Gender-Skepticism or Gender-Boom?

Abstract

This article links a theoretical debate within poststructural feminisms – whether feminist politics can be pursued without hegemonic representations of women and gender – to the practice of transnational feminist organizing in the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in Durban in 2001. It goes beyond the traditional analysis of ‘adding’ gender to a mega world conference and asks the critical question of what gender signifies in this instance of UN politics. The article argues that feminists’ strategic use of the concept of ‘gender as intersectionality’ marks a paradigm shift from the predominant monolithic representation of gender as women, being equal to or different from men, in international human rights frameworks. It puts the issue of diversity among women at the forefront of the intergovernmental WCAR. Far from entailing an abandonment of feminist politics, as some poststructuralist feminists have suggested, it is argued that opening up ‘gender’ for unlimited signification in the case of WCAR marks the beginning of a new phase of transnational feminist mobilization.