Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Researcher Suad Joseph discussed the fight for women’s rights around the world as part of a Syracuse University lecture on International Women’s Day.

Joseph, a research professor of anthropology and gender, sexuality and women’s studies at University of California, Davis, spoke virtually to an audience of over 20 people on Monday. The audience included students, fans of Joseph’s work and members of Joseph’s family.

The discussion was moderated by Ivy Raines, a doctoral student in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The two talked about how women’s rights can be achieved universally.

The UC Davis research professor served as co-editor for the Syracuse University Press series “Gender, Culture, and Power in the Middle East” for over 20 years. Joseph also published several of her books with SU Press, and her brother finished his master’s program at SU.

“Syracuse University holds a really dear place in my heart,” Joseph said.

The main idea of Joseph’s discussion was universal human rights and the violence that ensues when people have to fight to receive them.

Joseph claimed early in her discussion that rights – whether basic human rights or rights that can be found in state constitutions and legislations – are based on law. Some examples she spoke about included rights to education, intellectual property and freedom to express your sexuality.

Joseph connects the issue of law limiting the rights of people – women in particular – to numerous countries with human rights violations, including a handful in the Middle East, such as Libya and Syria.

“Before the court, a woman is less than a man,” she said. “Before the law, a woman is not a full citizen of the state.”

Joseph also spoke in detail about how powerful law can be. It can transform, visibilize, erase and invent material, she said. A reason that women have been disenfranchised in numerous countries is because of the boundaries put on certain individuals through law.

To show how the law affects certain people depending on the country they live in, Joseph told the story of a Lebanese family in New Jersey with a troublesome teenage boy. In the anecdote, the boy yelled at his mother, which prompted her to slap him, and the boy called 911.

After the incident, the mother and son moved to Lebanon, and in the village they lived in, people talked about why you shouldn’t live in the U.S. because of the fact that it gets in the way of raising children, Joseph said.

During the Q&A portion of the discussion, one audience member asked how people can best respond and intervene to violent discourse and disagreements on topics such as feminism.

“Feminism means very different things to everyone, and it should, and it must,” Joseph said. “The best we can do is not presume that all of us who call ourselves feminists share either exactly the same goal or that we have to use exactly the same methods, or the same tools.”

Published on March 9, 2021 at 12:13 am

Contact Siron: sthoma10@syr.edu | @sironthomas