Human Rights Lecture

22.05.2018

"Gender, Race and Human Rights: Me Too!", Adrien K. Wing

Dienstag, 22. Mai, 18.30, Juridicum Dachgeschoß, Schottenbastei 10-16, 1010 Wien

In this presentation, I focus on the burgeoning #Me Too! movement in the United States from the perspective of women of color.  These women include Blacks, Latinas, Asians, Native Americans, and Muslims, among others. They are often at the bottom economically, politically, and educationally. They are least able to take advantage of the protections available in the various local and national laws. To discuss their realities, I will use the framework known as Critical Race Feminism. CRF derives from Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory (CRT), and feminist jurisprudence.  CRF interjects feminist analysis into CRT and related movements, and a race/ethnicity analysis into traditional feminism. CRF also links to “womanist” thought developed by women of color outside the legal academy.  One of the key contributions of CRF is the notion of intersectionality. Women of color face an intersectional reality where their various identities including race, gender, ethnicity, class, religion, and sexual orientation may intertwine to cause them to face precarious conditions both literally and figuratively in which they get left out of the #Me Too momentum. This omission is especially ironic as an African American woman initially coined the term “Me Too.”  I will use CRF methodology to illustrate how women of color can use a coalitional approach to transcendence within #Me Too and beyond it.

Professor Adrien Katherine Wing is Associate Dean of International & Comparative Law Programs at the University of Iowa College of Law; Director, UI Center for Human Rights; Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law