The Lexical Priority of Rights: Basic Capabilities vs. Poverty Eradication

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The Lexical Priority of Rights: Basic Capabilities vs. Poverty Eradication

I. Introduction

The feminization of poverty is a phenomenon in which women represent the majority of the world’s poor. The “cycles of poverty” is reinforced by the growing gender inequality between men and women. Impoverished women in developing countries are particularly vulnerable in which they are often deprived of political and decision-making rights as well as basic services, such as healthcare and education. Feminist theorists have attempted to analyze this phenomenon in order to further comprehend the fundamental causes for the vulnerability of women. Martha Nussbaum argues that the feminization of poverty is primarily due to the failure of governments to provide women with their basic capabilities. Susan Moller Okin argues that Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is insufficient in addressing the vulnerability of impoverished women, and that the protection of social and economic rights will break the gendered cycle of poverty. This paper will argue that the provision of basic capabilities and individual rights ought to trump social and economic rights in order to combat the fundamental problems of gender inequality. Through the examination of the Capabilities Approach and Okin’s critique of it, this paper will show that basic individual rights must be provided prior to the attainment of socioeconomic rights.

II. Women and the Capabilities Approach

The effects of poverty on women have been detrimental especially with the rise of globalization in which the dynamics of economic neoliberalism has widened the inequality gap between men and women, particularly in the developing world. Gender disparities have not only been a consequence of wage dis...

... middle of paper ...

...on of Poverty" in Relation to Aggregate Gender Indices". Journal of Human Development 7 (2): 201–220

The United Nations. (2000). “The Feminization of Poverty” The Division for the Advancement of Women. Retrieved on November 22nd, 2011 from .

Fukuda-Parr, S. (1999). "What Does Feminization Of Poverty Mean? It Isn't Just Lack Of Income". Feminist Economics. 5(2). 99–103

Nussbaum, M. (2010). Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 19

Okin, S.M. (2003). “Poverty, Well-being, and gender: What Counts, Who’s Heard?” Philosophy & Public Affairs. 31(3). pp.293.

Ibid. 294

Ibid. 296

Ibid. 302

Nussbaum, M. (2000). “Religion and Women’s Human Rights” in Sex and Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 87

Ibid.103

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