9 Jun 2021
New SNSF Funded Research Project: "Gender Equality in the Mirror (GEM): Clothing the Invisibility of Women’s Participation at International Level"
The pandemic has made it clear how current structures of power risk perpetuating gender inequality and that the underrepresentation of women is no longer sustainable. Instead, it is imperative to understand the normative implications of participatory rights, how affirmative actions can foster and/or undermine participation, and how institutional practices still prevent equal participation by creating de facto inequality between men and women.
The GEM project’s overall aim is to put forward a two-dimensional approach (internalization/externalization) to investigate potential “building blocks of women’s participation” at domestic and international level by making plain the need to strengthen their complementarity.
GEM has the following objectives: 1) understanding the roots of participatory rights in human rights law; 2) investigating the role of affirmative actions in accelerating participatory equality by providing the first comprehensive analysis of measures adopted by Member States of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); 3) conducting in-depth empirical case studies in international domains (international organizations, international jurisdictions and diplomacy) selected for their exposure to women’s underrepresentation.
The project is lead by SNSF Professor Elisa Fornalé. Her research team includes Dr. Franck Somé and Ms Chiara Germano.