Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Feminists argue that the public/private distinction (where women are associated with the private sphere of the home and family and men are associated the public sphere of economy and politics) perpetuates the ‘silence’ of international law on women’s rights. Unlike most previous research in this area, this study uses qualitative methods (Ordinary Least Squares multivariate regressions on cross-sectional data) to test the hypothesis that where there is a greater presence of women in the public sphere of a given state, that state will have a higher level of participation in international law that protects women’s rights. The results indicate that the hypothesis can only be partially verified, and that a differentiation may need to be made between various facets of the ‘public sphere.’