Women's voices, women's rights

The title of this volume, Women's Voices, Women's Rights, might be taken innocently to indicate its contents: a set of lectures given by women on the rights of women, on the failure to achieve those rights, and on the reasons and remedies for those failures. However, it also implies that women's rights are not simply the extension to all members of the community of the agreed-upon rights of men. Is to speak in a woman's voice to speak in a "different" voice? Each lecture explores the values of Western societies, and the sources of the oppression of women within them, whereas many also provide a political contribution to the argument over the international context in which women's status seems to be under constant threat. The lectures rest on a shared commitment to the dignity, humanity, and unique individuality of each person - a tenet that underpins the human rights movement, provides the moral impetus for feminism, and, indeed, is the motive force behind Amnesty International's campaigning on behalf of political prisoners worldwide.