(Geschlechter-)Gleichheit durch Vergleichen

Neubestimmungen auf der ersten UN-Weltfrauenkonferenz in Mexico City, 1975

Abstract

This contribution examines the epistemic practice of comparison in the context of the first UN World Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975. It adopts an approach that takes simultaneities seriously and uses comparison to relate the respective concepts and objectives regarding development, equality, and emancipation. To this end, it analyses the information materials prepared by experts prior to the conference. These materials presented socio-political, economic, and cultural concepts, discussing ways to improve women’s life chances and achieve greater gender equality. The texts reveal a wide range of ideas about equality, as well as intense reflections on how ideas of equality based on politics, society, the economy, and culture can be reconciled with one another. If we do not focus solely on the conference’s official final documents, which are dominated by highly politicized goals such as ‘peace and development’ and collectives such as ‘family/nation/humanity’, it can be shown that the concepts of ‘emancipation’ and ‘development’ were conceived of differently in 1975 than in a linear, temporal perspective.