress in terms of employment opportunities and representation in political bodies, but there is still an unacceptable level of restriction of women’s rights in the domestic arena. The common factor that may be noted in both these countries is cultural factors which have played a role in maintaining a state where women do not have all the rights that they deserve. Patriarchial societies and male jurisprudence may be among the primary factors responsible for this state and without addressing these elements, it appears unlikely that women’s rights can be adequately protected in either of these countries. McKinnon argues that gender neutral methods of legal analysis are inadequate and the discrimination meted out to women is not on the basis of distinction but on the basis of dominance, therefore views of sexuality are those construed from the male superior position. She challenges the existing notion that sex is pleasurable to both sexes, because it places the woman in a subordinate position in the gender hierarchy, which also extends into other spheres(Mackinnon, 1979). As a result, the law deals with difficulty in matters of crimes against women, because sexuality may be viewed as a matter of personal choice and therefore outside the realm of public law. One aspect that became clear during the Beijing conference was that in order to ensure that women have access to the full range of human rights, there is a need to go beyond mere political rights into a more wide ranging framework of rights that includes economic, cultural, private and reproductive areas (McLaughlin, 2003, p 41-42). As a result of cultural and social expectations that have been framed from a predominantly male perspective, women are a marginalized group and the recognition of the need to include reproductive and private rights into the full range of human rights appears to be a clear imperative. Thus, in conclusion it may be seen that the traditional framework of jurisprudence is derived from the philosophical underpinnings of liberalism that advocates flexibility in the private sphere where an individual exists as an autonomous being and the public area where people communicate in order to share their ideas and to derive a common legal framework. But this may not be adequate to address the full range of human rights that must be ensured to women. There is a need to overcome decades of oppression that women have faced and an inferior status in society that has been accorded to them in subtle ways that are associated with their restriction to the domestic arena in earlier decades. The framework of the law and traditional vies of jurisprudence may need to be viewed from a different and more holistic perspective if women’s rights are to be secured. 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