women’s rights: basic info

The United Nations has a special Convention on the Rights of Women. It is applicable in most countries around the world. One of its many important provisions states that “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women.” 

Basic information on the Convention’s features has now been made available by the Austrian Ministry for Women’s Affairs, in German, Turkish, Bosnian, Serbian & Croatian. The booklet may be ordered here.

One of the many potential readers is the marketing department of Austrian telecommunication provider Tele2. In response to criticism of their overtly sexist EURO 2008^TM campaign, which may be found here, the marketing department declared inter alia that because they are all women it could not be sexist and undignified. Go figure!