New York: Cardozo School of Law, Conference on Gender, Sexuality and Democratic Citizenship (14-15 November 2010)

CARDOZO LAW
Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy

Conference on
Gender, Sexuality and Democratic Citizenship

14-15 November 2010

Benjamin Cardozo School of Law
YESHIVA University
55 Fifth Avenue

Gender and sexual orientation have long figured prominently in the denial of equal citizenship. Though significant progress has been made over the last century, much remains to be done. New challenges arise as gains in rights provoke new bursts of resistance, as evidenced, for example, by the fierce controversy around same-sex marriage, and globalization and mass migration entwines Western and non-Western religions and cultures while exacerbating their divisions.

The purpose of this conference is to take stock and explore new directions in connection with the struggle for gender and sexual-orientation based equal citizenship. Drawing on an interdisciplinary and international group of leading scholars, the conference will explore the most salient theoretical and practical issues surrounding the quest for equal citizenship.

The conference will include five panels and a keynote address by Prof. Reva Siegel of the Yale Law School, this country's foremost scholar in the area of reproductive rights. Panel One will examine key theoretical issues regarding the debate over equal citizenship. Should equality be pursued merely by systematically eliminating barriers one by one? Or can it only be achieved through radical shifts in perspective? Panel Two will explore the political dimension of sexual and reproductive rights and assess how it impacts the quest for equal citizenship. Should political action or right-based strategies predominate? How do different countries handle these issues? Are international human rights norms or constitutional rights more likely to accelerate the path to equality? Panel Three will focus on the thirty-year worldwide experience with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Has it advanced or slowed women's rights? Panel Four will concentrate on the impact of gender on the practical aspects of politics. Drawing on the experience of several Western democracies, the panel will evaluate how women fare both as citizens and as elected officials. Finally, Panel Five will zero in on how culture and religion in increasingly multicultural societies are likely to affect the relationship between women and the state. What are the theoretical and constitutional consequences of claims to self-rule by non-liberal cultures and religions considered strongly gender-biased by Western standards? Should religious courts, for example, be allowed to grant divorces or dictate property settlements? How should freedom of religion and gender equality be reconciled?

Programme

Sunday, November 14
Moot Court Room

10 am Welcoming Remarks

10:15 am – 12 pm
Panel 1: Equal Citizenship in a Changing World

Chair: Michel Rosenfeld, Cardozo School of Law
Nancy Fraser, Departments of Philosophy and Politics, The New School for Social Research
Christopher McCrudden, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, UK
Jean Louise Cohen, Department of Political Science, Columbia University

12:15 am – 1:45 pm
Lunch and Keynote Address

Introduction: Ed Stein, Cardozo School of Law
Keynote Address: Reva Siegel, Yale Law School
Dignity's Sex

2 pm – 3:45 pm
Panel II: Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Chair: Reva Siegel, Yale Law School
Julieta Lemaitre Ripoll, University of Los Andes Law School, Colombia
Kenji Yoshino, NYU School of Law
Nicholas Bamforth, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, UK

3:45 pm – 4:15 pm
Panel III: CEDAW?

Chair: Hélène Ruiz-Fabri, University Paris I, Pantheon-Sorbonne, France
Frances Raday, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Penelope Andrews, CUNY School of Law
Judith Resnik, Yale Law School

Monday, November 15
Room 1008

10:15 am – 12 pm
Panel IV: Political Citizenship

Chair: Susan Williams, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Nadia Urbinati, Department of Political Science, Columbia University
Kathryn Abrams, University of California Berkeley School of Law
Julie Suk, Cardozo School of Law

12:15 pm -1:45 pm
Lunch

2:00 pm -3:45 pm
Panel V: Culture, Religion, Gender and the State

Chair: Susanna Mancini, Faculty of Law, University of Bologna, Italy
Ayelet Shachar, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, Canada
Cécile Laborde, Department of Political Science, University College London, UK

3:45 pm – 4 pm
Concluding Remarks

4 pm
Closing Reception

Sponsored by the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy and the Program on Global and Comparative Constitutional Theory.

The conference is free and open to the public, but RSVP to floersheimer@yu.edu is required.

Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy
email: floersheimer@yu.edu
phone: 212-790-0200 ext. 6700
fax: 212-790-0205

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
55 Fifth Avenue, Suite 542
New York, NY 10003
USA