Abstract
Corporate-led women’s empowerment initiatives appear, in their proactiveness, to be a welcome addition to a range of measures addressing adverse human rights impacts by business. This article questions the claim that these projects significantly advance women’s rights. Instead, they can be understood as a manifestation of what Catherine Rottenberg terms ‘neoliberal feminism’ with women at risk of being transformed into ‘gender capital’ for business gain. This article rejects the claim that empowerment can only be delivered by encouraging women into market-based work. Instead, it is argued that the corporate responsibility to respect the human rights of women can better be supported by reorienting business away from its preoccupation with delivering value for shareholders, towards an approach that values women's unpaid socially reproductive labour.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 84 - 99 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Business and Human Rights Journal |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2 Mar 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press.
Keywords
- business and human rights
- care
- empowerment
- shareholder primacy
- women
Access to Document
- Full-text PDF (author accepted manuscript)
This is the accepted author manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Cambridge University Press at https://doi.org/10.1017/bhj.2021.50. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.