1AC with Plan Text

1AC Inherency
Contention one is inherency The border-town of Ciudad Juarez has become a province for one of the worst femicides on record
Paniagua,10
(Daniela Paniagua, March 20th, 2010, Ciudad Juarez: an untold story of femicide and violence in the western hemisphere, http://www.examiner.com/article/ciudad-ju-rez-an-untold-history-of-femicideand-violence-the-western-hemisphere) At the turn of the 21st Century, the local municipality constructed a glaring yellow monument at the entrance of Ciudad Jurez, symbolizing hope for future industrialization in a city wrought with corruption and a dark, secretive past. However, the people of Jurez set about constructing their own monumenta series of pink crosses memorializing the Labyrinth of Silence, a desolate area where hundreds of women have been disposed of over the last decade. Gazing across the Labyrinth, a massive monument of Christ on the Cross stands erect, symbolizing faith and protection (Rodriguez xi). Locals question if the victims have looked up toward that depiction of Christs suffering that towers above their brutally beaten bodies and pleaded for His mercyThis Mexican bordertown, founded on prosperity and faith, is estranged from its original principles and has become known as the City of Lost Women. Ciudad Jurez has been a city of nearly two million people living in fear for over a decade; after all, the citys yearly death toll exceeded 1,900 by June, one hundred of which were women (100 Women). Nearly 620 women have been murdered since 1993, although officials claim the numbers are not even half that figure (Staudt 29). According to Alma Gomez of Justicia de Nuestras Hijas, when the murders began, a woman was killed every twelve days (Operacin Digna). Today, Jurez averages one woman dead for every eight days that passes. According to TheAmericano.com, an online publication focusing primarily on Latino issues, Ciudad Jurez is now the most murderous city in the world. Border-towns are notorious for violencethey are the places where worlds collide, where the roles of men and women have long remained distinctly separate. The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta [1]where the Third World grates against the First, and bleeds, (Anzalda 3). Many blame machismo, the male-

dominant repudiation of everything feminine, for the increased violence running rampant in these areas. Even after the maquiladoras, or U.S.-owned manufacturing factories, changed the typical role of women in Mexico, violence reigned; in fact, women becoming providers instead of sole
caretakers completely defied the status quo of many Latin American countries. A promise of a future drove the women from surrounding areas of Mexico to the City of Industrythey *came+ hoping for the best, but often *found+ the worst, (Newton 3). Nonetheless, as industry brought prosperity to dustladen Ciudad Jurez, an increase of murders related to drugs and human trafficking occurred. However,

in 1993 the pattern of murders changed drasticallythere was a dramatic upswing in the number of young women found slain throughout the outskirts of the city . These women had been raped, mutilated, crushed, strangledsome were even dismembered or burned alive,

(Washington). Their skin was marred with bite marks & they had deep slashes across their

breasts. Bound with their own shoelaces & partially clothed, their shoes would be placed almost sentimentally beside their corpsesoccasionally just bones, after desert jackals picked the flesh from their fragile bodies. If you want to rape and kill a woman, there is no better place to do it than in Jurez, said Esther Chvez Cano, founder of 8 de Marzo, in an opinion
column during the fall of 1995. 8 de Marzo is a Jurez-based womans advocacy organization dedicated to rousing awareness of not only the killings, but also the corrupted officials (Rodriguez 72).

These murders and sexual assaults are a war being waged on women themselves as a result of the patriarchy. The Jack the Ripper murders of the 19th century began a tradition of sexual murders that is continued in Ciudad Juarez today
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf)

Nor can serial sexual murder be explained as an eruption of evil forces , as the aberrant behavior of mysterious sexual maniacs, or as the work of psychopaths, Caputi says (109). She continues the line of reasoning set forth by Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin, who portray these crimes as a logical consequence of the patriarchal system that maintains male supremacy through what Daly calls gynocide and Dworkin defines as the systematic crippling, raping, and/or killing of women by men . . . the relentless violence perpetrated by the gender class men on the gender class women (1976, 16, 19). The killing of women is usual in the patriarchy. Still, the twentieth century has been marked by a new class of crimes against women, one that includes torture, mutilation, rape, and the murder of women and girls. The upsurge infrequency of these acts has led Caputi to call our times the age of sex crime. This epoch started with Jack the Ripper, the still-unknown London killer who in 1888 murdered and mutilated five prostitutes. The Ripper and his crimes established a tradition of sexual murders and sexual murderers whose purpose is to terrorize women and to empower and inspire men (Caputi
1989,445).

Current US policies meant to protect women involved in maquiladora production are failing
Vega, 01
(Griselda Vega, B.A., Briar Cliff College, 1996; J.D. anticipated, University of Iowa College of Law, 2001, Maquiladora's Lost Women: The Killing Fields of Mexico-Are NAFTA and NAALC Providing the Needed Protection?, heinonline.com, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/jgrj4&div=11&g_sent=1&collection=journals) After taking a close look at NAALC's "watchdog" system, it is necessary to look at whether it is effectively addressing the serious issue of the Maquiladora Murders. NAFTA was supposed to create numerous

advantageous opportunities for each of the countries involved-more jobs, better working
conditions for all the citizens involved, stable economies tremendous economic endeavor. While the maquiladora industry has been around for decades, after the passing of NAFTA, there was an

explosion in the number of foreign-owned companies established along a 2,000-mile stretch of the Mexico-U.S. border.48 This is known as "[e]xport processing industrialization . . . involv[ing]
transferring the labor-intensive phases of production to Third World nations that possess an abundant supply of lowwaged labor... developed by corporations to lower costs."'49 Some of the large companies with maquiladoras in Mexico include Amway, Honeywell, 3M, Kenwood, TDK, and Dupont.5 In Ciudad

Juarez, Mexico, there is an abundant supply of low-wage jobs that specifically target the young Mexican women that come from small towns in rural Mexico to the border in search of a better life.51 But the life these women find once they begin working at the maquiladoras is not one they expect. Sixty percent of maquiladora employees are women, 2 primarily young Mexican women between the ages of thirteen to twenty-five years old. 3 These young women earn a wage of about eighty cents to $1.70 an hour and work twelve to thirteen hours a day in unsafe conditions. 4 While the companies are making large profits, their employees continue to face detrimental conditions that endanger their lives, and the laws that are meant to protect their well-being lay dormant. Since 1993, there have been over 230 bodies recovered in the desert surrounding Ciudad Juarez, and the only common thread has been that most of the bodies that could be identified were of young women who had been working in the maquiladoras NAALC's objectives were to protect workers from gross injustices, but, as the following story shows, NAALC has failed to do its job. The following is a short version of the story
that will suffice to describe the issue of the maquiladora women and NAALC's failure to protect them.

Current police and judiciary forces are incapable of managing the Juarez femicide
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf)

The murders of more than 200 women in Ciudad Juirez since 1993, and the torture and rape of almost 100 of them, are painful testimony to the vulnerability of girls and women on the border and to the male violence perpetrated against them. The media and the judicial agencies in charge of solving the murders refer to them as homicides of women, serial killings, and sex crimes . On the other hand, the police investigations have created more doubts and problems than solutions. The information gathered remains insufficient and vague . Patricio Martinez, governor of the state of Chihuahua, declared: I ask the people of Chihuahua how they can today demand that we solve these crimes when all we got from the previous administration was twenty-one bags of bones. We dont know their names. We dont know what the circumstances were for those acts. The files are poorly put together. ... How do we investigate these homicides? And the crimes continue. The lack of a comprehensive strategy by the authorities charged with the administration of justice can be seen on various level ^.^ First, access is not allowed to the files on the murdered women to corroborate the exact number of women killed, the type of violence used to kill them, and whether the murderers have actually been convicted. Second, foreign and national criminologists who have come in to assist do not agree on the profile of

the so-called serial killer, or they say that one does not exist, or that there are various copycat^.^ Third, a special prosecutors office for the investigation of
homicides against women was set up, but its personnel has changed four times.6 Fourth, as persons have been cast on the moral character of the victim^.^ Finally, questions have been raised and posed to the authorities regarding the men detained for these crimes against women.

All this points to the inability of the police forces to

deal with the problem , and above all it casts doubt on the capacity of the judicial institutions responsible for public safety, because the crimes

continue.8

The United States frequently engages in systematic labor rights violations, including sexual harassment, physical abuse, and unsafe working conditions
Ayoub, 99
(Lena Ayoub, Lena Ayoub is a Staff Attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, J.D. 2000, DePaul University. Ms. Ayoubs professional experience has covered various sectors of the legal public interest field, with special focus on international human rights and immigrant rights, 1999, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/depbus11&div=17&g_sent=1&collection=journal s)

United States based multinational corporations ("MNCs") have a long history of engaging in systematic labor rights violations abroad.1 As a result of increased economic globalization during the last quarter century, many MNCs locate their manufacturing plants in economically developing regions,such as Southeast Asia, China, South Korea, the Caribbean and Latin America,
searching for cheap labor and low regulatory costs in order to produce their products at the lowest cost available, thereby maximizing their sale profits.' The labor violations commonly committed in these subsidiary operations include "sweatshop" labor practices, unfair and unlivable wages, unreasonable hours, unsafe working conditions, and physical and mental abuse by supervisors.3 These labor rights violations are of concern to the international community because MNCs produce or sell not only within national borders;4 they cross international borders, with the intent to exploit an economically weak labor pool. Furthermore, this exploitation of foreign workers is of international concern because existing treaty law explicitly outlaws labor practices of this sort. Lastly, labor rights

have been adopted into the category of human rights for purposes of international law. Human rights have long been recognized as an international issue and not just of concern to the country in which a violation occurs.' The United States has repeatedly failed to recognize a legal duty to enforce U.S. based MNCs to respect the international labor rights of foreign workers being exploited by U.S. MNC subsidiaries. By not becoming a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ("ICESCR"), the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW"), the Convention on the Rights of the
Child ("CRC"), as well as by explicitly exempting international workers from the Fair Labor Standards Act, the United States has continued to profit at the expense of human rights violations that its nationals (MNCs) justify with profit maximization. As a result, the United States government has virtually exempted itself from accountability for labor rights violations of workers abroad . This article will propose that the United States has a legal obligation under international law, specifically its duty under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("ICCPR"),

which it ratified in 1992, and customary law, to regulate and punish MNCs headquartered within the United States which engage in activities that violate foreign workers' labor rights.7
The United States must adopt legislation which prohibits and punishes MNCs and their subsidiaries

for engaging in labor practices which violate international labor norms as they are recognized in the ICCPR and customary law

The United States is the only Western democracy to have not ratified CEDAW 161 nations are ahead of the game Halberstam 97 (Professor Malvina Halberstam has taught law in Loyola (Los Angeles), University of
Southern California, University of Texas, University of Virginia, and The Hebrew University. UNITED STATES RATIFICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN p. 49-50. CVS)

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW or
Convention) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 18, 1979.1 It was opened for signature on March 1, 1980, and entered into force on September 3, 1981,2 when it had been ratified by twenty states, as provided for by Article 27 of the Convention.3 It is the most comprehensive Convention dealing with women's rights. 4 As of October 7, 1997, it has been ratified by 161 states.5 The Convention was submitted to the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification by President Carter in 19806 and again by President Clinton in 1994.7 The Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported it favorably to the Senate in September 1994.8 The Senate has taken no action on the Convention, however. The United States is the only western democracy that has not ratified the Convention. 9

1AC Plan Text

United States Federal government should increase economic engagement towards Mexico through ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women and enforcement of economic safeguards on employees of multinational corporations that have any operations or subsidiaries within the United States or its territories.

1AC Disgruntled Misogynist

Contention two is the Disgruntled Misogynist Well isolate two Scenarios, Scenario one is the Maquiladora Maquiladoras are notorious for their poor working conditions in an effort to provide the cheapest goods for a globalized corporate economy. Robinson 8
(William Robinson is a professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and Latin American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective. p 105-106. CVS)

The maquiladora phenomenon is often seen as the quintessence of the global economy and has become one of the most widely studied aspects of globalization. Export processing zones
(EPZs) are a type of free trade zone (FTZ). An FTZ is a site that is free from cross- border duties and taxes and generally from national regulations. EPZs, sometimes called zonas francas, are established as

enclaves outside the customs territory of a particular country the chief attraction of which for transnational capital is the supply of abundant, cheap labor from the host country. Products are stored, processed, and manufactured free from the payment of import duties on equipment, machinery, and raw materials and with the intention of exporting most or all of the output to the world market. Firms in these EPZs, known as maquiladoras, or assembly plants, are provided with a generous package of incentives, generally including tax holi-days, freedom from foreign exchange regulations, and most notoriously, even guarantees against unionization of the labor force (see, inter alia, Frbel et al., 1980; Dicken, 1998). EPZs have spread
rapidly as production has become trans-nationalized, from just a handful in the 1970s to several hundred in the early twenty- rst century employing over 5 million workers in some fty countries (excluding China, which has some 40 million to 50 million workers in its special economic zones, which do not share all the typical features of FTZs and EPZs). About 90 percent of the EPZs were located in Latin America and Asia, with the strongest concentration in the Greater Caribbean Basin (Dicken, 2003:18081).In their landmark 1977 study, The New International Division of Labor, Frbel and his colleagues argued that the spread of maquiladoras was leading to a new international division

of labor as core capital relocated low- wage phases of manufacturing to cheap labor zones in the Third World. In fact, in the same year that he New International Division of Labor was published in English (1980), the ex-port of manufactured goods from the Third World for the rst time surpassed that of raw materials (McMichael, 1996:57). The study rst drew attention to the now- notorious sweatshop conditions of super- exploitation, labor repression, the degradation of women, child labor, Taylorist control and dehumanization at the maquiladora factories, as the counterpart to runaway factories and rising structural unemployment in the traditional core.

The hierarchy in maquiladoras uses the body of the female worker to subordinate them into compliance, making them think that sexual harassment and its subsequent control over their actions and thoughts are natural and inevitable MAGALLN 6
(The Colectiva Feminista Binacional, Servicio Desarrollo y Paz, A.C. (SEDEPAC), and Comit de Obreras y Obreros en Lucha are Mexican nonprofit action groups whose aim is to create better working conditions for maquiladoras. ROSARIO ORTIZ MAGALLN was the project coordinator for their September 1, 2006 publication: Hostigamiento Sexual: Una Realidad en la Maquila or Sexual Harassment: A Maquila Reality. 5-6 CVS)

One result of repeated sexual harassment is the transformation of the workplace into a damaging, unhealthy environment. Sexual harassment also lowers the victims self-esteem and makes her feel insecure, humiliated, indignant, and helpless. This affects the workers productivity and increases vulnerability to workplace risks. Often, women workers say that they have not experienced sexual harassment, but it is important to note that this often means that they have learned to view such situations as natural and inevitable. For more than four decades,
the womens movement and the feminist movement have tried to expose such problems. These movements have worked to raise awareness among women in the maquilas and teach them about their rights, in the hope that the workers may eventually stand up for themselves. In the workplace, the

rejection of or submission to sexual harassment is often explicitly or implicitly used as the basis for a decision that affects the victims access to professional training, a job, a promotion, or a salary level. According to data from the labor authorities, three of every four working women are harassed, one in every four of these victims is fired, and four in every ten victims quit as a result. While men may also be the targets of harassment, the vast majority of victims are women. Although the Mexican Constitution establishes the equality of men and women before the law, sexual harassment is an unacknowledged form of conduct that in practice nullifies that constitutional equality. According to Carol Wall, referring to the case of Canada, the term sexual harassment was coined in 1975 this is not to say that sexual harassment didnt exist before the 1970s; it had simply never been identified as a problem . If a problem is never addressed, it is hard to find a solution. The first harassment case was presented before
the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It was considered to be a form of sexual discrimination and therefore illegal. Around 1987 the Supreme Court of Canada made it law that employers are responsible for ensuring a health working environment, free from discriminatory practices, including sexual harassment.4 Sexual harassment and violence become a form of control and an attempt to

devalue womens work and dignity. In companies, factories, and unions, where the organizational structure is vertical and hierarchical, and where decision makers and managers are usually men, sexual harassment towards women becomes a manifestation of power. It is a discriminatory practice, characterized by the ability of others to make decisions regarding womens labor rights. Researcher Mercedes Ziga argues that violence against women starts with control over their bodies: in the workplace, this may mean prohibiting them from moving from their work station, sitting down, getting thirsty, going to the bathroom, and talking. Control over the female body is also expressed in the violence linked to physical appearance, such as jokes and humiliations related to a womans body.5From the moment that women are hired, they are submitted to bodily inspections. They are questioned about their

hormonal cycles and sexual practices. Their private lives must be shared with their employers, and their changing moods and emotions are pointed at with an accusing finger. A change in civil status can change a womans employment options.

The influx of maquiladoras is directly correlated to increased rates of femicide in Ciudad Juarez
Arriola,07
(Elvia R. Arriola, 2007, Accountability for Murder in the Maquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Elvia R. Arriola is a Latina, feminist critical legal theorist. Her J.D. is from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and she has an M.A. in American History from New York University. She is a former ACLU Karpatkin Fellow as well an Assistant Attorney General working on civil rights issues for the New York State Department of Law. ) The "maquiladora murders" have become a popular subject for writing and activism by feminists, as well as the inspiration for numerous forms of art, literary fiction and commentaries,5 international conferences, movies, and marches on both sides of the border. A 2004 conference held at the University of California-Los Angeles entitled "Maquiladora Murders" drew worldwide attention' to

the cases of hundreds of young Mexican women who worked in maquiladoras-Americanowned transnational factories-and met untimely, often brutal deaths. Who killed them is still a mystery." What is not a mystery is that incidents of domestic violence and femicide in Ciudad Judrez' have risen in the wake of heavy industrialization along the border; that industrialization
was a result of the signing of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)between Mexico, the United States, and Canada.' 4 In less than a decade, a city that once had very low homicide

statistics now reports that at least 300-400 women and girls were killed in Ciudad Judrez between 1994 and 2000.15 Some of the murders fell into a bizarre serial killer pattern. 16 Others were suspiciously linked to illegal trafficking gangs. Still others involved abductions of young, female maquiladora workers who never made it to or from work and whose bodies were later found dumped in Lomas de Poleo, the desert that surrounds Ciudad Judrez.' 8 They had been raped,
beaten, or mutilated.' 9 To be fair, the reference to "maquiladora murders" is a misnomer; not all victims have been workers for the vast number of American companies lining the 2,000-mile border that secures an interdependent economic bond between the United States and Mexico.20 However, while the exact number of victims is still unknown, of the estimated 300-400 unsolved murders, about one-third involved maquiladora workers.2' Mexican government officials have not appreciated the negative press surrounding their largest export-processing zone and symbol of participation in the global economy.22 And the public has not been happy either, confused by seemingly bungled and incompetent investigations. The lack of coordination among public authorities has only worsened the

perception that the government is either too corrupt, indifferent, or incompetent to address the problem of systematic violence against women.

Sexism and misogyny lay the framework for femicide

Rodriguez, 10
(Gilda Rodriguez,University of California Los Angeles escholarship, From misogyny to murder: everday sexism and femicide in a cross cultural context, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5tw6h8nk#page-2)

These everyday sexist acts are often ignored or minimized in such a way that their connection

to large-scale forms of violence against women is obscured, The disconnect between everyday misogyny and femicide in much of popular and media discourse is problematic on two counts. First, it contributes to the mischaracterization of gender based murder as simple as killing, without a misogynistic component, which makes it difficult to address the root causes of such violence. Secondly, when small incidences of sexism occur, they are more easily dismissed as inconsequential and even harmless. My argument is that commonplace sexist practices lay the conditions for femicide and for the political discourse that surrounds it. To this end, I examine two cases studies: the over five hundred femicides that have occurred in the border city of Juarez, Mexico since 1993, and George Sodinis murder of three women in a gym
in a suburb of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in August of 2009. Though different in both scale and duration, among other factors, these gendered crimes in Mexico and the United States show how pervasive

the link is between everyday sexist practices and femicide cultural contexts.
.

Absent affirmative action, the Juarez femicide will escalate and continue to institutionalize a loss in female value to life
Wright, 02
(Melissa W Wright is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and in the Program of Womens Studies at The Penn State University. Her research has explored the role of gender, nationality, and race in the organization of multinational production in Ciudad Jurez and in southern China. Her current research examines how the negotiation of gender and nationality affects efforts by multinational corporations to transform the human resources of northern Mexico, 16 DEC 2002, Anitpode Volume 33, issue 3, page 1, A Manifesto against Femicide, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8330.00198/pdf) With an activist coalition she helped establish, Chvez is fighting against the famous spectre that now haunts Ciudad Jurezthe spectre of the worthless woman. This spectre is of the woman not worth protecting as she goes to work in the maquilas and then dances afterwards , the one who is not worth the cost of her own social reproduction, the one whose death is insignificantthe one, in short, who does not have value. Chvez has called the object of her struggle femenicidio, or femicide. When we say women are worthless, she explained, this is femenicidio. Femicide recreates the mythic worthless women who inhabit Ciudad Jurez. With the help of local and international activists, Chvez has launched a public war against femicide. It is everywhere. In our homes, in our schools, in the maquila, she has said. It is a crisis. When we look at women as if they were trash, then something is wrong (author interview). Inspired by Chvez (and always by Marx), I say

it is high time that people who oppose the notion of worthless women should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, and their tendencies, and should meet this nursery tale of the spectre of worthless women with a manifesto. This manifesto would require international and national coalitions, and an alliance between labor groups in the US with resources and desires for cross-border organizing with those people waging a war against femicide in Ciudad Jurez. This essay is an attempt to think through such an alliance.

Unchecked the conditions Juarez will continue to escalate

Gupta,07
(Girish Gupta, Mexicos disappeared women,17 FEBRUARY 2011, http://www.newstatesman.com/south-america/2011/02/ciudad-juarez-women-mexico) Few are optimistic about the future of Ciudad Jurez and its women . "The issue is lost in the Mexican congress," says William Simmons. "The president is not giving it priority and the murders are overshadowed by the drug war. You have this sense that the women [in the city] feel abandoned. I don't see much progress. I see the structural violence and the conditions that have fuelled all of this growing worse." Wherever you go in Ciudad Jurez, you see photographs of the missing women pasted on storefronts, house walls and lamp posts. You also see the words of Susana Chvez, "Ni una ms", emblazoned on pink crosses commemorating the women who have died.

This femicide is rooted in gendered oppression and will continue to manifest itself in instances of sexual domination and social extermination
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf

Insecurity and violence seem to be endemic in Ciudad Juarez. Its location on the border gives it certain characteristics not found in other cities of Mexico. The seat of a drug cartel, it is known as a violent place (SAnchez 1999,44); men as well as women die violently here.Nonetheless, the deaths of women express a gendered oppression and the relations of inequality between men and women; they are manifestations of domination, terror, social extermination, patriarchal hegemony, social class, and impunity.

Scenario two is the Patriarch Additionally, Female victims of the Ciudad Juarez femicide experience prolonged captivity, torture, rape and mutilation prior to their deaths
Camacho, 05
(Alicia R Schmidt Camacho, The New Centennial Review, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 255-292, Ciudadana X: Gender Violence and the Denationalization of Women's Rights in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, project muse) Observers in Jurez have had to ask whether what distinguishes the feminicidioin Chihuahua from gender violence elsewhere is the vicious mistreatmentof the victims bodies before and after death (Chvez Cano 2003a). Prolonged captivity and torture of victims, along with rape and mutilation, characterize many of the sexual murders committed in Chihuahua over the past decade. Esther Chvez Cano, director of Jurezs only shelter for women and children, Casa Amiga, reports that the use of torture, that is, the deliberate act of inflicting pain to incite terror and exert control over the victim, is also visible among the client population that she services (Chvez Cano 2003a, 2003b). Both the murders and family violence carry the distinct imprint of the border as the contact zone mediating the violent processes of Mexicos modernization and integration with the United States and global capitalism. In each case, the state announces its refusal to act by displacing the blame onto the victims.

Those left alive are frequently wrought with serious mental conditions such as PTSD, depression, and suicidal tendencies. Kilpatrick 2k
(Dr. Dean G. Kilpatrick, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is also the Director of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the university. His focuses include those affected by crimes and rape. <http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/research/mentalimpact.shtml> CVS)

The National Women's Study produced dramatic confirmation of the mental health impact of rape. The study determined comparative rates of several mental health problems among rape victims

and non-victims. The study ascertained whether rape victims were more likely than non-victims to experience these devastating mental health problems. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The first mental health problem examined was posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an extremely debilitating disorder occurring after a highly disturbing traumatic event, such as military combat or violent crime. Almost one-third (31%) of all rape victims developed PTSD sometime during their lifetime; and more than one in ten rape victims (11%) still has PTSD today. Rape victims were 6.2 times more likely to develop PTSD than women who had never been victims of crime (31% vs 5%). Rape victims were 5.5 times more likely to have current PTSD than those who had never been victims of crime (11% Vs 2%). The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are approximately 96.3 million adult women in the United States age 18 or older. If 13% of American women have been raped and 31% of rape victims have developed PTSD, then 3.8 million adult American women have had raperelated PTSD (RR-PTSD): If 11% of all rape victims have PTSD, then an estimated 1.3 million American women have RR-PTSD. If 683,000 women are raped each year, approximately 211,000 will develop RR-PTSD annually. Other Mental Health Problems: Major depression is a problem affecting many women, not just rape victims. However, 30% of rape victims had experienced at least one major depressive episode in their lifetimes, and 21% of all rape victims were experiencing a major depressive episode at the time of assessment : By contrast, only 10% of

women never victimized by violent crime had ever had a major depressive episode; and only 6% had a major depressive episode when assessed. Rape victims were three times more likely than non-victims of crime to have ever had a major depressive episode (30% Vs 10%). Also, they were 3.5 times more likely to be currently experiencing a major depressive episode (21% Vs 6%). Some mental health problems are life threatening. When asked if they ever thought seriously about committing suicide: One-third (33%) of the rape victims and 8% of the non-victims of crime said yes. Rape victims were 4.1 times more likely than non-crime victims to have contemplated suicide. Rape victims were 13 times more likely than non-crime victims to have attempted suicide (13% Vs 1%). Substance Abuse: There was substantial evidence that rape victims
had higher rates than non-victims of drug and alcohol consumption and a greater likelihood of having drug and alcohol-related problems. Compared to women who had never been crime victims, rape

victims with RR-PTSD were: 13.4 times more likely to have two or more major alcohol problems (20.1% Vs 1.5%). 26 times more likely to have two or more major serious drug abuse problems (7.8% Vs 0.3%). The National Women's Study findings provide compelling evidence about the extent to which rape poses a danger to American women's mental health -- and even their continued survival -- because of increased suicide risk. Thus, rape is a problem for America's
mental and public health systems as well as the criminal justice system.

Rapists dehumanize their victims in order to wipe away their feelings of guilt as they continue to kill Lang 10
(Johannes Lang is a fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies where he teaches and writes about sociology. Questioning Dehumanization: Intersubjective Dimensions of Violence in the Nazi Concentration and Death Camps from Genocide and Holocaust Studies vol. 24 issue 2. CVS)

Perhaps when we were raping her, we looked at her as a woman but when we killed her, we just thought of her as something like a pig.42 In other words, this rape was committed against a human being, but once it
Consider this statement by a Japanese soldier about an incident that took place during the subjugation of China in 1937:

had been carried out the perpetrators availed themselves of dehumanizing images in order to trivialize the act's moral consequences. The soldiers' feelings of guilt, if they had them to begin with, were thus reduced. Rape is an example of excessive violence aimed at more than the physical destruction of the victim. Sexual assault is part of a radicalization of violence that plays itself out over and over again, more or less systematically, more or less chaotically, in all campaigns of mass murder. When violence becomes excessive, it is common to explain it with reference to dehumanization: the killers have lost all sight of their victims' humanity. But, as I hope is becoming clear, this theoretical solution is too facile, even counter-factual. The theoretical response
should be to ask instead what the extreme, supposedly dehumanizing, violence contributes to the killers' sense of power.43

This lack of guilt allows the rapists to feel total power over their victims and results in utmost dehumanization and degredation Scully and Marolla,85
(Diana Scully and Joseph Marolla, "Riding the Bull at Gilley's": Convicted Rapists Describe the Rewards of Rape, February 1985) During his interview, it became clear that this offender, like many of the men, believed men have the right to discipline and punish women. In fact, he argued that most of the men he knew would also have beaten the victim because "that kind of thing (referring to the dog) is not acceptable among my friends." Finally, in some rapes, both revenge and punishment were directed at victims because they represented women whom these offenders perceived as collectively responsible and liable for their problems. Rape was used "to put women in their place" and as a method of proving their "manhood" by displaying dominance over a female. For example, one multiple rapist believed his actions were related to the feeling that women thought they were better than he was. Rape was a feeling of total dominance. Before the rapes, I would always get a feeling of power and anger. I would degrade women so I could feel there was a person of less worth than me.

1AC Subjugation
Contention three is the Subjugation of the Female Body The patriarchal social system participates in the rape of the female mind, keeping her in subjection and ostracizing those who would dare to tread into the male domain. Lerner 86 (Gerda was a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University. She is
considered one of the mothers of the womens history course in Wisconsin-Madison, and she taught what is thought to be the first womens history course at New School for Social Research. The Creation of Patriarchy CVS)

Historically, thinking women have had to choose between living a woman's life, with its joys,

dailiness, and immediacy, and living a man's life in order to think. The choice for generations of educated women has been cruel and costly. Others have deliberately chosen an existence outside of the sex-gender system, by living alone or with other women. Some of the most significant advances in women's thought were given us by such women, whose personal struggle for an alternative mode of living infused their thinking. But such women, for most of historical time, have been forced to live on the margins of society; they were considered "deviant" and as such found it difficult to generalize from their experience to others and to win influence and approval. Why no female system-builders? Because one cannot think universals when one's self is excluded from the generic. The social cost of having excluded women from the human enterprise of constructing abstract thought has never been reckoned. We can begin to understand the cost of it to thinking women when we accurately name what was done to us and describe , no matter how painful it may be, the ways in which we have participated in the enterprise. We have long known that rape has been a way of terrorizing us and keeping us in subjection. Now we
also know that we have participated, although unwittingly, in the rape of our minds.

Rape and femicide have been institutionalized as an integral part of warfare and are the worst form of bio politics Causing distinctions to be made between the self and the body, dehumanization, and death
Diken and Laustsen, 05
(Blent Diken Lancaster University, Department of Sociology, Carsten Bagge Laustsen, University of Aarhus, the Department of Political Science, March 2005, Becoming Abject: Rape as a Weapon of War, http://bod.sagepub.com/content/11/1/111.short)

Organized rape has been an integral aspect of warfare for a long time even though classics on warfare have predominantly focused on theorizing regular warfare, that is, the situations in which one army encounters another in a battle to conquer or defend a territory. Recently, however, much attention has been paid to asymmetric warfare and, accordingly, to phenomena such as guerrilla tactics, terrorism, hostage taking and a range of identityrelated aspects of war such as religious fundamentalism, holy war, ethnic cleansing and war rape. In fact, war rape can be taken as a

the soldier attacks a civilian (not a fellow combatant) and a woman (not another male soldier), and does this only indirectly with the aim of holding or taking a territory . The primary target here is to inflict trauma and through this to destroy family ties and group solidarity within the enemy camp. This article understands war rape as a fundamental way of abandoning subjects: rape is the mark of sovereignty stamped directly on the body, that is, it is essentially a bio-political strategy using (or better, abusing) the distinction between the self and the body. Through an analysis of the way rape was carried out by the predominantly paramilitary Serbian forces on Bosnian soil, this article theorizes a two-fold practice of abjection: through war rape an abject is introduced within the womans body (sperm or forced pregnancy), transforming her into an abject-self rejected by the family, excluded by the community and quite often also the object of a self-hate, sometimes to the point of suicide. This understanding of war rape
perfect example of an asymmetric strategy. In war rape is developed in the article through a synthesis of the literature on abandonment (Agamben, Schmitt) and abjection (Bataille, Douglas, Kristeva) and concomitantly it

that the penetration of the womans body works as a metaphor for the penetration of enemy lines . In addition it is argued that this bio-political strategy, like other forms of sovereignty, operates through the creation of an inclusive exclusion. The woman and the community in question are inscribed within the enemy realm of power as those excluded.
is argued

Biopower ensures the devaluation of life Agamben 98

(Giorgio, professor of philosophy at university of Verona, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, pg. 139-140)
3.3. It is not our intention here to take a position on the difficult ethical problem of euthanasia, which still today, in certain countries, occupies a substantial position in medical debates and provokes disagreement. Nor are we concerned with the radicaliry with which Binding

sovereignty of the has its immediate counterpart in the determination of a threshold beyond which life ceases to have any juridical value and can, therefore, be killed without the commission of a homicide. The new juridical category of life devoid of value (or life unworthy of being lived) corresponds exactlyeven if in an apparently different directionto the bare life of homo sacer and can easily be extended beyond the limits imagined by Binding. It is as if every valorization and every politicization of life (which, after all, is implicit in the sovereignty of the individual over his own existence) necessarily implies a new decision concerning the threshold beyond which life ceases to be politically relevant, becomes only sacred life, and can as such be eliminated without punishment. Every society sets this limit; every societyeven the most
declares himself in favor of the general admissibility of euthanasia. More interesting for our inquiry is the fact that the living man over his own life moderndecides who its sacred men will be. It is even possible that this limit, on which the politicization and the exceprio of natural life in the juridical order of the state depends, has done nothing but extend itself in the history of the West and has now in the

new biopolitical horizon of states with national sovereigntymoved inside every human life and every citizen. Bare life is no longer confined to a particular place or a definite category. It now dwells in the biological body of every living being

1AC Solvency
Contention four is solvency Implementation of economic engagement through CEDAW would address rape as a human rights violation Solves back for both border and maquiladora rapes
IWRAW ,09
(IWRAW Occasional Paper No. 10 , Addressing Rape as a Human Rights Violation: The Role of International Human Rights Norms and Instruments, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1146984)

Rape as a form of gender-based violence is also regarded as discrimination within the meaning of Article 1 of the CEDAW Convention. This stipulates womens rights and freedoms to include: The right to life; The right not to be subject to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; The right to equal protection according to humanitarian norms in times of international or national armed conflict,The right to liberty and security of person; The right to equal protection under the law; The right to equality in the family; The right to the highest standard attainable of physical and mental health; and The right to just and favourable conditions of work.

Ratification of CEDAW would send a message across the world that the United States is interested in protecting the rights of women. Solves for inequality at home and abroad Lapadus and Leville 10 (Lenora M. Lapidus is a member of the Women's Rights Project, and Vania Leveille is from the
Washington Legislative Office. They both work closely with the American Civil Liberties Union. 11/17/2010 <http://www.aclu.org/blog/content/ratify-cedaw-because-womens-rights-are-human-rights> CVS)

The benefits of ratification to the U.S. are many. Formally embracing the internationally accepted minimum standards pertaining to womens human rights would send a powerful message to the rest of the world that the U.S. stands behind its commitment to providing equal opportunity for all a commitment that is part of our Constitution and laws. It would instantly strengthen the credibility of U.S. criticism of womens rights abuses in other nations. Participation in the CEDAW process would also create an opportunity for the U.S. to benefit from open dialogue and the exchange of ideas about ways that we could continue to enhance womens equality at home. Ratifying the most comprehensive womens rights treaty in existence will strengthen our democracy and continue our proud history of participation in international life, and in particular our leadership through the power of example in the area of international human rights. With millions of women throughout the world enduring daily exploitation and discrimination, we can't afford not to be a part of CEDAW . We therefore commend Sen. Durbin for holding this hearing and urge the Senate to move forward with ratification of CEDAW as soon as possible. Ratification would represent an important reaffirmation of

our nations commitment to the human rights of women, and a momentous step forward for women around the world.

CEDAW has shown interest in Ciudad Jurez and the nearby maquiladoras in the past CEDAW 5 (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women is a UN committee dedicated to ensuring the
rights of women. This comes from a report in their thirty-second session on the 27th of January, 2005. p. 7. CVS)

The members of the Committee had the opportunity to take part in a meeting of the Subcommission of Coordination and Contact to Prevent and Sanction 6 Violence against Women in Ciudad Jurez, which brings together nine ministries/federal entities, the Public Prosecutors Department/Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic, the National Human Rights Commission and representatives of civil society.13. The experts also met with United Nations bodies (the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)) and non-governmental organizations (Mexican Committee for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights and Milenio Feminista). 14. In the capital of the State of Chihuahua, the members of the Committee conducted interviews with the interim State Governor and Secretary General of the Government, the Assistant State Public Prosecutor and the Director of Legal Affairs of the Office of the Public Prosecutor. They also called on the Head of the Chihuahua Womens Institute. 15. In Ciudad Jurez, Ms.

Ferrer Gmez and Ms. Tavares da Silva held interviews with joint State/Federal, Federal and municipal authorities together with associations of the mothers of the women murdered or abducted in Ciudad Jurez or Ciudad Chihuahua, mothers of victims and representatives of civil society. They also visited sites where numerous victims bodies had been found in 2001 and2002/3, sites of maquiladoras and the poorest areas of Ciudad Jurez . 16. The two experts conducted an interview with the Assistant State Public Prosecutor for the Northern Region, the Special State Prosecutor (Joint Office of the Prosecutor for the investigation of the murders of women), the Personal Assistant to the Mayor, the Representative of the Office of the Attorney-General
of the Republic, the Head of the Federal Section of the Joint Agency for the Investigation of the Murders of Women and the General Coordinator for Human Rights and Citizen Participation of the Ministry of Public Security (Preventive Federal Police). 17. In Ciudad Jurez, the two experts also met with organizations of the victims relatives (Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa, Justicia para Nuestras Hijas, Integracin de Madres de Jurez), mothers of victims, local non-governmental organizations (Red Ciudadana No Violencia y Dignidad Humana, Casa Promocin Juvenil, Organizacin Popular Independiente, CETLAC, Grupo 8 de marzo and Sindicato de Telefonistas) and representatives

of the local, national and international non-governmental organizations Casa Amiga, Equality Now and the Mexican Committee for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights.

1AC With No Plan Text

1AC Inherency
Observation one is inherency The border-town of Ciudad Juarez has become a province for one of the worst femicides on record
Paniagua,10
(Daniela Paniagua, March 20th, 2010, Ciudad Juarez: an untold story of femicide and violence in the western hemisphere, http://www.examiner.com/article/ciudad-ju-rez-an-untold-history-of-femicideand-violence-the-western-hemisphere) At the turn of the 21st Century, the local municipality constructed a glaring yellow monument at the entrance of Ciudad Jurez, symbolizing hope for future industrialization in a city wrought with corruption and a dark, secretive past. However, the people of Jurez set about constructing their own monumenta series of pink crosses memorializing the Labyrinth of Silence, a desolate area where hundreds of women have been disposed of over the last decade. Gazing across the Labyrinth, a massive monument of Christ on the Cross stands erect, symbolizing faith and protection (Rodriguez xi). Locals question if the victims have looked up toward that depiction of Christs suffering that towers above their brutally beaten bodies and pleaded for His mercyThis Mexican bordertown, founded on prosperity and faith, is estranged from its original principles and has become known as the City of Lost Women. Ciudad Jurez has been a city of nearly two million people living in fear for over a decade; after all, the citys yearly death toll exceeded 1,900 by June, one hundred of which were women (100 Women). Nearly 620 women have been murdered since 1993 , although officials claim the numbers are not even half that figure (Staudt 29). According to Alma Gomez of Justicia de Nuestras Hijas, when the murders began, a woman was killed every twelve days (Operacin Digna). Today, Jurez averages one woman dead for every eight days that passes. According to TheAmericano.com, an online publication focusing primarily on Latino issues, Ciudad Jurez is now the most murderous city in the world. Border-towns are notorious for violencethey are the places where worlds collide, where the roles of men and women have long remained distinctly separate. The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta [1]where the Third World grates against the First, and bleeds, (Anzalda 3). Many blame machismo, the male-

dominant repudiation of everything feminine, for the increased violence running rampant in these areas. Even after the maquiladoras, or U.S.-owned manufacturing factories, changed the typical role of women in Mexico, violence reigned; in fact, women becoming providers instead of sole
caretakers completely defied the status quo of many Latin American countries. A promise of a future drove the women from surrounding areas of Mexico to the City of Industrythey *came+ hoping for the best, but often *found+ the worst, (Newton 3). Nonetheless, as industry brought prosperity to dustladen Ciudad Jurez, an increase of murders related to drugs and human trafficking occurred. However,

in 1993 the pattern of murders changed drasticallythere was a dramatic upswing in the number of young women found slain throughout the outskirts of the city . These women had been raped, mutilated, crushed, strangledsome were even dismembered or burned alive,

(Washington). Their skin was marred with bite marks & they had deep slashes across their

breasts. Bound with their own shoelaces & partially clothed, their shoes would be placed almost sentimentally beside their corpsesoccasionally just bones, after desert jackals picked the flesh from their fragile bodies. If you want to rape and kill a woman, there is no better place to do it than in Jurez, said Esther Chvez Cano, founder of 8 de Marzo, in an opinion
column during the fall of 1995. 8 de Marzo is a Jurez-based womans advocacy organization dedicated to rousing awareness of not only the killings, but also the corrupted officials (Rodriguez 72).

These murders and sexual assaults are a war being waged on women themselves as a result of the patriarchy. The Jack the Ripper murders of the 19 th century began a tradition of sexual murders that is continued in Ciudad Juarez today
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf)

Nor can serial sexual murder be explained as an eruption of evil forces , as the aberrant behavior of mysterious sexual maniacs, or as the work of psychopaths, Caputi says (109). She continues the line of reasoning set forth by Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin, who portray these crimes as a logical consequence of the patriarchal system that maintains male supremacy through what Daly calls gynocide and Dworkin defines as the systematic crippling, raping, and/or killing of women by men . . . the relentless violence perpetrated by the gender class men on the gender class women (1976, 16, 19). The killing of women is usual in the patriarchy. Still, the twentieth century has been marked by a new class of crimes against women, one that includes torture, mutilation, rape, and the murder of women and girls. The upsurge infrequency of these acts has led Caputi to call our times the age of sex crime. This epoch started with Jack the Ripper, the still-unknown London killer who in 1888 murdered and mutilated five prostitutes. The Ripper and his crimes established a tradition of sexual murders and sexual murderers whose purpose is to terrorize women and to empower and inspire men (Caputi
1989,445).

Current police and judiciary forces are incapable of managing the Juarez femicide
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf)

The murders of more than 200 women in Ciudad Juirez since 1993, and the torture and rape of almost 100 of them, are painful testimony to the vulnerability of girls and women on the border and to the male violence perpetrated against them. The media and the judicial agencies in charge of

refer to them as homicides of women, serial killings, and sex crimes . On the other hand, the police investigations have created more doubts and problems than solutions. The information gathered remains insufficient and vague . Patricio Martinez, governor of the state of Chihuahua, declared: I ask the people of Chihuahua how they can today demand that we solve these crimes when all we got from the previous administration was twenty-one bags of bones. We dont know their names. We dont know what the circumstances were for those acts. The files are poorly put together. ... How do we investigate these homicides? And the crimes continue. The lack of a comprehensive strategy by the authorities charged with the administration of justice can be seen on various level ^.^ First, access is not allowed to the files on the murdered women to corroborate the exact number of women killed, the type of violence used to kill them, and whether the murderers have actually been convicted. Second, foreign and national criminologists who have come in to assist do not agree on the profile of the so-called serial killer, or they say that one does not exist, or that there are various copycat^.^ Third, a special prosecutors office for the investigation of
solving the murders homicides against women was set up, but its personnel has changed four times.6 Fourth, as persons have been cast on the moral character of the victim^.^ Finally, questions have been raised and posed to the authorities regarding the men detained for these crimes against women.

All this points to the inability of the police forces to

deal with the problem , and above all it casts doubt on the capacity of the judicial institutions responsible for public safety, because the crimes

continue.8

The United States frequently engages in systematic labor rights violations, including sexual harassment, physical abuse, and unsafe working conditions
Ayoub, 99
(Lena Ayoub, Lena Ayoub is a Staff Attorney with the National Center for Lesbian Rights, J.D. 2000, DePaul University. Ms. Ayoubs professional experience has covered various sectors of the legal public interest field, with special focus on international human rights and immigrant rights, 1999, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/depbus11&div=17&g_sent=1&collection=journal s)

United States based multinational corporations ("MNCs") have a long history of engaging in systematic labor rights violations abroad.1 As a result of increased economic globalization during the last quarter century, many MNCs locate their manufacturing plants in economically developing regions,such as Southeast Asia, China, South Korea, the Caribbean and Latin America,
searching for cheap labor and low regulatory costs in order to produce their products at the lowest cost available, thereby maximizing their sale profits.' The labor violations commonly committed in these subsidiary operations include "sweatshop" labor practices, unfair and unlivable wages, unreasonable hours, unsafe working conditions, and physical and mental abuse by supervisors.3 These labor rights violations are of concern to the international community because MNCs produce or sell not only within national borders;4 they cross international borders, with the intent to exploit an economically weak labor pool. Furthermore, this exploitation of foreign workers is of international concern because existing treaty law explicitly outlaws labor practices of this sort. Lastly, labor rights

have been adopted into the category of human rights for purposes of international law. Human rights have long been recognized as an international issue and not just of concern to the country in which a violation occurs.' The United States has repeatedly failed to recognize a legal duty to enforce U.S. based MNCs to respect the international labor rights of foreign workers being exploited by U.S. MNC subsidiaries. By not becoming a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ("ICESCR"), the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW"), the Convention on the Rights of the

Child ("CRC"), as well as by explicitly exempting international workers from the Fair Labor Standards Act, the United States has continued to profit at the expense of human rights violations that its nationals (MNCs) justify with profit maximization. As a result, the United States government has virtually exempted itself from accountability for labor rights violations of workers abroad. This article will propose that the United States has a legal obligation under international law, specifically its duty under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("ICCPR"), which it ratified in 1992, and customary law, to regulate and punish MNCs headquartered within the United States which engage in activities that violate foreign workers' labor rights.7 The United States must adopt legislation which prohibits and punishes MNCs and their subsidiaries for engaging in labor practices which violate international labor norms as they are recognized in the ICCPR and customary law

1AC Advocacy Statement

Thus Hannah and I advocate a discursive analysis of the exploitation and degradation of the female body that takes place in maquiladoras due to United States economic engagement with Mexico

1AC Disgruntled Misogynist

Observation two is the Disgruntled Misogynist Well isolate two Scenarios, Scenario one is the Maquiladora Maquiladoras are notorious for their poor working conditions in an effort to provide the cheapest goods for a globalized corporate economy. Robinson 8
(William Robinson is a professor of Sociology, Global Studies, and Latin American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Latin America and Global Capitalism: A Critical Globalization Perspective. p 105-106. CVS)

The maquiladora phenomenon is often seen as the quintessence of the global economy and has become one of the most widely studied aspects of globalization. Export processing zones
(EPZs) are a type of free trade zone (FTZ). An FTZ is a site that is free from cross- border duties and taxes and generally from national regulations. EPZs, sometimes called zonas francas, are established as

enclaves outside the customs territory of a particular country the chief attraction of which for transnational capital is the supply of abundant, cheap labor from the host country. Products are stored, processed, and manufactured free from the payment of import duties on equipment, machinery, and raw materials and with the intention of exporting most or all of the output to the world market. Firms in these EPZs, known as maquiladoras, or assembly plants, are provided with a generous package of incentives, generally including tax holi-days, freedom from foreign exchange regulations, and most notoriously, even guarantees against unionization of the labor force (see, inter alia, Frbel et al., 1980; Dicken, 1998). EPZs have spread
rapidly as production has become trans-nationalized, from just a handful in the 1970s to several hundred in the early twenty- rst century employing over 5 million workers in some fty countries (excluding China, which has some 40 million to 50 million workers in its special economic zones, which do not share all the typical features of FTZs and EPZs). About 90 percent of the EPZs were located in Latin America and Asia, with the strongest concentration in the Greater Caribbean Basin (Dicken, 2003:18081).In their landmark 1977 study, The New International Division of Labor, Frbel and his colleagues argued that the spread of maquiladoras was leading to a new international division

of labor as core capital relocated low- wage phases of manufacturing to cheap labor zones in the Third World. In fact, in the same year that he New International Division of Labor was published in English (1980), the ex-port of manufactured goods from the Third World for the rst time surpassed that of raw materials (McMichael, 1996:57). The study rst drew attention to the now- notorious sweatshop conditions of super- exploitation, labor repression, the degradation of women, child labor, Taylorist control and dehumanization at the maquiladora factories, as the counterpart to runaway factories and rising structural unemployment in the traditional core.

The hierarchy in maquiladoras uses the body of the female worker to subordinate them into compliance, making them think that sexual harassment and its subsequent control over their actions and thoughts are natural and inevitable MAGALLN 6
(The Colectiva Feminista Binacional, Servicio Desarrollo y Paz, A.C. (SEDEPAC), and Comit de Obreras y Obreros en Lucha are Mexican nonprofit action groups whose aim is to create better working conditions for maquiladoras. ROSARIO ORTIZ MAGALLN was the project coordinator for their September 1, 2006 publication: Hostigamiento Sexual: Una Realidad en la Maquila or Sexual Harassment: A Maquila Reality. 5-6 CVS)

One result of repeated sexual harassment is the transformation of the workplace into a damaging, unhealthy environment. Sexual harassment also lowers the victims self-esteem and makes her feel insecure, humiliated, indignant, and helpless. This affects the workers productivity and increases vulnerability to workplace risks. Often, women workers say that they have not experienced sexual harassment, but it is important to note that this often means that they have learned to view such situations as natural and inevitable. For more than four decades,
the womens movement and the feminist movement have tried to expose such problems. These movements have worked to raise awareness among women in the maquilas and teach them about their rights, in the hope that the workers may eventually stand up for themselves. In the workplace, the

rejection of or submission to sexual harassment is often explicitly or implicitly used as the basis for a decision that affects the victims access to professional training, a job, a promotion, or a salary level. According to data from the labor authorities, three of every four working women are harassed, one in every four of these victims is fired, and four in every ten victims quit as a result. While men may also be the targets of harassment, the vast majority of victims are women. Although the Mexican Constitution establishes the equality of men and women before the law, sexual harassment is an unacknowledged form of conduct that in practice nullifies that constitutional equality. According to Carol Wall, referring to the case of Canada, the term sexual harassment was coined in 1975 this is not to say that sexual harassment didnt exist before the 1970s; it had simply never been identified as a problem. If a problem is never addressed, it is hard to find a solution. The first harassment case was presented before
the Canadian Human Rights Commission. It was considered to be a form of sexual discrimination and therefore illegal. Around 1987 the Supreme Court of Canada made it law that employers are responsible for ensuring a health working environment, free from discriminatory practices, including sexual harassment.4 Sexual harassment and violence become a form of control and an attempt to

devalue womens work and dignity. In companies, factories, and unions, where the organizational structure is vertical and hierarchical, and where decision makers and managers are usually men, sexual harassment towards women becomes a manifestation of power. It is a discriminatory practice, characterized by the ability of others to make decisions regarding womens labor rights. Researcher Mercedes Ziga argues that violence against women starts with control over their bodies: in the workplace, this may mean prohibiting them from moving from their work station, sitting down, getting thirsty, going to the bathroom, and talking. Control over the female body is also expressed in the violence linked to physical appearance, such as jokes and humiliations related to a womans body.5From the moment that women are hired, they are submitted to bodily inspections. They are questioned about their

hormonal cycles and sexual practices. Their private lives must be shared with their employers, and their changing moods and emotions are pointed at with an accusing finger. A change in civil status can change a womans employment options.

Sexism and misogyny lay the framework for femicide

Rodriguez, 10
(Gilda Rodriguez,University of California Los Angeles escholarship, From misogyny to murder: everday sexism and femicide in a cross cultural context, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5tw6h8nk#page-2) These everyday sexist acts are often ignored or minimized in such a way that their connection

to large-scale forms of violence against women is obscured, The disconnect between everyday misogyny and femicide in much of popular and media discourse is problematic on two counts. First, it contributes to the mischaracterization of gender based murder as simple as killing, without a misogynistic component, which makes it difficult to address the root causes of such violence. Secondly, when small incidences of sexism occur, they are more easily dismissed as inconsequential and even harmless. My argument is that commonplace sexist practices lay the conditions for femicide and for the political discourse that surrounds it. To this end, I examine two cases studies: the over five hundred femicides that have occurred in the border city of Juarez, Mexico since 1993, and George Sodinis murder of three women in a gym
in a suburb of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in August of 2009. Though different in both scale and duration, among other factors, these gendered crimes in Mexico and the United States show how pervasive

the link is between everyday sexist practices and femicide cultural contexts.

The influx of maquiladoras is directly correlated to increased rates of femicide in Ciudad Juarez
Arriola,07
(Elvia R. Arriola, 2007, Accountability for Murder in the Maquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Elvia R. Arriola is a Latina, feminist critical legal theorist. Her J.D. is from the University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall) and she has an M.A. in American History from New York University. She is a former ACLU Karpatkin Fellow as well an Assistant Attorney General working on civil rights issues for the New York State Department of Law. ) The "maquiladora murders" have become a popular subject for writing and activism by feminists, as well as the inspiration for numerous forms of art, literary fiction and commentaries,5 international conferences, movies, and marches on both sides of the border. A 2004 conference held at the University of California-Los Angeles entitled "Maquiladora Murders" drew worldwide attention' to

the cases of hundreds of young Mexican women who worked in maquiladoras-Americanowned transnational factories-and met untimely, often brutal deaths. Who killed them is still a mystery." What is not a mystery is that incidents of domestic violence and femicide in Ciudad Judrez' have risen in the wake of heavy industrialization along the border; that industrialization
was a result of the signing of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)between Mexico, the United States, and Canada.' 4 In less than a decade, a city that once had very low homicide

statistics now reports that at least 300-400 women and girls were killed in Ciudad Judrez

between 1994 and 2000.15 Some of the murders fell into a bizarre serial killer pattern. 16 Others were suspiciously linked to illegal trafficking gangs. Still others involved abductions of young, female maquiladora workers who never made it to or from work and whose bodies were later found dumped in Lomas de Poleo, the desert that surrounds Ciudad Judrez.' 8 They had been raped,
beaten, or mutilated.' 9 To be fair, the reference to "maquiladora murders" is a misnomer; not all victims have been workers for the vast number of American companies lining the 2,000-mile border that secures an interdependent economic bond between the United States and Mexico.20 However, while the exact number of victims is still unknown, of the estimated 300-400 unsolved murders, about one-third involved maquiladora workers.2' Mexican government officials have not appreciated the negative press surrounding their largest export-processing zone and symbol of participation in the global economy.22 And the public has not been happy either, confused by seemingly bungled and incompetent investigations. The lack of coordination among public authorities has only worsened the

perception that the government is either too corrupt, indifferent, or incompetent to address the problem of systematic violence against women.

This femicide is rooted in gendered oppression and will continue to manifest itself in instances of sexual domination and social extermination
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf

Insecurity and violence seem to be endemic in Ciudad Juarez. Its location on the border gives it certain characteristics not found in other cities of Mexico. The seat of a drug cartel, it is known as a violent place (SAnchez 1999,44); men as well as women die violently here.Nonetheless, the deaths of women express a gendered oppression and the relations of inequality between men and women; they are manifestations of domination, terror, social extermination, patriarchal hegemony, social class, and impunity.

Scenario two is the Patriarchy Additionally, Female victims of the Ciudad Juarez femicide experience prolonged captivity, torture, rape and mutilation prior to their deaths
Camacho, 05
(Alicia R Schmidt Camacho, The New Centennial Review, Volume 5, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 255-292, Ciudadana X: Gender Violence and the Denationalization of Women's Rights in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, project muse) Observers in Jurez have had to ask whether what distinguishes the feminicidioin Chihuahua from gender violence elsewhere is the vicious mistreatmentof the victims bodies before and after death (Chvez Cano 2003a). Prolonged captivity and torture of victims, along with rape and mutilation, characterize many of the sexual murders committed in Chihuahua over the past decade. Esther

Chvez Cano, director of Jurezs only shelter for women and children, Casa Amiga, reports that the use of torture, that is, the deliberate act of inflicting pain to incite terror and exert control over the victim, is also visible among the client population that she services (Chvez Cano 2003a, 2003b). Both the murders and family violence carry the distinct imprint of the border as the contact zone mediating the violent processes of Mexicos modernization and integration with the United States and global capitalism. In each case, the state announces its refusal to act by displacing the blame onto the victims.

Those left alive are frequently wrought with serious mental conditions such as PTSD, depression, and suicidal tendencies. Kilpatrick 2k
(Dr. Dean G. Kilpatrick, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology at the Medical University of South Carolina. He is also the Director of the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center at the university. His focuses include those affected by crimes and rape. <http://www.musc.edu/vawprevention/research/mentalimpact.shtml> CVS)

The National Women's Study produced dramatic confirmation of the mental health impact of rape. The study determined comparative rates of several mental health problems among rape victims and non-victims. The study ascertained whether rape victims were more likely than non-victims to experience these devastating mental health problems. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: The first mental health problem examined was posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an extremely
debilitating disorder occurring after a highly disturbing traumatic event, such as military combat or violent crime. Almost one-third (31%) of all rape victims developed PTSD sometime during their lifetime; and more than one in ten rape victims (11%) still has PTSD today. Rape victims were 6.2 times more likely to develop PTSD than women who had never been victims of crime (31% vs 5%). Rape victims were 5.5 times more likely to have current PTSD than those who had never been victims of crime (11% Vs 2%). The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are approximately 96.3 million adult women in the United States age 18 or older. If 13% of American women have been raped and 31% of rape victims have developed PTSD, then 3.8 million adult American women have had raperelated PTSD (RR-PTSD): If 11% of all rape victims have PTSD, then an estimated 1.3 million American women have RR-PTSD. If 683,000 women are raped each year, approximately 211,000 will develop RR-PTSD annually. Other Mental Health Problems: Major depression is a problem affecting many women, not just rape victims. However, 30% of rape victims had experienced at least one major depressive episode in their lifetimes, and 21% of all rape victims were experiencing a major depressive episode at the time of assessment : By contrast, only 10% of

women never victimized by violent crime had ever had a major depressive episode; and only 6% had a major depressive episode when assessed. Rape victims were three times more likely than non-victims of crime to have ever had a major depressive episode (30% Vs 10%). Also, they were 3.5 times more likely to be currently experiencing a major depressive episode (21% Vs 6%). Some mental health problems are life threatening. When asked if they ever thought seriously about committing suicide: One-third (33%) of the rape victims and 8% of the non-victims of crime said yes. Rape victims were 4.1 times more likely than non-crime victims to have contemplated suicide. Rape victims were 13 times more likely than non-crime victims to have attempted suicide (13% Vs 1%). Substance Abuse: There was substantial evidence that rape victims
had higher rates than non-victims of drug and alcohol consumption and a greater likelihood of having drug and alcohol-related problems. Compared to women who had never been crime victims, rape

victims with RR-PTSD were: 13.4 times more likely to have two or more major alcohol problems (20.1% Vs 1.5%). 26 times more likely to have two or more major serious drug abuse problems (7.8% Vs 0.3%). The National Women's Study findings provide compelling evidence about the extent to which rape poses a danger to American women's mental health -- and even their continued survival -- because of increased suicide risk. Thus, rape is a problem for America's
mental and public health systems as well as the criminal justice system.

Rapists dehumanize their victims in order to wipe away their feelings of guilt as they continue to kill Lang 10
(Johannes Lang is a fellow at the Danish Institute for International Studies where he teaches and writes about sociology. Questioning Dehumanization: Intersubjective Dimensions of Violence in the Nazi Concentration and Death Camps from Genocide and Holocaust Studies vol. 24 issue 2. CVS)

Perhaps when we were raping her, we looked at her as a woman but when we killed her, we just thought of her as something like a pig.42 In other words, this rape was committed against a human being, but once it had been carried out the perpetrators availed themselves of dehumanizing images in order to trivialize the act's moral consequences. The soldiers' feelings of guilt, if they had them to begin with, were thus reduced. Rape is an example of excessive violence aimed at more than the physical destruction of the victim. Sexual assault is part of a radicalization of violence that plays itself out over and over again, more or less systematically, more or less chaotically, in all campaigns of mass murder. When violence becomes excessive, it is common to explain it with reference to dehumanization: the killers have lost all sight of their victims' humanity. But, as I hope is becoming clear, this theoretical solution is too facile, even counter-factual. The theoretical response
Consider this statement by a Japanese soldier about an incident that took place during the subjugation of China in 1937: should be to ask instead what the extreme, supposedly dehumanizing, violence contributes to the killers' sense of power.43

This lack of guilt allows the rapists to feel total power over their victims and results in utmost dehumanization and degredation Scully and Marolla,85
(Diana Scully and Joseph Marolla, "Riding the Bull at Gilley's": Convicted Rapists Describe the Rewards of Rape, February 1985) During his interview, it became clear that this offender, like many of the men, believed men have the right to discipline and punish women. In fact, he argued that most of the men he knew would also have beaten the victim because "that kind of thing (referring to the dog) is not acceptable among my friends." Finally, in some rapes, both revenge and punishment were directed at victims because they represented women whom these offenders perceived as collectively responsible and liable for their problems. Rape was used "to put women in their place" and as a method of proving their "manhood" by displaying dominance over a female. For example, one multiple rapist believed his actions were related to the feeling that women thought they were better than he was. Rape was a feeling of total dominance. Before the rapes, I would always get a feeling of power and anger. I would degrade women so I could feel there was a person of less worth than me.

1AC Subjugation
Observation three is the Subjugation of the Female Body The patriarchal social system participates in the rape of the female mind, keeping her in subjection and ostracizing those who would dare to tread into the male domain. Lerner 86 (Gerda was a history professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a visiting scholar at Duke University. She is
considered one of the mothers of the womens history course in Wisconsin-Madison, and she taught what is thought to be the first womens history course at New School for Social Research. The Creation of Patriarchy CVS)

Historically, thinking women have had to choose between living a woman's life, with its joys,

dailiness, and immediacy, and living a man's life in order to think. The choice for generations of educated women has been cruel and costly. Others have deliberately chosen an existence outside of the sex-gender system, by living alone or with other women. Some of the most significant advances in women's thought were given us by such women, whose personal struggle for an alternative mode of living infused their thinking. But such women, for most of historical time, have been forced to live on the margins of society; they were considered "deviant" and as such found it difficult to generalize from their experience to others and to win influence and approval. Why no female system-builders? Because one cannot think universals when one's self is excluded from the generic. The social cost of having excluded women from the human enterprise of constructing abstract thought has never been reckoned. We can begin to understand the cost of it to thinking women when we accurately name what was done to us and describe , no matter how painful it may be, the ways in which we have participated in the enterprise. We have long known that rape has been a way of terrorizing us and keeping us in subjection. Now we
also know that we have participated, although unwittingly, in the rape of our minds.

Rape and femicide have been institutionalized as an integral part of warfare and are the worst form of bio politics Causing distinctions to be made between the self and the body, dehumanization, and death
Diken and Laustsen, 05
(Blent Diken Lancaster University, Department of Sociology, Carsten Bagge Laustsen, University of Aarhus, the Department of Political Science, March 2005, Becoming Abject: Rape as a Weapon of War, http://bod.sagepub.com/content/11/1/111.short)

Organized rape has been an integral aspect of warfare for a long time even though classics on warfare have predominantly focused on theorizing regular warfare, that is, the situations in which one army encounters another in a battle to conquer or defend a territory. Recently, however, much attention has been paid to asymmetric warfare and, accordingly, to phenomena such as guerrilla tactics, terrorism, hostage taking and a range of identityrelated aspects of war such as religious fundamentalism, holy war, ethnic cleansing and war rape. In fact, war rape can be taken as a

the soldier attacks a civilian (not a fellow combatant) and a woman (not another male soldier), and does this only indirectly with the aim of holding or taking a territory . The primary target here is to inflict trauma and through this to destroy family ties and group solidarity within the enemy camp. This article understands war rape as a fundamental way of abandoning subjects: rape is the mark of sovereignty stamped directly on the body, that is, it is essentially a bio-political strategy using (or better, abusing) the distinction between the self and the body. Through an analysis of the way rape was carried out by the predominantly paramilitary Serbian forces on Bosnian soil, this article theorizes a two-fold practice of abjection: through war rape an abject is introduced within the womans body (sperm or forced pregnancy), transforming her into an abject-self rejected by the family, excluded by the community and quite often also the object of a self-hate, sometimes to the point of suicide. This understanding of war rape
perfect example of an asymmetric strategy. In war rape is developed in the article through a synthesis of the literature on abandonment (Agamben, Schmitt) and abjection (Bataille, Douglas, Kristeva) and concomitantly it

that the penetration of the womans body works as a metaphor for the penetration of enemy lines . In addition it is argued that this bio-political strategy, like other forms of sovereignty, operates through the creation of an inclusive exclusion. The woman and the community in question are inscribed within the enemy realm of power as those excluded.
is argued

Biopower ensures the devaluation of life and genocide Agamben 98

(Giorgio, professor of philosophy at university of Verona, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, pg. 139-140)
3.3. It is not our intention here to take a position on the difficult ethical problem of euthanasia, which still today, in certain countries, occupies a substantial position in medical debates and provokes disagreement. Nor are we concerned with the radicaliry with which Binding

sovereignty of the has its immediate counterpart in the determination of a threshold beyond which life ceases to have any juridical value and can, therefore, be killed without the commission of a homicide. The new juridical category of life devoid of value (or life unworthy of being lived) corresponds exactlyeven if in an apparently different directionto the bare life of homo sacer and can easily be extended beyond the limits imagined by Binding. It is as if every valorization and every politicization of life (which, after all, is implicit in the sovereignty of the individual over his own existence) necessarily implies a new decision concerning the threshold beyond which life ceases to be politically relevant, becomes only sacred life, and can as such be eliminated without punishment. Every society sets this limit; every societyeven the most
declares himself in favor of the general admissibility of euthanasia. More interesting for our inquiry is the fact that the living man over his own life moderndecides who its sacred men will be. It is even possible that this limit, on which the politicization and the exceprio of natural life in the juridical order of the state depends, has done nothing but extend itself in the history of the West and has now in the

new biopolitical horizon of states with national sovereigntymoved inside every human life and every citizen. Bare life is no longer confined to a particular place or a definite category. It now dwells in the biological body of every living being

1AC Solvency
Contention Four is solvency A public discussion of the exploitation and degradation of women in maquiladoras is key to solve
Wright, 02
(Melissa W Wright is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and in the Program of Womens Studies at The Penn State University. Her research has explored the role of gender, nationality, and race in the organization of multinational production in Ciudad Jurez and in southern China. Her current research examines how the negotiation of gender and nationality affects efforts by multinational corporations to transform the human resources of northern Mexico, 16 DEC 2002, Anitpode Volume 33, issue 3, page 1, A Manifesto against Femicide, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8330.00198/pdf) With an activist coalition she helped establish, Chvez is fighting against the famous spectre that now haunts Ciudad Jurezthe spectre of the worthless woman. This spectre is of the woman not worth protecting as she goes to work in the maquilas and then dances afterwards , the one who is not worth the cost of her own social reproduction, the one whose death is insignificantthe one, in short, who does not have value. Chvez has called the object of her struggle femenicidio, or femicide. When we say women are worthless, she explained, this is femenicidio. Femicide recreates the mythic worthless women who inhabit Ciudad Jurez. With the help of local and international activists, Chvez has launched a public war against femicide. It is everywhere. In our homes, in our schools, in the maquila, she has said. It is a crisis. When we look at women as if they were trash, then something is wrong (author interview). Inspired by Chvez (and always by Marx), I say

it is high time that people who oppose the notion of worthless women should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, and their tendencies, and should meet this nursery tale of the spectre of worthless women with a manifesto . This manifesto would require international and national coalitions, and an alliance between labor groups in the US with resources and desires for cross-border organizing with those people waging a war against femicide in Ciudad Jurez. This essay is an attempt to think through such an alliance.

Affirmative Answers

Case

A2: Its the womans fault

A) You are at best an abomination to humanity B) The myths established in society about women who have been harassed only further degrade the woman, empowering the hierarchy to oppress her further into a mere object of sexuality. MAGALLN 6
(The Colectiva Feminista Binacional, Servicio Desarrollo y Paz, A.C. (SEDEPAC), and Comit de Obreras y Obreros en Lucha are Mexican nonprofit action groups whose aim is to create better working conditions for maquiladoras. ROSARIO ORTIZ MAGALLN was the project coordinator for their September 1, 2006 publication: Hostigamiento Sexual: Una Realidad en la Maquila or Sexual Harassment: A Maquila Reality. p 7. CVS)

In the workplace, within organizations, and in society in general, sexual harassment is dealt with in a superficial manner due to myths and false beliefs. For example: It is said that women

provoke this kind of conduct by the way that they dress and behave, especially towards men. In fact: Women have the right to decide how to dress and behave. This power conflict has led to a cultural confrontation. Men in positions of power justify their violent conduct by the dress and behavior of women . It is said that women confuse normal behavior like flirting and gentlemanly conduct with sexual harassment. In fact: Flirting involves mutual attraction. This kind of behavior is well received and makes a person feel good, and it respects the persons dignity. Sexual harassment, on the other hand, is a manifestation of one persons power over another person. It is degrading and hurts the victims dignity. It is said that the women who file complaints about sexual harassment are either inventing these stories, or using this mechanism as a form of revenge against a coworker. In fact: When a man is accused of inappropriate or violent behavior against a woman, he launches a campaign to discredit her , accusing her or trying to thwart her right to defend herself. It is said that women who complain are delicate or too devout, because they cant handle the interactions that occur in overwhelmingly male environments. In fact: These comments reflect how difficult it is for workers to change their cultural frame of reference, when women workers show that they do feel comfortable in environments with strong language, double meanings, or references to their bodies. It is argued that women use their sexuality as a tool to get promoted. In fact: This belief invalidates any effort by women workers to be valued in their jobs as people who are intelligent and have professional skills. It shows that sexuality is considered more relevant than their professional capacity. Addressing these myths makes it possible to deal objectively and neutrally with the problem and complaints that are filed regarding specific incidents .7

A2: Women In Workforce Solve

A) The Ayoub card in the 1AC specifically talks about how its the sexual harassment in the workplace that is a factor contributing to the murders of the women. Only the plan can completely restructure the way that women are viewed and treated in the maquiladoras and solve for our impacts. B) Patriarchal social structures are deeply engrained in Mexican communities. Women are still abused in the workforce, and their presence alone cant solve. Tiano 94
(Susan Tiano is a professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico. Article: Patriarchy on the Line: Labor, Gender, an d Ideology in the Mexican Maquilas Industry from American Etheology vol 22 issue 4. CVS)

Given the vast and rapid changes in the maquiladoras, the Mexican economy, and NAFTA, scholars of gender and labor politics in Mexico are often playing catch-up with history. Yet many of the conclusions in the present study are timely and sensible. Tiano shows that while womens paid employment

outside the home may help transform patriarchal relations, participation in the work force is itself not sufficient to uproot ideologies and practices related to male authority. She demonstrates that while women workers are victimized at home and at work, they are not necessarily easily manipulated. And despite its rather homogeneous and static portrayal of traditional gender relations (as if complexity in such matters had just begun in northern Mexico),
the book correctly notes recent developments like the hiring of men as maquila workers and the fact that today women are employed for several decades and not simply for a few years before bearing children.

A2: Murders have alt causes

No alt causes to the murders they were taking place long before any structural change occurred
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf) I assume that all these factors are closely related to the violence being committed against women. Even though violence against women existed long before the current processes of change taking place in the city, the continuing murders of women-raped, killed, and dumped into vacant lots and deserted areas-are a phenomenon not seen before the 1990Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that any investigation of the killing of women and girls in Ciudad Juarez that does not take into account the perspective of gender as a component of social relations based on the

differences between the sexes . . . and a principal framework for significant relations of power (Scott 2000, 289)-as well as the perspective of social class-will not succeed in explaining what has happened on this border. Because the murder of women and girls who were born
submerged in structures of inequality is directly related to these same structures.

A2: Not a femicide

a) Ext Rodriguez 10 from the 1AC not only does this talk about how the murders taking place in Juarez are rooted in a mischaracterization of gender that makes the femicide as simple as killing, but also that the small incidences of sexism and sexual harassment that occur lay a framework for the murders taking place. b) Its important to define exactly what a femicide is its the murder of women that is rooted in misogynistic tendencies
NOW,13
(National Organization of Women, Femicides of Juarez fact sheet, http://www.now.org/issues/global/juarez/femicide.html) Femicide is the mass murder of women simply because they are women. It is the term that has been coined in response the to murders of nearly 400 young women on the U.S.-Mexico border in the city of Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. (Dont read this second part if they read queer theory)

c) Not only was the term femicide specifically coined for the situation taking place in Juarez, but many of the women who are murdered are also sexually mutilated, this means that the attacker is specifically destroying what biologically makes the victim female. The first Fragoso card in inherency specifically talks about how this originally began with Jack the Ripper, whose killings inspired a tradition of misogynistic killings that continue to maintain male supremacy through the sexual mutilation, torture, and rape of the woman.

A2: Mexico say no

The strong alliance between the U.S. and Mexico should continue to grow economically, Nieto and Obama say. El Economista 13 (El economista is a well-accredited Mexican newspaper. May 5, 2013.
<http://eleconomista.com.mx/sociedad/2013/05/05/relaciones-mexico-estados-unidos-mas-igualitaria-pais> CVS)

The pace of economic growth and political stability in Mexico indicate that relations with the United States "are closer to equality than ever", even if it takes time to reach, said today the Spanish newspaper El Pais. In its editorial, the newspaper found that the harmony between the presidents of both countries may arise by "improving issues such as the fight against drug trafficking, which will benefit both countries and security of millions of people." In his analysis, during U.S. President Barack Obamas recent trip to Mexico he said that "despite the good intentions, mutual suspicion and border difficulties due to illegal immigration, drug trafficking and weapons overshadow relations bilateral ".But the chance to reinforce U.S. economic and political bloc is an overwhelming factor," he said. He recalled that Mexico is a country with rising expectations for economic growth, strong trade flows under the Free Trade Agreement of North America, and share 3,000 km border with the United States, which is a reality "of which expect a higher flow of meetings at the highest level. He said that "Mexico has a good ally," Obama having launched the immigration reform that would benefit millions of Mexicans in the United States, while the initiative for more gun control would also be beneficial to the southern neighbor. Meanwhile, the president of Mexico, Enrique Pea Nieto, "leads an interesting economic reform agenda and represents an emerging market with great potential for growth North complement mutual benefit," he added.

Obama and Nieto re-affirm their strong economic ties. More economic engagement is wanted by both. Slack 13 (Megan Slack is the Deputy Director of Digital Content in the Office of Digital Strategy at the White House.
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/03/president-obama-reaffirms-united-states-mexico-relationship > May 3, 2013. CVS)

While working together to confront urgent challenges like security, we cant lose sight of the larger relationship between our peoples, including the promise of Mexicos economic progress, President Obama said. I believe weve got a historic opportunity to foster even more cooperation, more trade, more jobs on both sides of the border, and thats the focus of my visit. The United States and Mexico have one of the largest economic relationships in the world. Our annual trade has now surpassed $500 billion -- more than $1 billion every day. We are your largest customer, buying the vast majority of Mexican exports. Mexico is the second largest market for U.S. exports. So every day, our companies and our workers - with their integrated supply chains - are building products together. And this is the strong foundation that we can build on.

A2: CEDAW Fails

(Please note that you dont have to read all of these cards, you can pick and choose)

( ) Ext. IWRAW ,09 from the 1AC CEDAW would not only create a framework for ending the femicide taking place in Juarez but it would also address rape as a human rights violations solves for value to life ( ) Ext. Lapadus and Leville from the 1AC CEDAW is the most comprehensive womens rights act proposed and has aided numerous countries in the prevention of violence against women ( ) CEDAW is the most comprehensive womens human rights agreement, but the US has yet to ratify. AIUSA 9 (Amnesty International United States of America is an organization dedicated to protecting human rights of immigrants and
minorities across the world. August 2009. <http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/cedaw_fact_sheet.pdf>

CVS)

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, or the Treaty for the Rights of Women), was adopted by the United Nations in 1979, and is the most

comprehensive international agreement on the basic human rights of women. The Treaty provides an international standard for protecting and promoting womens human rights and is often referred to as a Bill of Rights for women. It is the only international instrument that comprehensively addresses womens rights within political, civil, cultural, economic, and social life. As of August 2009, 185 countries have ratified CEDAW. The United States is among a
small minority of countries that have not yet ratified CEDAW, including Iran and Sudan. The United States has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the Western Hemisphere and the only industrialized democracy that has not ratified this treaty.

( ) CEDAW is a breakthrough in human rights thinking: Addresses structural issues. Freeman 97 (Marsha A. Freeman is the Director of the International Women's Rights Action Watch
and a fellow at the University of Minnesota School of Law at the Human Rights dept. Published in the American Society of International Law. The Human Rights of Women under the CEDAW Convention: Complexities and Opportunities of Compliance CVS)

Compliance with international norms concerning the human rights of women is an exercise in understanding and overcoming this "intransigence in structures." Effective compliance requires analysis of social and economic systems, confrontation of traditional social and cultural attitudes, and intelligent use of legal and political systems to establish a social framework in which women can readily exercise their human rights. It requires an understanding of the ways in which, through indifference, ignorance, carelessness, fear or sheer ill will, obstacles are placed in the way of women's enjoyment of human rights in every sector and at every level of society. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 2(the CEDAW Convention) establishes standards for achievement of women's human rights

essentially by outlining all the areas in which obstacles exist and stating the norm of equality in each area. The CEDAW Convention represents something of a breakthrough in human rights thinking, in that certain articles specifically refer to the structural issues that must be confronted.3

Off Case Answers

Topicality Economic Engagement Human Rights 2AC

1. Our interpretation is that the promotion of human rights is economic engagement - its probably the most important factor
US Department of State,09
(United States Department of State, What is Total Economic Engagement?, information released form January 20th 2001 to January 20th 2009) Total economic

engagement looks beyond the current practice of using financial development assistance as the only ox at the plow. We know that developing countries own the keys to their own economic success. Just as democracy relies on the educated and active common man, so a healthy economy rests on the liberated individual. Ronald Reagan summed it up well: We who live in free market societies believe that growth,
prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success Only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Our

goal, therefore, must be the creation of the right conditions for individual economic growth and success. We must cultivate conditions for private sector growth, investment and trade. This cannot be
accomplished through Official Development Assistance (ODA) funds alone. Foreign assistance must support a developing country s own effort to improve their economic climate. Total

economic engagement is putting all of the players to

the same plow.

2. Limits - Their interpretation limits out nearly all plans that have even remotely critical impacts even though they may do something thats completely topical and just has an advantage including human rights 3. Predictability we have an entire case neg that you got prior to the round, also we told you before the debate what we were going to run so its not our fault you didnt prepare correctly 4. T is not a voter a. Dont vote on potential abuse, you wouldnt arrest someone and give them the death penalty just because you think they had the potential to kill someone b. Good is good enough: were at least reasonably topical. Competing interpretations lead to a race to the bottom because the neg can always limit out the aff and win reasonability is the only fair way to evaluate T

Extra - T 2AC
1. Every argument in debate is extra t - discourse is a manifestation of ideology 2. Increases ground every new plank of plan gives the negative more DA links and CP options 3. Inevitable parts of plan like enforcement and funding will always be outside of the resolution, they need to prove how they are uniquely being abused. 4. Reject the plan plank not the team if they have no ability to generate offense, than dont weigh the extra-topical parts of plan; theres no reason why this is a voting issue. 5. Exclusionary CPs if we get advantages from extra planks, the neg can always sever out of that plank and get a net ben which prevents the aff from being too abusive

Capitalism 2AC
1. Case outweighs Our case impacts are real, are happening now, and prevent the deaths, dehumanization, and subjugation of thousands of people. The root cause of these impacts is not capitalism. To ignore these peoples lives and value is just as unethical as capitalism. 2. Perm do the plan and reject in all other instances; either the alt cant overcome this one link in which case its not strong enough to overcome the squo or it does solve, meaning the plan isnt a crucial link 3. Capitalism isnt the root cause of anything
Dandeker,02
(CHRISTOPHER, Department of War Studies, King's http://books.google.com/books?id=TNhFH5g3sCsC&dq=Effects+of+War+on+Society+Christopher+Dandeker&source=gbs_navlinks_s, 7/11/11) Despite the fact that industrial capitalism has produced two world wars, as Aron (1954) and more recently Michael Mann (1984) have argued, College, DA

there is no 'special relationship1 between capitalism and militarismor the tendency to waronly one of historical indifference. All the pre-dispositions of 'capitalist states' to use warfare calculatively as a means of
resolving their disputes with other states predate the formation of capitalism as an economic system. Of course, it could be argued that capitalism

merely changes the form of militarism. That is to say, pre-capitalist patterns of militarism were still expressions of class relations and modern capitalism has just increased the destructive power of the industrialised means of war available to the state. But this argument will not do. Socialist societies in their use of industrialised power show that the technological potential for war is transferable and can be reproduced under non-capitalist conditions. Furthermore, the military activities of socialist states cannot be
explained in terms of a defensive war against capitalism or even an aggressive one. as national and geopolitical power motives are arguably just as significant in the determination of state behaviour. Furthermore, imperial expansion not only predates capitalism but it is also difficult to reduce the causes of wars then and now to the interests of dominant economic classes (Mann 1984:2546).

4. Perm do both we can work within the system to break down capitalism
Monthly Review,90
(March 90, Vol. 41, No. 10, p. 38, 1990) No institution is or ever has been a seamless monolith. Although the inherent mechanism of American capitalism is as you describe it, oriented solely to profit without regard to social consequences, this does not preclude significant portions of that very system from joining forces with the worldwide effort for the salvation of civilization, perhaps even to the extent of furnishing the margin of success for that very effort.

5. Cap inevitable and sustainable, solutions can be offered pollution, financial instability, health problems and inequality
Rogoff,11
(Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics at Harvard, 12/2/2011, Is Modern Capitalism Sustainable?, http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/is-modern-capitalism-sustainable-) In principle, none

of capitalisms problems is insurmountable, and economists have offered a

variety of market-based solutions. A high global price for carbon would induce firms and individuals to internalize the cost of their polluting activities. Tax systems can be designed to provide a greater measure of redistribution of income without necessarily involving crippling distortions, by minimizing non-transparent tax expenditures and keeping marginal rates low. Effective pricing of health care, including the pricing of waiting times, could encourage a better balance between equality and efficiency. Financial systems could be better regulated, with stricter attention to excessive accumulations of
debt. CommentsWill capitalism be a victim of its own success in producing massive wealth? For now, as fashionable as the topic of

capitalisms demise might be, the possibility seems remote. Nevertheless, as pollution, financial instability, health problems, and inequality continue to grow, and as political systems remain paralyzed, capitalisms future might not seem so secure in a few decades as it seems now.

6. Alt fails capitalism is too ingrained in society for the alt to cause everyone to reject it 7. Any alternative to capitalism leads to extinction
Ebeling,93
(Richard M. Ebeling, March 93, vice president of academic affairs for The Future of Freedom Foundation, THE FAILURE OF SOCIALISM, www.fff.org/freedom/0393b.asp)

Socialism's failure in the former Soviet Union and in the other socialist countries stands as a clear and unquestionable warning as to which path any rational and sane people should never follow again. Government planning brought poverty and ruin. The idea of collectivist class and ethnic group-rights produced tens of millions of deaths and a legacy of civil war and conflict. And nationalized social services generated social decay and political privilege and corruption.

8. Capitalism increases life expectancy, solves for diseases, feeds the world, decreases illiteracy, helps the environment and resources are not running out Moore,02
(Stephen Moore, 8/28/02, President of the Club for Growth, Real Aid, National Review, www.nationalreview.com/moore/moore082802.asp)

Life Expectancy: In the rich countries life expectancy the broadest measure of health and a safe environment has increased by 30 years over the past century. Even in poor countries life expectancy has risen at an astonishing pace. The average resident of a poor nation can
expect to live nearly twice as long as his or her 19th-century counterpart. Most of humanity enjoys better health and longevity than the richest people in the richest countries did just 100 years ago. Health: Parents should reflect long and hard on one statistic whenever they think life isn't treating them well these days: The

death rate of children under 14 has fallen by about 95 percent since 1900. The child death rates in just the past 20 years have been halved in India, Egypt, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Korea, Israel, and scores of other nations. Almost all of the major killer diseases prior to 1900 tuberculosis, typhoid, smallpox, whooping cough, polio, malaria to name a few, have been nearly eradicated thanks to medical progress, most it coming from the evil capitalist United States. Nutrition: Nutrition and diets have been improving the world over. Gale Johnson the agriculture expert at the University of Chicago has discovered that fewer people worldwide died from famine in the 20 century than in the 19th century not just as a percentage of the population, but in absolute numbers. That is a spectacular achievement in our ability to feed the planet, given that the world population is
some four times higher today than 100 years ago. Education: The world's inhabitants are better educated than previously.

Illiteracy has fallen by more than two thirds in the U.S. and by an even greater percentage

in many poor nations. Environment: Economic development is the best way to clean the environment. Poverty is the biggest impediment to clean air and water. Consider the U.S.: Smog levels have declined by about 40 percent, and carbon monoxide is down nearly one third since the 1960s despite nearly twice as many cars. Some of the most impressive advances in cleaning the air have been recorded in the dirtiest cities, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. Airborne lead is down more than 90 percent from 40 years ago. Contaminated drinking water killed hundreds of thousands of Americans annually 100 years ago, versus very few deaths today. Natural Resources : By any measure, natural resources have become more available rather than more scarce. Consider copper, which is typical of metals: The cost of a ton is only about a tenth of what it was 200 years ago. There is evidence that oil the most worrisome of resources because it is mostly burned up and therefore cannot be recycled has actually been getting cheaper to produce. What has been the driving force behind this miraculous progress? Three words: free-market capitalism. If only the intellectual elite and the power holders in South Africa this week would go home and deregulate their economies, cut tax rates, expand democracy, and cut government rules and bureaucracies, we could blaze a path to alleviating world poverty in a generation or two. If only markets, not governments, controlled the price and usage of natural resources, we would see a further abundance of food, minerals, and energy enough for the entire world to share in the bounty.

Neoliberalism 2AC
1. Case outweighs Our case impacts are real, are happening now, and prevent the deaths, dehumanization, and subjugation of thousands of people. The root cause of these impacts is not capitalism. To ignore these peoples lives and value is just as unethical as neoliberalism in the world of the neg. 2. Perm do the plan and reject in all other instances; either the alt cant overcome this one link in which case its not strong enough to overcome the squo or it does solve, meaning the plan isnt a crucial link 3. Neoliberalism isnt the root cause of anything
Dandeker,02
(CHRISTOPHER, Department of War Studies, King's http://books.google.com/books?id=TNhFH5g3sCsC&dq=Effects+of+War+on+Society+Christopher+Dandeker&source=gbs_navlinks_s, 7/11/11) Despite the fact that industrial capitalism has produced two world wars, as Aron (1954) and more recently Michael Mann (1984) have argued, College, DA

there is no 'special relationship1 between capitalism and militarismor the tendency to

waronly one of historical indifference. All the pre-dispositions of 'capitalist states' to use warfare calculatively as a means of
resolving their disputes with other states predate the formation of capitalism as an economic system. Of course, it could be argued that capitalism

merely changes the form of militarism. That is to say, pre-capitalist patterns of militarism were still expressions of class relations and modern capitalism has just increased the destructive power of the industrialised means of war available to the state. But this argument will not do. Socialist societies in their use of industrialised power show that the technological potential for war is transferable and can be reproduced under non-capitalist conditions. Furthermore, the military activities of socialist states cannot be
explained in terms of a defensive war against capitalism or even an aggressive one. as national and geopolitical power motives are arguably just as significant in the determination of state behaviour. Furthermore, imperial expansion not only predates capitalism but it is also difficult to reduce the causes of wars then and now to the interests of dominant economic classes (Mann 1984:2546).

4. Perm do both we can work within the system to break down capitalism
Monthly Review,90
(March 90, Vol. 41, No. 10, p. 38, 1990) No institution is or ever has been a seamless monolith. Although the inherent mechanism of American capitalism is as you describe it, oriented solely to profit without regard to social consequences, this does not preclude significant portions of that very system from joining forces with the worldwide effort for the salvation of civilization, perhaps even to the extent of furnishing the margin of success for that very effort.

5. Neoliberalism is key to value to life, it reduces poverty, and solves war and disease Rockwell 2 Llewellyn H., President of the Mises Institute, The Free Market, Why They Attack
Capitalism, Volume 20, Number 10, October, http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp?control=418&sortorder-articledate)
If you think about it, this hysteria is astonishing, even terrifying. The

market economy has created unfathomable prosperity and, decade by decade, for centuries and centuries, miraculous feats of innovation, production, distribution, and social coordination. To the free market, we owe all material prosperity, all our leisure time, our health and longevity, our huge and growing population, nearly everything we call life itself. Capitalism and capitalism alone has rescued the human race from degrading poverty, rampant sickness, and early death. In the absence of the capitalist economy, and all its underlying institutions, the worlds population would, over time, shrink to a fraction of its current size, in a holocaust of unimaginable scale, and whatever remained of the human race would be systematically reduced to subsistence, eating only what can be hunted or gathered. And this is only to mention its economic benefits. Capitalism is also an expression of freedom. It is not so much a social system but the de facto result in a society where individual rights are respected, where businesses, families, and every form of association are permitted to flourish in the absence of coercion, theft, war, and aggression. Capitalism protects the weak against the strong, granting choice and opportunity to the masses who once had no choice but to live in a state of dependency on the politically connected and their enforcers. The high value placed on women, children, the disabled, and the aged unknown in the ancient worldowes so much to capitalisms productivity and distribution of power. Must we compare the record of capitalism with that of the state, which, looking at the sweep of this past century alone, has killed hundreds of millions of people in wars, famines, camps, and deliberate starvation campaigns? And the record of central planning of the type now being urged on American enterprise is perfectly abysmal.

6. Alt fails capitalism is too ingrained in society for the alt to cause everyone to reject it 7. Neoliberalism solves extinction and genocide. Teune, 02
(Henry, Political Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania, May, 2002 Global Democracy, The Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science, 581 Annals 22, Lexis)

During the past three decades, social scientists and professional observers described an emerging global political economy, but without democracy. It took most of the 1990s to grasp that without democracy, globalization could not continue in a peaceful, orderly fashion. Democracy began to become the bedrock of the prosperity promised by globalization. It may well turn out to be the best invention for human survival and the betterment of everyday living. Indeed, in time, democracy in large-scale societies may be judged the most important discovery of the twentieth century since vaccines. Governments systematically killing their own peoples and nearly nonstop international wars of scale marked the first half of the twentieth century (Rummel 1996). The killing of masses of people by legitimate authorities may be the most important international fact of the first half of the twentieth century. But the most important fact of this era of globalization is that almost all governments, save one or two, stopped doing that around the century's end, following the spread of democracy.

Queer Theory 2AC

1. Dont throw out the baby with the bath water its a piece of legislation, of course its going to be ethically imperfect what matters is that its a step in the right direction. The original mainstream womens rights movement was totally racist but it was still a step in the right direction now we have a new wave of feminism that includes women of color. Consider the aff to be an intermediate step in including all Queer individuals. Prefer our advocacy to the squo and ESPECIALLY if we prove theres no alt solvency. 2. Perm- Do the plan and then the alt in all other instances which present themselves. Theres no reason why this one aff plan is key to any trigger of the impacts. 3. The queer movement has already passed: Its fetishization of discourse and hatred of the mundane has led it to become nothing more than a meaningless statement Spargo 99 (Tamsin Spargo taught culture and literature at the Liverpool John Moores University. She is now a Reader in the Creative
Writing department. Foucault and Queer Theory. p. 65-67. CVS)

Queer culture and queer theory have recently attracted a great deal of criticism from lesbian, gay and queer activists and from academics. For some, the queer moment has already passed, its transgressive gestures transformed into fashion accessories. You can wear a nipple ring, a Queer as Fuck T -shirt, watch queer films, but does it really make a difference? Has queer just become another identity category, pierced rather than fragmented? In the consumer society of late capitalism, are queers really just lesbians, gays and a few others whose most intimate relationship is with their credit cards? Queer theory itself has been criticised for its abstraction, its fetishising of discourse and apparent contempt for the mundane . These criticisms echo those voiced against poststructuralist and postmodernist theories in general. More specifically, it has been accused of ignoring or underestimating the realities of oppression and the gains to be made by organised campaigns for rights and justice. Its interventionist credentials political, intellectual and social are seen by some as being undermined by its tendency to focus on difference and transgression as goals in themselves. A tendency in some queer writing to present gender and identity as almost exclusively negative, imprisoning structures or concepts has also invited criticism, and some commentators suggest that queer owes more to a masculinist gay identity than it acknowledges.

4. Perm do the alt then the plan: If the queer movement tries to destroy the barriers of sexuality, the two social movements can be both successful and beneficial. Kirsch 6 (Max Kirsch holds a Ph. D from Florida Atlantic University, Queer Theory, Late Capitalism and
Internalized Homophobia, Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 52 CVS)

It is in communities that we identify with, support, and build connections, geographic and emotional, with each other. Communities act to connect individuals with the social. They provide the avenues for human social reproduction and serve as the basis for mutual support. Moreover, communities can be sanctuaries for people needing to recover from oppression, and they can provide for collective strategies against those who attempt to destroy and to subjugate their members. Weeks notes that the causes of class struggle, feminism, socialism, and gay and lesbian rights all have their own rhythms that make agreement difficult. Engels assertion that in all times of great agitation, the traditional bonds of sexual relations, like all other fetters, are shaken off (in Weeks, 1985, p. 252) is scarcely borne out in a period in which that agitation is more between groups than against objects of oppression. This agitation is a choice too. And again, it follows a logic that divides and conquers rather than includes. The tension between gay and lesbian studies and queer theory represents wider differences in the approach to the analysis of the social, and the individuals relationship to society, including the strategies that derive from those differences. But it should be clear that we cannot struggle alone against a global system of military power and the ever-present threat of economic and physical destruction. If all things queer, then, is to become anything more than a novel digestion of difference, it must include the individual as more than the self as text. It must accommodate the individual in society. Identifying with social movements on the basis of the recognition of exploitation and devaluation, rather than mechanistically deconstructing the identities that comprise subjugated positions, can begin to resolve the stagnation that has dominated attempts to develop coalitions around issues that matter.

5. Perm do both : A feminist queer theory is necessary to truly end discrimination based on gender through the eclipse categorizations. Rudy 2K (Kathy Rudy is a professor of womens studies at Duke University. Queer theory and feminism Women's Studies: An interdisciplinary journal. CVS)

From a certain angle, these strategies might appear contradictory (why focus on "women" or women's sphere if that's the very category we're trying to free ourselves from?). My point here is that we need to live with this contradiction for some while, that we need to focus both on women and beyond them in order to prevent a new queer world from becoming another cover for the discrimination and disregard of women. Queer theory can provide us with interesting visions of a non-gendered, politically progressive world, but only if we recognize the need for feminist analysis as well . To my thinking, feminists today need to attend both to new queer analyses and to feminist methodologies if we hope to pursue a world that strives to be truly beyond gender discrimination rather than one that simply hides it. Queer discourse on academic and popular levels can help us avoid configuring gender as an ontological necessity and see it instead as something we construct and perform. Moving beyond the male/female binary will free us from unnecessary gender discrimination currently present in many aspects of social life. We also need feminism, however, to help us consciously focus on and recover "women's work" as a central concern in the new queer discourse. As feminists striving to live beyond gender, we need to actively remember the important relational and emotional work that has been done throughout the ages by the people called "women." Seeing "women's work" as engaging, important work throughout history will reshape the landscape of our own lives today. I suggest that what we need is a "feminist version of queer theory ," which would see itself not as a set of instantaneous, deconstructive moves but rather as a collection of staggered events and uneven developments that pursue two conflicting goals simultaneously. In this feminist version of queer

theory, we must strive to pay as much attention to the role of (what we used to call) women, as we do to overcoming or rising above such categorization. By understanding a feminist queer agenda not as one move but as a process, we can then see that both types of work help us reshape the world. Queer theorists and feminists agree on the idea that the secret of rebuilding the world lies at the level of interpretation. Rather than struggling over whether an event or text is either queer or feminist, we need to recognize that both interpretations are necessary and ought to exist side-by-side. In building a new feminist queer theory in this dialectical fashion, the struggle to recover women and to move beyond them emerges as an agenda that can offer a better world for people of all sexual and gender identifications. This version of queer theory understands finally that without feminism, queer theory will simply be another fight among boys.

6. Queer in the political pushes one to the point of obscuring racial and cultural identity altogether The idea of queerness works to obscure culture and race completely. Roen 1 (Katrina Roe is an associate professor of psychology at Oslo University, Transgender Theory
and Embodiment: the risk of racial marginalization CVS) How might queer and transgender politics and theories work (or not work) for people whose primary political affiliation is with their racial or cultural identity group? In order to explore this question, I will draw on interviews with fafafaine [3] (Samoan males who live as a third gender) and transsexuals conducted in New Zealand in 1996 as part of my doctoral research. Although the interviews were not focused primarily on questions of cultural identity or politics, I did seek research participants from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, and some of these people talked about their politics and identities in ways which have prompted and informed the current discussion. The three interviewees whose voices will be heard here are: Don, a 45-year-old Samoan fafafaine; Pat, a 32-year-old preoperative female-to-male Maaori man; and Tania, a 36-year-old preoperative male-to-female Maaori transsexual. (All names are pseudonyms chosen by the interviewer or the interviewee at the time of the interview. References to research participants as a man, fafaafaine, and a transsexual draw from those interviewees own ways of describing themselves.) Don provides an example of reclaiming a traditional sexuality/gender subject position which is very distinct from, but in some respects resembles, transgenderism. He talks about the importance of fa'afafine in Samoan culture, and how his own sense of self-esteem relates to being fafaafaine To begin with, he describes the relationship between his Samoan and fafaafaine identities by saying: 'for me culture is always first and then sexuality', and 'any interaction I have with anybody, the two things I want them to find out about me is the fact that I'm Samoan first and foremost and ... [secondly] that I'm fa'afafine'. In stating his priorities thus, Don sets himself in sharp relief to queer and transgender stances which often highlight gender and sexuality to the point of obscuring race altogether. Elaborating on this contrast Don describes how, to him, fa'afafine simply 'means like a woman', whereas: All the Palagi [4] [English] terms: gay, faggot, queer ... [they're] awful ... [Those terms] actually tell you how that society views that person. My culture just views it 'like a woman'. And it's like a special woman. It's a knowledgeable woman but recognised [as] ... anatomically male. (Don, interviewed: May, 1996) He describes being taught from an early age that to be fa'afafine was to be valued and respected, despite

shifting to New Zealand as a child and having to learn that fa'afafine were far less tolerated there. I was never put down or anything ... I grew up with this really arrogant opinion of myself: for some reason the world is rather special with me in it! Being fa'afafine was really special. Jesus, when I came to New Zealand that was soon cut out! ... I remember my mother saying: 'You mustn't walk like that, Don'; I said: 'Why not?' [and she replied:] 'Well, they don't do that in New Zealand'. ... That's something I never ever accepted. (Don, interviewed: May, 1996) For Don, cultural identity precedes gender/sexuality identity in political importance, but the two are intrinsically linked: one does not make sense without the other. Although he plays an active role in his local gaylesbitrans support networks, he is highly sceptical about the Palagi system of dividing and labeling sexualities and genders, preferring to espouse a more holistic approach. He is also critical of Palagi attempts to reclaim words such as queer, suggesting that this only reflects Palagi cultures' intolerant attitudes towards sexuality and gender variance. Don points out that the division-by-labels of sexuality and gender categories makes it hard to talk about concepts of fa'afafine and holism, for the language assumes categories which obscure the importance of the inclusivity of fa'afafine. For Don, being fa'afafine does not imply dissatisfaction with sexed embodiment nor does it make specifications about partner-gender: fa'afafine is constructed across sexuality and gender. However, he echoes his elders in expressing concern about younger fa'afafine being attracted by the glamour and lifestyle of cities where they come to think of themselves more in terms of western transvestite and transsexual identities, rather than according to traditional understandings of fa'afafine Some of these young fa'afafine opt for sex reassignment surgery. Don hastens to add that he is not simply opposed to sex reassignment surgery: he has some older fa'afafine friends who have waited years, ensuring that they are making the right decision, before going ahead with surgery. Nevertheless, he is concerned about the general westernization and subsequent degradation of fa'afafine identities, saying: 'I know of some of the traditional fa'afafines and each time I've gone back to Samoa it's always been the case "Oh gosh, we're being reduced to a ... cock in a frock" '. Don's willingness to accept that some of his fa'afafine friends seek sex reassignment surgery, accompanied by his concern for younger fa'afafine who are completely seduced by Palagi understandings of sexuality and gender, remind me of Besnier's comment: `Further discussion of gender liminality in Polynesia cannot take place without locating the category in a specific historical context and must address its relationship to modernization and change' (1994, p. 328). To this I add that discussion of transgenderism would benefit from further consideration of the effects of westernisation on gender liminality: not for the sake of a simplistic reclaiming of a 'third gender' [5] status, but for the sake of contextualising transgender theorising with respect to cross-cultural understandings of gender as those understandings change over time.

7. Perm do the plan and reject in all other instances; either the alt cant overcome this one link in which case its not strong enough to overcome the status quo or it does solve, meaning the plan isnt a crucial link

Politics: CIR 2AC

A rational policy maker would choose do both- no reason why they would have to choose one. Dont vote them up on this argument unless they can specifically prove that a policy maker would have to do otherwise Immigration law promotes a patriarchal society
Spijkerboer and Van Walsum,07
(Thomas Spijkerboer, Sarah Van Walsum, Feb 23, 2007, Thomas Spijkerboer is head of the Migration Law Research Programme. His research interests are Migration Law, Asylum & Refugee Law, Procedural Law, and Critical Legal Theory. Sarah van Walsum conducts research in the programme Migration Law, Bachelor Minor Profile Human Rights and Migration Masters elective course Migration Law Post-academic courses in national family migration policy, article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and EU migration law, Women and Immigration Law: New Variations on Classical Feminist Themes)

Social Citizenship is associated with a separate sphere of its own, defined in terms of human dignity and individual freedom, which allows for self fulfillment, social interaction and civil involvement (Mundlak). Immigration law and notions of social citizenship are related, since immigration law regulates legal admission to a national society. This is a selective process, and the criteria used to select immigrants are related to notions of social citizenship. Thus a criminal record, for example, will often preclude admission. Hence, immigration law can give an insight into how the dominant concept of social citizenship is being constructed. A major part of social and Christian democracy has been to ensure its citizens of the rights and privileges associated with social citizenship (Mundlak). But both the sphere of paid labour and the sphere of freedoms that social citizenship implies can only exist thanks to the reproductive labour that is traditionally performed by women within family relations labour that is unacknowledged, unseen and unpaid (Bosniak). This reproductive sphere is not pre-determined, but constructed along with, and in apposition to, the male dominated spheres of paid labour and social citizenship. Although paid labour and social citizenship are explicitly linked to each other as interdependent spheres, the reproductive sphere is largely constructed as radically distinct from both. Involvement in the reproductive sphere provides little or no credentials for integration into social citizenship, so that women who are heavily committed to responsibilities in the reproductive sphere receive at best marginal support from the welfare state. On the other hand, the dominant model of full time paid labour does not accommodate competing commitments in the reproductive sphere. Performances that take place within the reproductive sphere are not accredited to a market value; nor are they perceived of as aspects of human dignity inherent to social citizenship, that should be protected through services and/or measures of social security provided for by the welfare state (Mundlak; Haidinger). As a result , important components of women identities as adult participants in society are excluded from the dominant model of social citizenship . At the same time, by keeping the predominantly
reproductive sphere largely isolated from both market and state involvement, the European welfare

state preserves the

patriarchal notions of mens identity as adult participants in society: that of breadwinner and head of the family. In a number of ways, immigration law reveals how relevant patriarchal relationships still are, and
how intimately they have become tied in with processes that regulate access to membership, in not the formal and the social senses of the word. As mullallys contribution shows, family norms, reproductive rights and freedom of movement are closely linked. By leaving a country, women can escape the control of a patriarchal moral order, thus challenging and disrupting that order by claiming certain freedoms abroad. On the other hand, by entering another country, migrant women pose a challenge as potential mothers to rules that link national belonging to birth and/or family bonds.

NSA, Syria, AP, Benghazi trash chances of CIR AP 6/16

*Political Turmoil at Home as Obama Heads to Europe, Saudi Gazette, 6/16/13, http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20130616169988]
President Barack Obama

heads to next weeks summit of world leaders in Northern Ireland burdened by a messy
on his trip. The question is

domestic political landscape and distracting controversies. The latest one about a leaked global surveillance program has outraged people abroad and could cast a shadow
whether the growing political battles will affect Obamas standing at a G-8 summit of leading industrial countries, where he

now will be

dealing with reactions to his decision to arm Syrian rebel forces after a US finding that President Bashar Assads regime has
used chemical weapons. The decision should put Obama more in line with Europeans who made similar findings weeks ago. It also sharpens the differences with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an Assad supporter, who will also attend the summit. Obama travels to Northern

struggles on the domestic front. Despite his convincing victory in November, an improving economy and his still-respectable popularity numbers, his second-term agenda has stalled. An effort at gun control failed in the Senate, and his bid for a grand bipartisan bargain to cut government spending without harming the neediest Americans seems dead. His last big hope for a big legislative win rides on an overhaul of immigration laws. Yet its hard to keep
Ireland and later to Germany as he

lawmakers focused on immigration or much else with Obama on the defensive over a series of controversies. Republicans have been denouncing the administrations actions surrounding a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans. Beyond that, Obamas Justice Department took the unusual step of subpoenaing phone records of The A ssociated P ress without prior That prompted an uproar over what many critics saw as a violation of constitutional protections of press freedom. Now comes the leaked information about the N ational S ecurity A gency, the largest US spying organization, collecting the details of telephone
notification and obtaining a search warrant to secretly gather emails of a Fox News journalist. records of Americans, and two NSA programs that purportedly target foreign messages including private emails, voice and other data transmissions sent through US Internet providers. The

NSA operations on foreign communications traffic might

cause trouble for one of Obamas top goals at the G-8 summit. The president hoped the G-8 leaders could announce
the start of negotiations on a sweeping free-trade agreement to eliminate tariffs on trade with the European Union. European Parliament members, elected representatives from the 27-nation EU, now want language on data protection written into any possible deal.

Political capital doesnt exist and isnt key to their DA- more likely winners win Michael Hirsch, chief correspondent for National Journal. He also contributes to 2012 Decoded. Hirsh previously served as
the senior editor and national economics correspondent for Newsweek, based in its Washington bureau. He was also Newsweeks Washington web editor and authored a weekly column for Newsweek.com, The World from Washington. Earli er on, he was Newsweeks foreign editor, guiding its award-winning coverage of the September 11 attacks and the war on terror. He has done on-the-ground reporting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places around the world, and served as the Tokyo-based Asia Bureau Chief for Institutional Investor from 1992 to 1994. http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/there-s-no-suchthing-as-political-capital-20130207
On Tuesday, in his State of the Union address, President Obama will do what every president does this time of year. For about 60 minutes, he will lay out a sprawling and ambitious wish list highlighted by gun control and immigration reform, climate change and debt reduction. In

pundits will do what they always do talk about much political capital Obama possesses to push his program through
response, the this time of year: They will over the next four years. Consider this:

how unrealistic most of the proposals are, discussions often informed by sagacious reckonings of

. Most of

how this talk will have no bearing

seriously

on what actually happens Three months ago if someone had talked about capital to oversee both immigration and gun-control this person would have been called crazy In his first term Obama didnt dare to even bring up gun control And yet, for reasons that have very little to do with Obamas political
, just before the November election, Obama having enough political passage of reform legislation at the beginning of his second term even after winning the election by 4 percentage points and 5 million votes (the actual final tally) and stripped of his pundits license. (It doesnt exist, but it ought to.) , in a starkly polarized country, the president had been so frustrated by GOP resistance that he finally issued a limited executive order last August permitting immigrants who entered the country illegally as children to work without fear of deportation for at least two years. , a Democratic third rail that has cost the party elections and that actually might have been even less popular on the right than the presidents health personal prestige or popularityvariously put in terms of a mandate or care law.

capital chances are fair that both will now happen What changed In the case of gun control Newtown
. ? election. It was the horror of the 20 first-graders who were slaughtered in anything more than cosmetic changes to gun laws. But one thing is clear: The political tectonics have shifted dramatically in very little time. Whole new possibilities exist now that didnt a few weeks ago. Gang of Eight are pushing hard for a new spirit of compromise on self-deport. But this

, of course, it wasnt the

, Conn., in mid-December. The sickening reality of little girls and boys riddled with bullets from a high-capacity assault weapon seemed to precipitate a sudden tipping point in the

national conscience. One thing changed after another. Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association marginalized himself with poorly chosen comments soon after the massacre. The pro-gun lobby, once a phalanx of opposition, began to fissure into reasonables and crazies. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in the head two years ago and is still struggling to speak and walk, started a PAC with her husband to appeal to the moderate middle of gun owners. Then she gave riveting and poignant testimony to the Senate, challeng ing lawmakers: Be bold. As a result, momentum has appeared to build around some kind of a plan to curtail sales of the most dangerous weapons and ammunition and the way people are permitted to buy them. Its impossible to say now whether such a bill will pass and, if it does, whether it will make

Meanwhile

, the Republican members of the Senates so-called

immigration turnaround has very little to do with Obamas personal influence It has almost entirely to do with the Hispanic vote movement on immigration has come out of the Republican Partys introspection
his political mandate, as it were. just two numbers: 71 and 27. Thats 71 percent for Obama, 27 percent for Mitt Romney, breakdown of the speech on immigration reform on Jan. 29 at a Hispanic-dominated high school in Nevada, a swing state he won by a surprising 8 percentage points in November. But the recent mainly of political capital. But the fact is, its a concept that matters, if you have popularity and some momentum on your side. T he real problem is that lor mandates, or momentum

reform, a sharp change after an election year in which the GOP standard-bearer declared he would make life so miserable for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. that they would

in the 2012 presidential election. Obama drove home his advantage by giving a

, and the realization by its more thoughtful members, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, that without such a shift the party

may be facing demographic death in a country where the 2010 census showed, for the first time, that white births have fallen into the minority. Its got nothing to do with Obamas political capital or, indeed, Obama at all. The point is not that political capital is a meaningless term. Often it is a synonym for mandate or momentum in the aftermath of a decisive electionand just about every politician ever elected has tried to claim more of a mandate than he actually has. Certainly, Obama can say that because he was elected and Romney wasnt, he has a better claim on the countrys mood and direction. Many pundits still defend political capital as a useful metaphor at least. Its an unquantifiable but meaningful concept, says Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. You cant really look at a president and say hes got 37 ounces

the idea of political capita is so poorly defined that presidents and pundits often get it wrong. capital conveys that we know more than we really do about ever-elusive political power unforeseen events can suddenly change everything
Presidents usually over-estimate it, says George Edwards, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. The best kind of is a concept that misleads far more than it enlightens. It is distortionary. It , and it discounts the way political capitalsome sense of an electoral mandate to do something is very rare. It almost never happens. In 1964, maybe. And to some degree in 1980. For that reason, political the idea the concept of

. Instead, it suggests, erroneously, that a political figure has a concrete amount of political capital to invest, just as so meone might have real

investment capitalthat a particular leader can bank his gains, and the size of his account determines what he can do at any given moment in history. Naturally, any president has practical and electoral limits. Does he have a majority in both chambers of Congress and a cohesive coalition behind him? Obama has neither at present. And unless a surge in the economy at the moment, still stuckor some other great victory gives him more momentum, it is inevitable that the closer Obama gets to the 2014 election, the less he will be able to get done. Going into the midterms, Republicans will increasingly avoid any concessions that make him (and the Democrats) stronger. But the abrupt emergence of the immigration and gun-control issues illustrates how suddenly shifts in mood can occur and how political interests can align in new ways just as suddenly. Indeed, the pseudo-concept of political capital masks a larger truth about Washington that is kindergarten simple: You just dont know what you can do until you try. Or as Ornstein himself once wrote years ago, Winning wins. In theory, and in practice,

depending on Obamas handling of any issue, even in a polarized time he could still deliver on his second-term goals depending on the breaks political capital is, at best, an empty concept that almost nothing in the academic literature successfully quantifies or even defines it. Winning on
particular , a lot of , his skill and . Unforeseen catalysts can appear, like Newtown. Epiphanies can dawn, such as when many Republican Party leaders suddenly woke up in panic to the huge disparity in the Hispanic vote. Some political scientists who study the elusive calculus of how to pass legislation and run successful presidencies say that a presidents popularity, but theres no mechanism there. That makes it kind of useless, says Richard Bensel, a government professor at Cornell University. Even Ornstein concedes that the calculus is far more complex than the term suggests.

, and

It can refer to a very abstract thing, like

one issue often changes the calculation for the next issue; there is never any known amount of capital Ornstein says. If they think hes going to win, they may change positions to get on the winning side. Its a bandwagon effect.
. The idea here is, if an issue comes up where the conventional wisdom is that president is not going to get what he wants, and he gets it, then each time that happens, it changes the calculus of the other actors ALL THE WAY WITH LBJ

Sometimes, a clever practitioner of power can get more done just because hes aggressive and knows the hallways of Congress well. Texas A&Ms Edwards is right to say that the outco me of the 1964 election, Lyndon Johnsons landslide

victory over Barry Goldwater, was one of the few that conveyed a mandate. But o ne of the main reasons for that mandate (in addition to Goldwaters ineptitude as a candidate) was President Johnsons master ful use of power leading up to that election, and his ability to get far more done than anyone thought possible, given his limited political capital. In the newest volume in his exhaustive study of LBJ, The Passage of Power, historian Robert Caro recalls Johnson getting cautionary advice after he assumed the presidency from the assassinated John F. Kennedy in late 1963. Dont focus on a long-stalled civil-rights bill, advisers told him, because it might jeopardize Southern lawmakers support for a tax cut and appropriations bills the president needed. One of the wise, practical people around the table *said that+ the presidency has on ly a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtnt to expend it on this, Caro writes. (Coinage, of course, was what political capital was called in those days.) Johnson replied, Well, what the hells the presidency for? Johnson didnt worry abou t coinage, and he got the Civil Rights Act enacted, along with much else: Medicare, a tax cut, antipoverty programs. He appeared to understand not just the ways of Congress but also the way to maximize the momentum he possessed in the lingering mood of national grief and determination by picking the right issues, as Caro records. Momentum is not a mysterious mistress, LBJ said. It is a controllable fact of political life. Johnson had the sk ill and wherewithal to realize that, at that moment of history, he could have unlimited coinage if he handled the politics right. He did. (At least until Vietnam, that is.) And then there are the presidents who get the politics, and the issues, wrong. It was the last president before Obama who was just starting a second term, George W. Bush, who really revived the claim of political capital, which he was very fond of wielding. Then Bush prom ptly demonstrated that he didnt fully understand the concept either. At his first news conference after his 2004 victory, a confi dent-sounding Bush declared, I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. Thats my style. The 43rd president threw all of his political capital at an overriding passion: the partial privatization of Social Security. He mounted a full-bore public-relations campaign that included town-hall meetings across the country. Bush failed utterly, of course. But the problem was not that he didnt have enough politica l capital. Yes, he may have overestimated his standing. Bushs margin over John Kerry was thinhelped along by a bumbling Kerry campaign that was almost the mirror image of Romneys gaffe -filled failure this time but that was not the real mistake. The problem was that whatever credibility or stature Bush thought he ha d earned as a newly reelected president did nothing to make Social Security privatization a better idea in most peoples eyes. Voters didnt trust the plan, and four years later, at the end of Bushs term, the stock -market collapse bore out the publics skepticism. Privatization just didnt have any momentum behind it, no matter who was pushing it or how much capital Bush spent to sell it . The mistake that Bush made with Social Security, says John Sides, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University and a wellfollowed political blogger, was that just because he won an election, he thought he had a green light. But there was no sens e of any kind of public urgency on Social Security reform. Its like he went into the garage wher e various Republican policy ideas were hanging up and picked one. I dont think Obamas going to make that mistake. Bush decided he wanted to push a rock up a hill. He didnt understand how st eep the hill was. I think Obama has more momentum on his side b ecause of the Republican Partys concerns about the Latino vote and the shooting at

Obama may get his way not because of his reelection, but because Republicans are beginning to doubt whether taking a hard line on fiscal policy is a good idea
Newtown. also on the debt ceiling, Sides says, , as the party suffers in the polls. THE REAL LIMITS ON POWER Presidents are limited in what they can do by time and attention span, of course, just as much as they are by electoral balances in the House and Senate. But this, too, has nothing to do with political capital. Another well-worn meme of recent years was that Obama used up too much political capital passing the health care law in his first term. But the real problem was that the plan was unpopular, the economy was bad, and the president didnt realize that the national mood (yes, again, the national mood) was at a tipping point again st big-government intervention, with the tea-party revolt about to burst on the scene. For Americans in 2009 and 2010 haunted by too many rounds of layoffs, appalled by the Wall Street bailout, aghast at the amount of federal spending that never seemed to find its way into their pocketsgovernment-imposed health care coverage was simply an intervention too far. So was the idea of another economic stimulus. Cue the tea party and what ensued: two titanic fights over the debt ceiling. Obama, like Bush, had se ttled on pushing an issue that was out of sync with the countrys mood. Unlike Bush, Obama did ultimately get his idea passed. But the bigger political problem with health care reform was that it distracted the governments attention from other issues that people cared about more urgently, such as the need to jump-start the economy and financial reform. Various congressional staffers told me at the time that their bosses didnt really have the time to understand how the Wall Street lobby was riddling the Do dd-Frank financial-reform legislation with loopholes. Health care was sucking all the oxygen out of the room, the aides said. Weighing the imponderables of momentum, the often-mystical calculations about when the historic moment is ripe for an issue, will never be a science. It is mainly intuition, a nd its best practitioners have a long history in American politics. This is a tale tol d well in Steven Spielbergs hit movie Lincoln. Daniel Day-Lewiss Abraham Lincoln attempts a lot of behind-the-scenes vote-buying to win passage of the 13th Amendment, banning slavery, along with eloquent attempts to move peoples hearts and minds. He appears to be using the political capital of his reelection and the turning of the tide in the Civil War. But its clear that a surge of conscience, a sense of the changing times, has as much to do with t he final vote as all the backroom horse-trading. The reason I think the idea of political capital is kind of distorting is that it implies you have chits you can give out to people. It really oversimplifies why you elect politicians, or why they can do what Lincoln did, says Tommy Bruce, a former political consultant in Washington. Consider, as another example, the storied political career of President Franklin Roosevelt. Because the mood was ripe for dramatic change in the depths of the Great Depression, FDR was able to push an astonishing array of New Deal programs through a largely compliant Congress, assuming what some described as near-dictatorial powers. But in his second term, full of confidence because of a landslide victory in 1936 that brought in unprecedented Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, Roosevelt overreached with his infamous Court-packing proposal. All of a sudden, the political capital that experts thought was limitless disappeared. FDRs plan to expand the Supreme Court by putting in his judicial allies abruptly created an unanticipated wall of opposition from newly reunited Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats. FDR thus inadvertently handed back to Congress, especially to the Senate, the power and influence he had seized in his first term. Sure, Roosevelt had loads of popularity and momentum in 1937. He seemed to have a bank vault full of political capital. But, once again, a president simpl y chose to take on the wrong issue at the wrong time; this time, instead of most of the political interests in the country aligning his way, they opposed him. Roosevelt didnt fully recover until World War II, despite two more election victories. In terms of Obamas second-term agenda, what all these shifting tides of momentum and political calculation mean is this: Anything goes. Obama has no more elections to win,

if he picks issues reason to think he cant win far more victories than is possible he can get some early wins may well lead to others. Winning wins
and he needs to worry only about the support he will have in the House and Senate after 2014. But

that the countrys mood will supportsuch as, perhaps, immigration reform and gun control

any of the

, including battles over tax reform and deficit reduction. Amid todays atmosphere of Republican self -doubt, a new, more mature Obama seems to be emerging, one who has his agenda clearly in mind and will ride the mood of the country more adroitly. as he already has, apparently, on the fiscal cliff and the upper-income tax increase

there is no careful calculators of political capital believe If that will create momentum, and one win
now

. Obama himself learned some hard lessons over the past four years abou t the falsity of the political-capital concept. Despite his decisive victory over John McCain in 2008, he

fumbled the selling of his $787 billion stimulus plan by portraying himself naively as a post -partisan president who somehow had been given the elec toral mandate to be all things to all people. So Obama tried to sell his stimulus as a long-term restructuring plan that would lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth. The president thus fed GOP suspicions that he was just another big -government liberal. Had he understood better that the country was digging in against yet more government intervention and had sold the s timulus as what it mainly wasa giant shot of adrenalin to an economy with a stopped heart, a pure emergency measure he might well have escaped the worst of the backlash. But by laying on ambitious programs, and following up quickly with his health care plan, he only sealed his reputation on the right as a closet socialist. After that, Obamas public posturing provoked automatic opposition from the GOP, no matter what he said. If the president put his personal imprimatur on any plan from deficit reduction, to health care, to immigration reformRepublicans were virtually guaranteed to come out against it. But this year, when he sought to exploit the chastened GOPs newfound willingness to compromise on immigration, his approach was different. He seemed to un derstand that the Republicans needed to reclaim immigration reform as their own issue, and he was willing to let them have some credit. When he mounted his bully pulpit in Nevada, he delivered another new message as well: You Republicans dont have to listen to what I say anymore. And dont worry about whos got the political capital. Just take a hard look at where Im saying th is: in a state you were supposed to have won but lost because of the rising Hispanic vote. Obama was cleverly pointing the GOP toward conclusions that he knows it is already reaching on its own: If you, the Republicans, want to have any kind of a future in a vastly changed electoral map, you have no choice but to move. Its your choice.

(Obviously youre going to have to go to the politics file and find stuff for impacts depending on what they are)

LGBTQUIA Counterplan 2AC

1. 161 countries have already ratified CEDAW there is no way that it would be possible to completely restructure the treaty, especially because were one of the last countries to ratify it. 2. Restructuring the treaty is an insane abuse of fiat dont let them do something that is legislatively impossible we have no choice but to sign the treaty as is give them the burden of finding a solvency advocate for rewriting a treaty that isnt only ours. 3. Double-bind either they abuse fiat or they cant do it. 4. The aff is the most politically viable option restructuring an internationally agreed upon treaty almost definitely cedes the political. 5. Perm do both test of competition 6. CEDAW already addresses discrimination against sexual minorities. IGLHRC 13
(The Internation Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is an international activist programdedicated to increasing rights for

http://www.iglhrc.org/content/30-years-cedaw-achievementscontinuing-challenges-towards-realization-women%E2%80%99s-human-rights> CVS)
queer/LGBTQUIA people across the world. <

Almost seven years after not responding to human rights abuses against LBT persons, CEDAW lifted

the veil of silence at its 42nd session in October/November 2008. In concluding comments on Ecuador, the Committee addressed discrimination against sexual minorities and asked for an investigation by state authorities. In concluding comments on Kyrgyztan, the Committee expressed concerns about harassment and discrimination against women because of their sexuality, and urged the State to take appropriate measures to ensure that the CEDAW
Convention applied to all women without discrimination and to offer protections from harassment and violence by public and private individuals. In January 2009, in concluding comments on Guatemala

the Committee listed sexuality as one of the reasons women faced multiple forms of discrimination, and urged the State to take steps to address this problem.

7. Perm: do the counterplan- not severance because perms have no T burdens. If they did, the Aff would always lose on extra-T because every perm acts beyond the topic. Severance is not a voter and should not be considered a valid argument against this perm. Make them specifically prove that the perm itself does not solve

8. CEDAW listed discrimination of gender identity and sexual orientation as a factor that all member nations must rectify. UNHR 10 (The United Nations Human Rights commission is a subsector of the UN to which CEDAW belongs. 10-22-2010 <
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=10470&LangID=E> CVS)

The Committee also adopted a detailed general recommendation on Article 2 of the Convention in which it reaffirmed that discrimination of women based on sex and gender was inextricably linked with other factors that affected women, such as race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation and gender identity. The Committee further emphasized that States parties were obligated to proclaim their total opposition to all forms of discrimination against women and that they should pursue their policies in this regard by all appropriate means and without delay. Where a State party was facing resource constraints or other obstacles, it had to seek international cooperation to overcome such difficulties. The Committee finally repeated its call on States parties to consider withdrawing reservations to the Convention, in particular those relating to article 2, as soon as possible. Ms. Zou said the constructive dialogue the Committee had had with the States parties that had presented their reports had allowed identifying gaps and challenges and Committee Experts together with State representatives had sought to identify strategies for further action and to find solutions to the challenges of persistent discrimination. These dialogues confirmed the importance of regular and timely reporting and consideration so as to ensure consistent monitoring of progress. In all cases, the Committee recommended that the Convention form the basis for States parties efforts aimed at achieving gender equality.

9. Perm: do the CP then the plan- if the counterplan solves then it should shield any impacts to their net benefit

10. No Neg fiata) Doesnt disprove the resolution the CP is an interesting but irrelevant FYI. It doesnt challenge whether the judge should uphold the resolution. If we prove the resolution to be a good idea, then you vote aff because weve met our burden. b) Neg doesnt have fiat the aff has fiat for purposes of affirming the resolution. The negatives burden is to negate that action. They dont have a counter resolution. c) Ground the negative can make up any CP and fiat solvency and negate 8 mins of the 1ac and fiat should be affirmative ground they have the neg block and we have the 1ar only way to level the playing field. d) Kills Education the neg can research one CP and use nothing else the entire year, which makes case research non-existent, we dont learn about the case in a world where the neg gets to fiat away our advs. e) Voting issue for competitive equity and education.

Case Negative

Queer/LGBTQUIA Counterplan

1NC
Plan: The USFG should substantially increase its economic engagement in Mexico by ratifying a Queer/LGBTQUIA-inclusive version of CEDAW and implementing it in multinational-corporate-controlled maquiladoras. The USFG should decriminalize undocumented immigration and create a Department of Immigration delinked from criminal departments. NAFTA caused maquiladora proliferation. Bolterstein 2K
[Elyse Bolterstein BS, Resource Ecology and Management University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI PhD, Molecular and Environmental Toxicology University of Wisconsin - Madison Madison, WI Postdoctoral Scholar Mitch McVey, PhD, Adviser, 2000, http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/Jones/maquiladora.htm]
Background Within the last 30 years, the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico has become what the American Medical Association calls, "a virtual cesspool and breeding ground for infectious disease (Public Citizen, 2000)." The causes of this unfortunate observation are the more than 3,000 manufacturing plants that cover the Mexican border known as the maquiladoras. The maquiladoras are the mostly American-owned factories along the Mexican border that assemble products for export to U.S. markets (National Health, 1998). The Mexican maquiladora program, implemented in 1965, created a free trade agreement for foreign companies to bring materials into the country for manufacturing. The goal of the program was to provide Mexicos northern cities with a better job market while also providing foreign manufacturers with cheap labor. The maquiladoras do provide Mexican border cities with a great number of jobs, but at the expense of low wages, terrible working conditions, low job security, and high exposure to toxic chemicals (EHC, 1998). The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was implemented by the Mexican, U.S., and Canadian governments in 1993. NAFTA proponents promised that the agreement would help to alleviate many of the current border problems caused by the existing free-trade zone. NAFTA would also help to improve working conditions, better enforce environmental laws, and decrease the high maquiladora concentration along the border (Public Citizen, 2000).

Unfortunately, NAFTA did not have the effect that its proponents had talked of. In 1995, two years after NAFTA was implemented, the maquiladora work force increased by 20%. The agreement also did little to help disperse the plants further from the border areas. In 1995, 85% of all maquiladora workers were employed in one of the six Mexican Border States (Public Citizen, 2000). Another downfall of NAFTA was the disposal of toxic waste from the foreign-owned factories. Under the original maquiladora program, foreign manufactures were required to return all waste to the country of origin, however NAFTA allows all goods imported to the maquiladoras to remain in Mexico, including the waste products (EHC, 2000).

CEDAW marginalizes womyns rights in a separate document, thus sabatoging its own movement. Grimm 98
[Nicole L. Grimm is a counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Skadden, Arps. She has represented numerous U.S. and international companies and individuals in government investigations and parallel proceedings, including SEC and grand jury investigations. Ms. Grimm focuses on complex accounting, securities and FCPA matters, as well as complex civil litigation, including securities litigation, RICO and class action matters. She also represents companies in connection with health care and FDA-related matters. Prior to joining Skadden, Ms. Grimm worked at a law firm in Santiago, Chile, where she focused on foreign investment and international transactional matters. 1998, The North American Agreement of Labor Cooperation and Its Effects on Women Working in Mexican Maquiladoras, http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1315&context=aulr&seiredir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.com%2Fscholar%3Fas_vis%3D1%26q%3DCEDAW%2B maquiladoras%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D1%2C9#search=%22CEDAW%20maquiladoras%22] AKB

Even the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), whose entire purpose is to support equality for women and nondescription based on sex, G.A. Res. 34/180 (Dec. 18, 1979) (entered into force Sept. 3, 1981), may create problems by ghettoizing womens concerns in a specific document. See Dallmeyer, supra note 40, at 6-7. CEDAW is a significant

achievement for women in many ways because it is an important international instrument that focuses exclusively on womens concerns, ensuring that they are not overshadowed by other topics within the agreement. See Arden B. Levy, International Prosecution of Rape in Warfare: Nondiscriminatory Recognition and Enforcement, 4 UCLA WOMENS L.J. 255, 281 (1994) (discussing the potentially positive aspects of CEDAW that may help to promote womens rights more effectively). The existence of a

special womens international legal instrument, however, may cause problems for women by providing justification for not including womens specific concerns in other pieces of international law, under the theory that womens issues have already been codified and need no further attention. See Dallmeyer, supra note 40, at 6. The implementation and enforcement mechanisms embodied in this convention also tend to be weak, which prevents effective enforcement of the rights codified therein. See Charlesworth, supra note 20, at 632-33 (criticizing
CEDAWs implementation mechanism as weaker than those of other international human rights documents because its liberal reservations policy allows states to ratify the treaty selectively).

The language of CEDAW alienates men and trans people from the gender equality movement and excludes them from receiving the benefits of the bill. Rosenblum 11
Darren Rosenblum, 1/1/11, Unsex CEDAW, or What's Wrong With Women's Rights, http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=lawfaculty] CONCLUSION In this Article, I have argued that CEDAW is neither accurate nor effective. It is not accurate because the real sex and gender engagements must include men, women who are not victims, and transgender people. It may also include the panoply of gender-related issues that surface in the Yogyakarta Principles. It is also not effective-CEDAW has been effective at many things, but it has not achieved the broad transformation promised. It cannot achieve that equality as long as the harms it addresses focus solely on "women" as a group . With contemporary

understandings of sex, gender and sexuality serving as the foundation for a new treaty, international law might come closer to reflecting reality, thereby fostering greater equality. Putting "sex" or "gender" in the place of "women" has more than semiotic value. As a category, either term moves beyond the limits of essentialist notions of womanhood toward reducing gender inequality and guaranteeing universal human rights. This radical proposal may
strike those who fought for the enactment of CEDAW and implemented it over nearly thirty years as apostasy. Yet were they, along with all others interested in human rights, to redraft the Convention tabula rasa, they would recognize the primacy of gender as a fundamental element of progress on these issues. Although CEDAW has played an important role in certain contexts regarding such

issues, a sex or gender-focused treaty would reach more deeply into the inequalities that plague humanity. Today, the Convention and its "women's" approach serves as the pinnacle of gender-based rights. Underneath it lays gender mainstreaming efforts and other attempts to reference gender. Unsexing CEDAW would flip the architecture of international women's human rights to focus on gender, with women included under that rights umbrella .66OLUMBIA
JOURNAL OF GENDER AND LAW I realize that it would be a monumental, perhaps unachievable task to revise such a widely subscribed treaty. Even so, recognizing its flaws permits thinking about the importance of moving forward in other ways. Reinterpreting Article 5(a) as a dominant method of interpreting CEDAW's Articles could be one way to achieve such progress. Another would be to focus

efforts on the broader adoption of the Yogyakarta Principles and even the recognition by States Parties and the CEDAW Committee that the Principles enact a crucial part of the Convention's goals. CEDAW's problem is a problem for women's rights as well. Although such a broad argument is beyond the scope of this Article, the international women's rights context reflects the extent to which the focus on women as a group will fail as long as it ignores the extent to which men are excluded from any serious consideration. Gender inequalities box us all into a preordained set of advantages and disadvantages. Unsexing CEDAW is not just a remedy to a shortcoming in international law, but a model for thinking about gender issues as a human rights question for all people.

Super-sex CEDAW Hernandez-Truyol No Date

[BERTA ESPERANZA HERNANDEZ-TRUYOL, No Date, UNSEX CEDAW? NO! SUPER-SEX IT!, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/coljgl20&div=16&g_sent=1&collection=journals] This short Article urges that instead of unsexing CEDAW, it should be super-sexed by expanding the convention to include sexuality, gender, and gender identity. The proposal, which agrees

with the substance of Prof. Rosenblum's argument in principle but not in methodology, is grounded upon the reality that "woman" as a sex category is still needed. Yet, it would be irresponsible and unprincipled to ignore that sex, race, gender, sexuality, and gender identity are all axes upon which marginalization and exclusion of, as well as violence against, "others" takes place. In all cases, and with respect to all categories, it is imperative not to essentialize. We need
to be cognizant that it is the dominant ideologies and discourses that create the subjectivities with which Professor Rosenblum's piece, as well as this response, grapple. Identity is performed within

social and cultural frameworks; the legal frameworks need to be sensitive to this reality. Whether the classification "woman" is legitimate, and in spite of the fact that there is no such thing as a unitary woman, people who are perceived to constitute that category (and that can be different persons in different cultural settings, and in varied geographical and social contexts) are less likely to enjoy full personhood and its trappings. These exclusions are exacerbated when multiple outsider categories converge in one performance. The same conclusions flow if one substitutes gender or sexual minority/outsider, or gender identity. This is the flaw Professor
Rosenblum uncovers in CEDAW: The coexisting reality that vulnerable men-be they poor; not malegendered; sexual, religious, or racial minorities- suffer deep privations of civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights. CEDAW's focus on women obscures and impedes these conversations. However, CEDAW, as it stands, serves to underscore that worldwide human beings experience privation at a disproportionate rate because they are women. Rather than abandon a legitimate and useful

category, we ought to center multidimensionality and include sex, gender, gender identity, and sexuality in the international narrative on equality in order to promote all human flourishing.

2NC/1NR
Dude calm down neg fiats fine a) Key to fairness counterplans prevent us from having to defend morally repugnant status quos against true harms. b) Key to education counterplans force affs to fully consider their solvency mechanisms, and deepens the search for the best policy option. c) Its fair for the affirmative they can use their 1ac as offense, and permutations give them strategic options. d) Its Reciprocal the affirmative has fiat, if we didnt we would be forced to defend the sqou when the aff could fiat they solve all world problems. e) Its not a voting issue at worst you reject the argument, not the team.

Also, theres no neg fiat: CEDAW is a living document Amendment is possible, and it has been done in the past. IGLHRC 13
(The Internation Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is an international activist programdedicated to increasing rights for queer/LGBTQUIA people across the world. Equal and Indivisible: Crafting Inclusive Shadow Reports for CEDAW <https://www.iglhrc.org/sites/default/files/Access_to_Justice_CEDAW.pdf> CVS)

Since its inception, the CEDAW Committee has worked to ensure that the Convention is a flexible, living document. The Committee has depended on General Recommendations to interpret concepts embedded within the Convention text and to update its relevance by addressing contemporary issues in womens lives. Nowhere has CEDAWs commitment to the clarification of the Convention been more obvious than in its treatment of the concept of equality. The language of equality embedded within the Convention focuses on a comparative concept between women and men. Yet, the Committee has repeatedly used General Recommendations to capture broader dimensions of inequality, including inequalities between women themselves. In pursuit of a robust definition of equality, the Committee has addressed the disproportionate burdens born by rural women, women with disabilities, and women with HIV/AIDS, among others.10 After years of attention to the individual inequalities experienced by women, the Committee in 2010 took a systematic approach by issuing General Recommendation 28 to address State responsibility to undertake corrective action against all forms of discrimination against women.

Heteronormativity left unchecked leads to the subordination of the woman Turns case. Interrogating heterosexuality solves. IGLHRC 8 (The Internation Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is an international activist programdedicated to increasing rights
for queer/LGBTQUIA people across the world. Equal and Indivisible: Crafting Inclusive Shadow Reports for CEDAW <http://www.iglhrc.org/sites/default/files/287-1.pdf> CVS)

One of the greatest challenges in the human rights arena in recent times has been the demands
for

visibility and recognition by groups advocating for sexual orientation and gender identity as bases for discrimination and violence, specifically when sexual or gender identity or expression are outside cultural and religious norms. Some extremely negative responses to the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity into mainstream human rights discourse are rationalized by archaic customs and traditional practices that perpetuate discrimination and violence against women. At the root of many murders of heterosexual, lesbian, and bisexual women, and transgender women is the conflation of womens honor with the honor of their families and communities. Perceptions of what is normal make the transformation of attitudes towards the rainbow nation of people who face discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation and gender identity and expression difficult and complicated. Heteronormativity is the concept that gives value and affirmation to one particular, idealized form of human relationship. Heteronormativity valorizes heterosexuality, but particularly a gender conforming understanding of heterosexuality, which allocates more power to male leadership in public and private life, rewarding females primarily for reproduction and submissiveness. This concept

enables us to understand imbalanced power relations in labor, politics, media, and the family, for example, between those who lead lives according to normative frameworks established in each society and culture, and those who challenge these normative frameworks in diverse ways. It is the links between heteronormativity and patriarchy, a pervasive social structure consolidating male power,

that create stereotypes of masculinity and femininity and that privilege the male over the female. However, the scholarship on and interrogation of heterosexualitythose efforts to analyze its many forms and how they affect different populations , such as single women, single men, older women, widows, and youthlags far behind other scholarship and activism on sexual orientation and gender identity. Only by unsexing CEDAW can it solve to its greatest potential.

Rosenblum 11 Darren Rosenblum, 1/1/11, Unsex CEDAW, or What's Wrong With Women's Rights,
http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=lawfaculty]

The Convention, despite its focus on women's rights, is also the preeminent treaty on gender inequality. It cannot succeed, however, in creating gender equality if it continues to focus so narrowly and exclusively on women. As Lady Macbeth gathers the strength to achieve her evil ends, she implores the spirits to "unsex me here."9 She believes that her feminine gender obstructs the ability to commit evil. Only by "unsexing" herself will she be empowered to kill King Duncan. Viewing "unsexing" as part of Lady Macbeth's evil reinforces the objectionable set of ideas I seek to criticize. Although Lady MacBeth's "unsexing" is normatively opposite of what I seek here, CEDAW must also be "unsexed" to realize its potency. It is amazing then to note that while CEDAW defines many central terms, at no point does it attempt to define its central subject, "women." At the time of CEDAW's adoption, the complexity of sex and gender was only recognized in a few contexts. CEDAW's focus on "women" enshrines the male/ female binary in the core of international law' when CEDAW's goals would be better served by seeking the elimination of the categories themselves. While more recent international law efforts have shifted toward a focus on gender and sexuality, 10 the Convention remains bound to "women's rights." CEDAWs enforcement of the gender binary pushes womyns rights away from human rights. Only by breaking the barrier to inclusivity can we solve.

Rosenblum 11 Darren Rosenblum, 1/1/11, Unsex CEDAW, or What's Wrong With Women's Rights,
http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=lawfaculty]

Mainstream "human rights" law may remove gender justice projects from its scope because of CEDAW's separate focus on "women." Efforts to remedy women's suffering from sex discrimination need not exclude remedies for other effects of sex discrimination. Yet the implementation of CEDAW requires national governments to report on, and therefore emphasize, women's suffering from sex discrimination. It is in this sense that CEDAW , by no illintent, serves to create a focus for domestic compliance with international sex discrimination law. National governments, by virtue of CEDAW, can comply with international law solely by considering women's issues. 1 98 In this way, concentrating exclusively on women both isolates

gender disparities from core human rights concerns and forestalls real solutions to appalling human rights dilemmas. Reassessing the discrimination model reveals the importance of reinserting "women" into human rights considerations. Catharine MacKinnon, referencing an old debate in international law circles, recently asked "[a]re women human?"'199 CEDAW's position outside of much human rights discourse suggests that they are not. The women-centered human rights strategy not only reified the sex binary, but it also moved women's rights further from the human rights agenda.200 To correct this unintended effect of CEDAW, advocates began discussing women's rights-as-human rights.201 This approach sought to demonstrate that women- specific rights violations are also human rights violations . 202 The
other goal of this approach is the "mainstreaming" of women's issues into the general human rights discourse, an effort less fraught with identitarian offenses but still one that "continues to affirm the masculinity of the universal subject who needs no special enumeration of his gender-specific injuries.' 0 3

Queer Theory Kritik

1NC for Plan Text Version

The language of CEDAW alienates men and trans people from the gender equality movement and excludes them from receiving the benefits of the bill unsex CEDAW. Rosenblum 11
Darren Rosenblum, 1/1/11, Unsex CEDAW, or What's Wrong With Women's Rights, http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=lawfaculty] CONCLUSION In this Article, I have argued that CEDAW is neither accurate nor effective. It is not accurate because the real sex and gender engagements must include men, women who are not victims, and transgender people. It may also include the panoply of gender-related issues that surface in the Yogyakarta Principles. It is also not effective-CEDAW has been effective at many things, but it has not achieved the broad transformation promised. It cannot achieve that equality as long as the harms it addresses focus solely on "women" as a group . With contemporary

understandings of sex, gender and sexuality serving as the foundation for a new treaty, international law might come closer to reflecting reality, thereby fostering greater equality . Putting "sex" or "gender" in the place of "women" has more than semiotic value. As a category, either term moves beyond the limits of essentialist notions of womanhood toward reducing gender inequality and guaranteeing universal human rights. This radical proposal may
strike those who fought for the enactment of CEDAW and implemented it over nearly thirty years as apostasy. Yet were they, along with all others interested in human rights, to redraft the Convention tabula rasa, they would recognize the primacy of gender as a fundamental element of progress on these issues. Although CEDAW has played an important role in certain contexts regarding such

issues, a sex or gender-focused treaty would reach more deeply into the inequalities that plague humanity. Today, the Convention and its "women's" approach serves as the pinnacle of gender-based rights. Underneath it lays gender mainstreaming efforts and other attempts to reference gender. Unsexing CEDAW would flip the architecture of international women's human rights to focus on gender, with women included under that rights umbrella .73OLUMBIA
JOURNAL OF GENDER AND LAW I realize that it would be a monumental, perhaps unachievable task to revise such a widely subscribed treaty. Even so, recognizing its flaws permits thinking about the importance of moving forward in other ways. Reinterpreting Article 5(a) as a dominant method of interpreting CEDAW's Articles could be one way to achieve such progress. Another would be to focus efforts on the broader adoption of the Yogyakarta Principles and even the recognition by States Parties and the CEDAW Committee that the Principles enact a crucial part of the Convention's goals. CEDAW's problem is a problem for women's rights as well. Although such a broad argument is beyond the scope of this Article, the international women's rights context reflects the extent to which the focus on women as a group will fail as long as it ignores the extent to which men are excluded from any serious consideration. Gender inequalities box us all into a preordained set of advantages and disadvantages. Unsexing CEDAW is not just a remedy to a shortcoming in international law, but a model for thinking about gender issues as a human rights question for all people.

The alternative is a restructure of CEDAW to be gender non-binary and distinguish gender from sex Abeysekera, No Date given
[Sunila Abeysekera, Executive Director International Womens Rights Action Watch (IWRAW) Asia Pacific, No Date, Equal and Indivisible: Crafting Inclusive Shadow Reports for CEDAW: Preface, http://www.iglhrc.org/sites/default/files/287-1.pdf] Dilemmas of Definition In this publication we purposively define sex and gender as conceptually distinct, with the former being tied to biology and the latter related to social ascription . We adopt this definition for strategic reasons. Social science researchers and early second-wave feminist theorists first began to differentiate between the concepts of sex and gender in the late 1960s and early 1970s, challenging the widespread perception that biology was womens destinya perception that constricted the options available to women in all aspects of life. Challenging biological determinism involved asserting

that the narrow range of characteristics typically associated with women, such as passivity, weakness, docility, and domesticity, were not determined by biological sex but were rather socially constructed phenomena, reflective of gender . Scholars acknowledged that gender should be understood as constructing a system of unequal power relations between women and men. By positing that sex and gender were conceptually distinct, scholars were able to argue not
only that gender was malleable but also that inequalities associated with gender roles and gender stereotyping could legitimately be challenged.1 More recently, many feminist and queer theorists have moved away from this binary conception of sex and gender . They argue that like gender,

sex is socially constructed, and therefore that the sex/gender distinction itself is not as discrete as its adherents maintain. Indeed, the existence of chromosomal or genital variations means that a significant population does not fit neatly into pre-existing biological definitions of men and women. It follows that biology is insufficient grounds for categorizing people on a dichotomous sexual model. Furthermore, the very act of categorization has normative rather than
merely descriptive implications. Scholars have also criticized many accounts of gender for positing a unitary conception of womanhoodabstracting a universal set of characteristics and experiences that do not address the way in which cultural claims, race, ethnicity, nationality, class and a host of other factors intersect to modify what gender means in particular circumstances.2 Interesting tensions exist between feminist and queer theorists, who are often academically trained and universitybased, and feminist activists who try to forge social change from outside the academy, often working at the grassroots level. Both activists and theorists have responded to the critique of gender as a unitary conception by recognizing the importance of intersectionalitythat women experience marginalization based on multiple, often overlapping factors including but not limited to those characteristics mentioned earlier. We share this understanding of intersectionality and try to integrate it within all of our work. We also recognize the importance of theoretical work challenging the sex/gender binary. However, we believe that it is sometimes necessary for activists pursuing social change to take a more pragmatic approach to such definitions. In our work with CEDAW, we therefore recommend that

the Committee differentiate between sex and gender along the lines of the distinction made by early second-wave feminists. If the CEDAW Committee makes this distinction, then its members will also be making a tacit commitment to rejecting an understanding of womens inequality that is grounded in biological determinism. This approach will enable Committee
members to identify gendered experiences that are not rooted in biology, and hence to recognize that discrimination also occurs on the basis of gender identity and expression. In other words, effective

advocacy requires identifying the most viable ways to reach common ground and build a foundation for creating meaningful social change. In the case of CEDAW, we believe that we will be most likely to reach such a common ground and help precipitate change that benefits all women by recommending that the Committee distinguishes between sex and gender. This is the strategy we adopt in this handbook. In

making this recommendation we also acknowledge that strategies change over time. For instance, when the CEDAW Convention was adopted in 1979, it was inconceivable that advocates would use it strategically as they do todayas a mechanism to redress discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This is a strategic approach that has developed gradually during the last 30 years. Over the next quarter of a century, as the CEDAW Committees understanding of issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity grows, it is very likely that activists will adopt a different strategy, potentially incorporating definitions of sex and gender that are more fluid than those we recommend here. Readers should therefore consider this handbook to be the product of a particular historical momentone that demands a particular strategic approach to working with CEDAW on discrimination related to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Heteronormativity is the root cause of all other forms of oppression consider your impacts THIEFED! Yep 3 PhD
[Gust A. Yep, Ph.D., University of Southern California, Professor of Communication Studies, Core Graduate Faculty of Sexuality Studies, and Faculty in the Ed. D. Program in Educational Leadership at San Francisco State University, 2003, The Violence of Heteronormativity in Communication Studies: Notes on Injury, Healing, and Queer World-Making, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1300/J082v45n02_02] In this passage, Simmons vividly describes the devastating pervasiveness of hatred and violence in her daily life based on being seen, perceived, labeled, and treated as an Other. This process of othering

creates individuals, groups, and communities that are deemed to be less important, less worthwhile, less consequential, less authorized, and less human based on historically situated markers of social formation such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and nationality. Othering and marginalization are results of an invisible center (Ferguson, 1990, p. 3). The authority, position, and power of such a center are attained through normalization in an ongoing circular movement. Normalization is the process of constructing, establishing, producing,
and reproducing a taken-for-granted and all-encompassing standard used to measure goodness, desirability, morality, rationality, superiority, and a host of other dominant cultural values. As such, normalization becomes one of the primary instruments of power in modern society (Foucault, 1978/1990). Normalization is a symbolically, discursively, psychically, psychologically, and materially violent form of social regulation and control, or as Warner (1993) more simply puts it, normalization is the site of violence (p. xxvi). Perhaps one of the most powerful forms of

normalization in Western social systems is heteronormativity. Through heteronormative discourses, abject and abominable bodies, souls, persons, and life forms are created, examined, and disciplined through current regimes of knowledge and power (Foucault, 1978/1990). Heteronormativity, as the invisible center and the presumed bedrock of society, is the quintessential force creating, sustaining, and perpetuating the erasure, marginalization, disempowerment, and oppression of sexual others.

Queer theory solves oppression

Pinar, Professor at Louisiana State, 2003.
(William F., Journal of Homosexual Studies, JCE) It is queer theory that has enabled me to understand that the democratization of American

society cannot proceed without a radical restructuring of hegemonic white male subjectivity (Savran, 1998; Boyarin, 1997). Indeed, hegemonic male subjectivity must be brought to ruin, shattered as Kaja Silverman (1992) and Leo Bersani (1995) have suggested, its narcissistic unity dissolved, its repressed feminine composition reclaimed, homosexual desire (now collectively sublimated into identification with the oedipal father and a fascistic fraternalism) re-experienced. The straight mind valorizes difference, Bersani
(1995, p. 39) asserts. The association of compulsory heterosexuality with a hierarchical view of difference an association elaborated earlier by Monique Wittig (1992)I understand psychoanalytically. Bersani reminds us that Kenneth Lewes (1988) theorized male heterosexual desire as the complicated consequence of flight to the father following a horrified retreat from the mother. So conceptualized, hegemonic male heterosexuality is constructed upon and

actively requires a traumatic privileging of difference. The cultural consolidation of heterosexuality,

Bersani writes, is grounded in its more fundamental, non-reflective construction as the compulsive repetition of a traumatic response to difference (1995, p. 40). In this regard, the straight mind might be thought of as a sublimation of this privileging of difference (Bersani, 1995, p. 40). In addition to psychoanalytically-inspired studies, cross- cultural anthropological research (see Gilmore, 1990) also underlines the defensive and traumatic character of much male heterosexual desire. The compulsory production of an exclusively heterosexual orientation in men

appears to depend upon a misogynous identification with (and suppression of desire for) the father as well as a permanent and ongoing disavowal of femininity, associating it with castration, lack, and loss. In the United States (as well as in other former slave states and colonial powers, although each differently), this gendered formation is racialized, and race is gendered. In the social
production of hegemonic (white) masculinity, the fabrication of masculine identification requires the relocation of repudiated desire onto others who are already fictionalized (constructed as, for instance,
stereotypes), that is, whose civic existence corresponds to their imagined and often sexualized

existence in the white male mind.

1NC for No Plan Text Version

The affirmative limits all permissible identities to the categories of heterosexual men and women. This perpetuates a heteronormative ideal that in turn keeps the patriarchal society in place
Hatzfeldt,09
(Sophie Hatzfeldt, spring 2009, Queer deconstruction of heteronormative identity, imponderabilia journal, http://imponderabilia.socanth.cam.ac.uk/articles/article.php?articleid=30) Normative definitions of gender were first called into question in the 1960s by feminists who contested the subordination of women in a patriarchal society based on structuralist theories; de Beauvoir famously exclaimed: "One

is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" (1952: 249), rejecting gender as a state of nature but rather claiming it to be a cultural construction. Queer theory aims to transform public sensibilities towards the relationship between sex, gender and sexuality in the social context and thereby change our understandings of gender and sexual identities. It deconstructs these hegemonic categories which reduce identities to heteronormativity - gender roles conformed to cultural norms of all-male/all-female and heterosexuality as the normal sexual orientation - and which in turn keep the patriarchal matrixes of society in place. The theory advocates a view of sex, gender and sexuality as fluid continuums in which identity based on these fixed categories is a meaningless concept. The corresponding queer agenda, while subjected to criticism, aims to establish a queer community based on public awareness with an open space for differences and discussion. Early conceptions of identity were based on inductive assumptions that one is born with a certain sex - either male with XY chromosomes or female with XX chromosomes - which determines one's gender and consequently one's sexual orientation (Lloyd 1999: 198). These assumptions about gender and sexuality, based on Levi-Strauss' theories of structuralism and biological determinism, formed the so-called 'intelligible sex' - limiting the permissible identities to the conventional categories of heterosexual men and women (ibid: 196). This traditional belief was first confronted by the scientific recognition that both sexes contain a mixture of
male and female hormones (Alsop et al. 2002: 30). While the automatic link between biological sex and gender was gradually refuted, their link to sexuality remained undisputed. Foucault expanded on this, asserting that even sexuality is a social construct; he argued

that social and historical power relations changed constantly through resistance and negotiation. Similarly, (gender and sexual) identities are also in constant flux and therefore cannot be demarcated with clear boundaries and set in binary opposition to one another (Foucault 1997: 168). According to Foucault, discourses create regulatory spaces in which identities are formed, reinforced and reproduced. These discourses, comparable to an omnipresent disciplinary regime, are employed as a means to maintain social control over conceptions and practices in gender and sexual identification to guarantee that identities are suited to heteronormativity. Butler contends that identity is constructed through performativity - the stylised repetition of acts through time; the resulting identity has no inner core but merely the illusion of a self. Nonetheless, as no two acts can be identical, a single modality cannot represent the identity of all subjects within a group but rather signifies the re-enactment of the same norms that constitute regulatory regimes
(Lloyd 1999: 197). This indicates that identities are not fixed categories, but are fluid, open and in constant flux (ibid).

The Alternative is to deconstruct the structures and ideologies that are perpetuated by the aff and cause heteronormativity
Hatzfeldt,09
(Sophie Hatzfeldt, spring 2009, Queer deconstruction of heteronormative identity, imponderabilia journal, http://imponderabilia.socanth.cam.ac.uk/articles/article.php?articleid=30) While queer

theory has received criticism for being utopian and intrinsically contradictory, the theory has equally presented an invaluable challenge to the normative discourses and their power of maintaining a patriarchal heterosexual structure in society. Queer theory is a unique attempt to deconstruct not just these hegemonic social discourses but also the very categories creating the identification with these structures and ideologies. The categories of sex, gender and sexuality are proven to be socially and historically constructed, devised

through the power of discourse, historical social relations, and repetitive acts of performativity. Queer

theory and its agenda denaturalise and deconstruct the understandings of these categories. It brings to the foreground fluid, non-heteronormative identities and lifestyles, proposing a dynamic, interactive queer community for "a being-together animated by resistance, discord and disagreement" (Sullivan 2003: 148) between individuals,
enabling difference and diversity.

Heteronormativity is the root cause of all other forms of oppression consider your impacts THIEFED! Yep 3 PhD
[Gust A. Yep, Ph.D., University of Southern California, Professor of Communication Studies, Core Graduate Faculty of Sexuality Studies, and Faculty in the Ed. D. Program in Educational Leadership at San Francisco State University, 2003, The Violence of Heteronormativity in Communication Studies: Notes on Injury, Healing, and Queer World-Making, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1300/J082v45n02_02]
In this passage, Simmons vividly describes the devastating pervasiveness of hatred and violence in her daily life based on being seen, perceived, labeled, and treated as an Other. This

process of othering creates individuals, groups, and communities that are deemed to be less important, less worthwhile, less consequential, less authorized, and less human based on historically situated markers of social formation such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and nationality. Othering and marginalization are results of an invisible center (Ferguson, 1990, p. 3). The authority, position, and power of such a center are attained through normalization in an ongoing circular movement. Normalization is the process of constructing, establishing, producing,
and reproducing a taken-for-granted and all-encompassing standard used to measure goodness, desirability, morality, rationality, superiority,

normalization becomes one of the primary instruments of power in modern society (Foucault, 1978/1990). Normalization is a symbolically, discursively, psychically, psychologically, and materially violent form of social regulation and control, or as Warner (1993) more simply puts it, normalization is the site of violence (p. xxvi). Perhaps one of the most powerful forms of normalization in Western social systems is heteronormativity. Through heteronormative discourses, abject and abominable bodies, souls, persons, and life forms are created, examined, and disciplined through current regimes of knowledge and power (Foucault, 1978/1990). Heteronormativity, as the invisible center and the presumed bedrock of society, is the quintessential force creating, sustaining, and perpetuating the erasure, marginalization, disempowerment, and oppression of sexual others.
and a host of other dominant cultural values. As such,

Queer theory solves oppression

Pinar, Professor at Louisiana State, 2003.
(William F., Journal of Homosexual Studies, JCE)
It is queer

theory that has enabled me to understand that the democratization of American society cannot proceed without a radical restructuring of hegemonic white male subjectivity (Savran, 1998; Boyarin, 1997). Indeed, hegemonic male subjectivity must be brought to ruin, shattered as Kaja Silverman (1992) and Leo Bersani (1995) have suggested, its narcissistic unity dissolved, its repressed feminine composition reclaimed, homosexual desire (now collectively sublimated into identification with the oedipal father and a fascistic fraternalism) re-experienced. The straight mind valorizes difference, Bersani (1995, p. 39) asserts. The association of
compulsory heterosexuality with a hierarchical view of difference an association elaborated earlier by Monique Wittig (1992)I understand

psychoanalytically. Bersani reminds us that Kenneth Lewes (1988) theorized male heterosexual desire as the complicated consequence of flight to the father following a horrified retreat from the mother. So conceptualized, hegemonic

male heterosexuality is constructed upon and actively requires a traumatic privileging of difference. The cultural
consolidation of heterosexuality, Bersani writes, is grounded in its more fundamental, non-reflective construction as the compulsive repetition of a traumatic response to difference (1995, p. 40). In this regard, the straight mind might be thought of as a sublimation of this privileging of difference (Bersani, 1995, p. 40). In addition to psychoanalytically-inspired studies, cross- cultural anthropological research (see Gilmore, 1990) also underlines the defensive and traumatic character of much male heterosexual desire. The

compulsory production of an exclusively heterosexual orientation in men appears to depend upon a misogynous identification with (and suppression of desire for) the father as well as a permanent and ongoing disavowal of femininity, associating it with castration, lack, and loss. In the United States (as well as in other former slave states and colonial powers, although each differently), this gendered formation is racialized, and race is gendered. In the social production of hegemonic (white) masculinity, the
fabrication of masculine identification requires the relocation of repudiated desire onto others who are already fictionalized
(constructed as, for instance, stereotypes),

that is, whose civic existence corresponds to

their imagined and often sexualized existence in the white male mind.

AT: Perm do both / Coalitions

The idea to create a queer coalition creates a false hope that further assimilates the queer into a society of normativity. Edelman 4 (Lee Edelman is an English professor at Tufts University. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive p. 4-5. CVS)
Rather than rejecting, with liberal discourse, this ascription of negativity to the queer, we might, as I argue, do better to consider accepting and even embracing it. Not in the hope of forging thereby some more perfect social such a hope, after all, would only reproduce the constraining mandate of futurism, just as any such order would equally occasion the negativity of the queer but rather to refuse the insistence of hope itself as affirmation, which is always affirmation of an order whose refusal will register as unthinkable, irresponsible, inhumane. And the trump card of affirmation? Always the question: If not this, what? Always the demand to translate the insistence, the pulsive force, of negativity into some determinate stance or position whose determination would thus negate it: always the imperative to immure it in some stable and positive form. When I argue, then, that we might do well to attempt what is surely impossible to withdraw our allegiance, however compulsory, from a reality based on the Ponzi scheme of reproductive futurism I do not intend to propose some good that will thereby be assured. To the contrary, I mean to insist that nothing and certainly not what we call good, can ever have any assurance at all in the order of the Symbolic. Abjuring fidelity to a futurism thats always purchased at our expense, though bound, as Symbolic subjects consigned to figure the Symbolics undoing, to the necessary contradiction of trying to turn its intelligibility against itself, we might rather, figuratively, cast our vote for none of the above, for the primacy of a constant no in response to the law of the Symbolic, which would echo that laws foundational act, its self-constituting negation. The structuring optimism of politics to which the order of meaning commits us, is installing as it does the perpetual hope of reaching meaning through as it does the perpetual hope of reaching meaning through signification, is always, I would argue a negation of this primal, constitutive, negative act. And the various positivities produced in its wake by the logic of political hope depend on the mathematical illusion that negated negations might somehow escape, and not redouble, such negativity. My polemic thus stakes its fortunes on a truly hopeless wager: that taking the Symbolics negativity to the very letter of the law, that attending to the persistence of something internal to reason that reason refuses, that turning the force of queerness against all subjects, however queer, can afford an access to the jouissance that at once defines and negates us. Or better: can expose the constancy, the inescapability, of such access to jouissance in the social order itself, even if that order can access its constant access to jouissance only in the process of abjecting that constancy of access onto the queer.

AT: Our impact outweighs / No impact

Heterosexism parallels directly with the systematic dehumanization and genocide of the Jews. Ignoring the signs is sheer ignorance. Rozdzial 2k
(Moshe Rozdzial LPC, NCC, is a CSTPsychotherapist and Certified Sex Therapist Anti-Semitism and Heterosexism: Common Constructs of Oppression <http://www.nomas.org/node/139> CVS)

Similarly, religious attacks on homosexuals, defended under biblical precedent, echo the vilest forms of anti-Semitism. The slander of "sodomites has replaced "Christ-killers" in the vocabulary of hatred and heaven's retribution against a minority community has, once again, become the excuse to justify victimizing the victim. Even the promise of "salvation" through "conversion" (Jews to Christianity; homosexuals to heterosexuality) reflects the common perception that both minorities are "outcast in the sight of G-d." And the stereotype of stubborn adherence to a despised lifestyle even in the shadow of salvation is another common accusatory theme. After all, how can the "other" want to be who he is and stubbornly hold on to a life of deprivation when the doors are, figuratively, opened to a life of safety, privilege, and saving grace? To look at the similar language of marginalization of these two groups without noticing the historical connection would mean yielding to ignorance. Common weapons of oppression include the emasculation of Jews and stereotyping of homosexuals to perpetuate an excuse for dehumanization and a perception of facile targeting for violence. Thus, Jewish men are labeled Hymies, nerds, weaklings, just as gay men are the sissies and pansies - to mention only a few of the epithets hurled at them. Jewish women and lesbians are, respectively, bitches and princesses, or butches and dykes. The modern propaganda of hatred that equates AIDS to homosexuality echoes Hitler's racial anti-Semitism that accused the Jews of spreading disease, contagion and contamination and are reminders of past genocide and the excuses for a present violence. The recent push to find a biological origin for homosexuality has a frightening parallel to the Nazi's eugenics response to the "Jewish problem."

Even the mention of anti-queer policies lead to discriminatory violence, humiliation, and dehumanization of the queer. Richter-Montpetit 7 (Melanie Richter-Montpetit is the author of Empire, Desire and Violence: A Queer Transnational Feminist
Reading of the Prisoner 'Abuse' in Abu Ghraib and the Question of 'Gender Equality, International Feminist Journal of Politics. March 2007, Vol. 9 Iss. 1.)

Among the current anti-queer sexual politics of the Bush administration is the attempt to pass a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to unions between men and women. Bush (2004a) declared that a ban on same-sex marriage was a matter of national importance because the union of a man and woman in marriage is the most fundamental institution of civilization. Same-sex marriage threatens the basis of an orderly society (Bush 2004b) and the welfare of children (Bush 2004a) ultimately it threatens civilization itself. In fact, the only times Bush conjures up threats to civilization are in the war on terror and the war on same-sex marriage.13 Moreover, the anti-queer sexual politics of the Bush administration are not limited to defending marriage, but are aimed at fighting non-normative sexualities tout court.14 For example, queer organizations in New York City have reported a dramatic increase in anti-queer violence since the Bush administrations aggressively antiqueer agenda (Goldstein 2004). Today, federal law prohibits openly gay men and lesbians in the US military. Between 1994 and 2003, nearly 9,500 members of the US armed forces were discharged under

the dont ask, dont tell, dont pursue policy (Associated Press 2005). Moreover, it was not until 2003 that the US Supreme Court struck out the anti-sodomy laws of fourteen US states and the military, which had criminalized consensual anal sex in the private sphere.15 Against the backdrop of the institutionalized aggressive heteronormativity of the US nation-state, particularly within its military, it should not be surprising that the prison guards set the stage for their acts of violence and humiliation according to an aggressively homophobic script. In the following, I zoom in a little closer on the discursive practice of referring to homosexual sex and sodomy, which, I suggest, helps erase certain aspects of the violences.

AT: CEDAW solves in squo.

CEDAW does not guarantee justice for LBT people in the status quo. IGLHRC 13
(The Internation Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is an international activist programdedicated to increasing rights for queer/LGBTQUIA people across the world. Equal and Indivisible: Crafting Inclusive Shadow Reports for CEDAW < http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/Wrapup/IGLHRC.pdf> CVS)

Lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LBT) people face several obstacles in accessing justice. As women, they are subject to the same barriers as all other women, and as people, they are persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. These barriers multiply the effects of discrimination. 1LBT people are subject to formal discrimination due to laws that criminalize same sex relations and cross dressing.2They are unable to rely on State Mechanisms for redress3 Because States not only fail to provide basic constitutional protections4 but, in numerous instances, State authorities are complicit in violent and egregious human rights violations. Many states that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, ethnicity, religion, or disability do not prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity.5 Of the 185 States party to the CEDAW Convention6 that have laws to protect women from domestic or family violence, most do not protect individuals in same sex relationships. 7The CEDAW Committee understands that promising equal treatment of women in unequal situations does not ensure justice. For this reason, the Committee insists that equality be measured by access to opportunity and equality of results. 8 To implement this equality, the Committee has repeatedly addressed the disproportionate burdens borne by marginalized and vulnerable women.9

AT: No Link
The language used in CEDAW enforces the gender binary that excludes the transgendered, the intersex, and the agendered. Rosenblum 11
(Darren Rosenblum is a professor at Pace Law School. Unsex CEDAW, or What's Wrong With Women's Rights, <http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1807&context=lawfaculty> CVS)

From there, the paragraphs of the Preamble address the equality of rights of men and women, a principle established in other international conventions and resolutions. This shift, from protecting against discrimination based on sex to ensuring the equality of rights of men and women, performs a crucial move from a universalist frame that could include different sexes to a binarist one that asserts both the existence of only two sexes and the normative desirability of equality between them. Thus, CEDAW departed from the universalist norm of sex, which from a 2010 perspective includes people of all sexes men, women, transgender, intersex, and other differently sexed and gendered people. By specifying me and women, it began the transition to identity centeredness. The Preambles last statement of norms does reference both social roles and men: [a]ware that a change in the traditional role of men as well as the role of women in society and in the family is needed to achieve full equality between men and women.91 Despite this language, the Preamble creates the basis for a Convention that recognizes the male/female binary and places women at the center of remedies for sex inequality. The balance of the Convention references men only exceptionally. CEDAW makes a leap from that sex-centered language in the UDHR to women because of this extensive discrimination against women. And while the continued need for international protection for womens rights is patent, women cannot be the beginning, middle, and end of the story on international sex discrimination law.

Theory

Extra-T Bad
1. Destroys neg ground the aff can always add extra-topical plan spikes to take out our arguments; for example do plan and no tariffs to avoid a protectionism disad. That means the neg has no ground. 2. Proves the resolution insufficient if they have to go beyond the resolution to prove plan was a good idea, rez alone isnt enough. 3. Unpredictable theres no way for us to predict what new plan spikes the aff might have each round, so we cant adequately prepare or get any ground. 4. It makes the negative always lose with extra-topical plan planks, the aff can get huge non-topical advantages that we will never be able to outweigh. 5. Severing out of non-topical parts isnt enough strat skew has already occurred and letting them sever gives no incentive to avoid future extra-topicality. This is a procedural argument, you have to be topical.

Topicality

Economic Engagement 1NC

A) Economic engagement is narrowly limited to trade --- engagement over human rights, democracy, prolif, or drugs isnt topical Rose 8 Andrew K. Rose, Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mark M.
Spiegel, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Non-Economic Engagement and International Exchange: The Case of Environmental Treaties, http://halleinstitute.emory.edu/pdfs/PIEF_Rose_Spiegel.pdf 1. Introduction

Countries, like people, interact with each other on a number of different dimensions . Some interactions are strictly economic ; for instance, countries engage in international trade of goods, services, capital, and labor. But many are not economic, at least not in any narrow sense . For instance, the U nited S tates seeks to promote human rights and democracy , deter nuclear proliferation , stop the spread of narcotics , and so forth. Accordingly America, like other countries,
participates in a number of international institutions to further its foreign policy objectives; it has joined security alliances like NATO, and international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency. In this paper, we concentrate on the interesting and understudied case of international environmental arrangements (IEAs). We ask whether participation in such non-economic

partnerships tends to enhance international economic relations. The answer, in both theory and
practice, is positive.

B) Violation: The plan engages Mexico over Womens rights C) Standards 1. Limits Allowing things such as human rights to qualify as economic engagement unlimits the topic 2. Topic to the greatest degree because not only is the neg forced to research actual economic engagement, but also assistance with human rights, democracy or drugs 3. Ground All of our Disadvantages, Kritiks, and Counterplans are predicated over actual economic engagement not a discussion about human rights with another country D) T is a voter for fairness and education, it is critical to check abuse and preserve the integrity of debate. Vote neg for fairness, education, and responsibility which are key to this round

Economic Engagement 2NC/1NR

Ext. Rose 08 from the 1NC it specifically talks about how countries can engage with one another in various dimensions but how economic engagement is limited to the trade of goods, labor, and capital. It is not, even in the most narrow sense, human rights A. Standards1. Predictable limits The negs definition provides a more widely understood definition of the economic engagement. This allows for the both aff and the neg to benefit equally 2. Ground- This means that the neg would have to have access to literature on anything theoretical they could come up with to economically engage in Latin America. The aff abuse has already happened, it happened when we werent able to get links to our (Say Argument here). B. T is a voter for1. Fairness- By limiting the topic to predicable economic engagement , the neg allows for both the aff and the neg to have a fair debate. If they can create their own concept for economic engagement, the neg would not only be kept on their toes they would be off the ground, literally. If we cant have predictability, the neg ground is stolen right out from under them, allowing the aff to get away with tons of abuse. 2. Education - This search for the best policy option and use of the neg interpretation leads to specific education in the most relevant areas of the topic, increasing education. 3. Reasonability reasonability is arbitrary, competing interpretations allows us to evaluate the best option, rather than determine if something is just acceptable.

PTX Links
Ratifying CEDAW would be controversial
Riggin 11 Jessica, Columbia University, The Potential Impact of CEDAW Ratification on U.S. Employment Discrimination Law: Lessons From
Canada 2011.

The ratification of CEDAW is a highly politicized issue in the United States; as such, ratification will likely not be free from controversy. As has been the case in past decades, conservative groups and senators are expected to oppose CEDAW ratification. Some conservative groups argue that CEDAW will create additional rights, such as legalized prostitution72 and unrestricted rights to abortion. 73 Some religious groups echo those concerns, and cite additional fears, such as CEDAW obligating the United States to adopt a gender quota system for holders of political office.74 Others assert that the ratification of CEDAW will provide legitimacy for countries such as Saudi Arabia, where CEDAW was ratified but women are still prohibited from voting and driving.75 According to Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, The treaty is worse than useless. It gives legitimacy to regimes that are committing some of the worst abuses against women.76

CEDAW unpopular with Republicans in the Senate Wagner 10 (Jennifer Wagner is a writer and owner of a popular resource for mothers and parents. <
http://technorati.com/women/article/senate-hearings-on-ratification-of-cedaw/> November 19, 2010. CVS)

With all this support, ratification would seem automatic. However, there is a large backlash against the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women treaty. Some of the arguments are that a few of the countries that have adopted it have taken the treaty so far to the extent in which it is harming women. The other reason that CEDAW probably won't be ratified is because of the gains of conservatives and Republicans in Congress. Senators opposed to abortion rights are more apt to vote against ratific/>ation.

Cap Links
The patriarchal social order results not from oppression alone, but from the shift from necessity to surplus that came with the rise of capitalistic production. Cloud 3 (Dana Cloud is a professor of Communications at UT, Marxism and Oppression, Talk for Regional Socialist Conference)
In order to challenge oppression, it is important to know where it comes from. Historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists tell us that in pre-class societies such as hunter-gatherer societies, racism and sexism were unheard of. Because homosexuality was not an identifiable category of such societies, discrimination on that basis did not occur either. In fact, it is clear that racism, sexism, and homophobia have arisen in particular kinds of societies, namely class societies. Womens oppression originated in the first class societies, while racism came into prominence in the early periods of capitalism when colonialism and slavery drove the economic system. The prohibition against gays and lesbians is a relatively modern phenomenon. But what all forms of oppression have in common is that they did not always exist and are not endemic to human nature. They were created in the interest of ruling classes in society and continue to benefit the people at the top of society, while dividing and conquering the rest of us so as to weaken the common fight against the oppressors. The work of Marxs collaborator Friederich Engels on The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State in some respects reflects the Victorian times in which in was written. Engels moralizes about womens sexuality and doesnt even include gay and lesbian liberation in his discussion of the oppressive family. However, anthropologists like the feminist Rayna Reiter have confirmed his most important and central argument that it was in the first settled agricultural societies that women became an oppressed class. In societies where for the first time people could accumulate a surplus of food and other resources, it was possible for some people to hoard wealth and control its distribution. The first governments or state structures formed to legitimate an emerging ruling class. As settled communities grew in size and became more complex social organizations, and, most importantly, as the surplus grew, the distribution of wealth became unequaland a small number of men rose above the rest of the population in wealth and power. In the previous hunter-gatherer societies, there had been a sexual division of labor, but one without a hierarchy of value. There was no strict demarcation between the reproductive and productive spheres. All of that changed with the development of private property in more settled communities. The earlier division of labor in which men did the heavier work, hunting, and animal agriculture, became a system of differential control over resource distribution. The new system required more field workers and sought to maximize womens reproductive potential. Production shifted away from the household over time and women became associated with the reproductive role, losing control over the production and distribution of the necessities of life. It was not a matter of male sexism, but of economic priorities of a developing class system. This is why Engels identifies womens oppression as the first form of systematic class oppression in the world. Marxists since Engels have not dismissed the oppression of women as secondary to other kinds of oppression and exploitation. To the contrary, womens oppression has a primary place in Marxist analysis and is a key issue that socialists organize around today. From this history we know that sexism did not always exist, and that men do not have an inherent interest in oppressing women as domestic servants or sexual slaves. Instead, womens oppression always has served a class hierarchy in socie ty. In our society divided by sexism, ideas about womens nature as domestic caretakers or irrational sexual beings justify paying women lower wages compared to men, so that employers can pit workers against one another in competition for the same work. Most women have always had to work outside the home

to support their families. Today, women around the world are exploited in sweatshops where their status as women allows bosses to pay them very little, driving down the wages of both men and women. At the same time, capitalist society relies on ideas about women to justify not providing very much in the way of social services that would help provide health care, family leave, unemployment insurance, access to primary and higher education, and so forthall because these things are supposed to happen in the private family, where women are responsible. This lack of social support results in a lower quality of life for many men as well as women. Finally, contemporary ideologies that pit men against women encourage us to fight each other rather than organizing together.

Case

Disgruntled Misogynist Frontline

*****1NC
( ) Impossible to stop femicide entirely laundry list of motives that cant be prevented through the plan
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf) In reality, the motive for femicide can be hatred, pleasure, anger, malice, jealousy, separation, arguments, robbery, or simply the sensation of possessing and dominating the woman and ultimately exterminating her. The victimizer can be a father, lover, husband, friend, acquaintance, stranger, or boyfriend, among others. In all cases these are violent men who

believe they have the right to kill women.

( ) Turn - Prevention campaigns for these murders are empirically classist, misogynist, and heterosexist causing all of their impacts
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf)

Prevention campaigns in this city have centered on making women responsible for any aggression that might befall them, especially if they go out at night or walk down a deserted street. Warnings have been sent out about attending parties, staying out until the early morning hours, walking alone, and most importantly for the woman who is a worker, about dressing provocatively and consuming alcoholic beverages; her guardian angel, it is said, will not always be there to take care of her. Men have been called upon to show their manliness and machismo by watching over their women and the activities in which they participate. These statements, as Tabuenca asserts, are classist, misogynist, and heterosexist (1998, 10).

( ) The murders taking place are not a femicide and can be caused by a laundry list of external factors
Fragoso,03
(JULIA MONARREZ FRAGOSO, Ph.D. candidate in the Universidad Autcinoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco and researcher at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, specializes in research on gender and violence, Serial Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Jugrez, 1993-2001, April of 2003, http://aztlanjournal.metapress.com/media/eafy7beyyqdrun8vkyvm/contributions/r/2/3/2/r23251g8v8 297643.pdf)

It is important to note that, while all of the studies cited establish gender as a key construct in analyzing the murder of women, the social class system or other power structures or material conditions that can influence male violence against women are merely mentioned, not analyzed. Nonetheless, certain authors, including Monica McWilliams, affirm that societies under stress are particularly prone to violence against women. She defines these as societies that are undergoing a process of transformation, which may be modernization, civil unrest, war, or terrorism . Such experiences are not the only determining factors; religious systems and ideologies must also be understood as contributing to the escalation and legitimization of violence. Yet, attitudes toward the perpetrators and victims as well as the strategies available to prevent and combat [violence] may be dependent on both the political and ideological forces that exist(McWi1liams 1998, 112; italics mine).

Subjugation Frontline

*****1NC
( ) Turn - Separating the biological and political leads to the destruction of the value to life
Fassin,10
(Didier Fassin is James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, as well as directeur dtudes at the cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Trained as a medical doctor, Fassin has conducted field studies in Senegal, Ecuador, South Africa, and France. His recent books in English are When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa (2007) and (with Richard Rechtman) The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood (2009), and he is also coeditor (with Mariella Pandolfi) of Contemporary States of Emergency: The Politics of Military and Humanitarian Interventions (2010), Ethics of Survival: A Democratic Approach to the Politics of Life , http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/humanity/v001/1.1.fassin.html#back)

Survival, in the sense Jacques Derrida attributed to the concept in his last interview, not only shifts lines that are too often hardened between biological and political lives: it opens an ethical space for reflection and action. Critical thinking in the past decade has often taken biopolitics and the politics of life as its objects. It has thus unveiled the way in which individuals and groups, even entire nations, have been treated by powers, the market, or the state, during the colonial period as well as in the contemporary era. However, through indiscriminate extension, this powerful instrument has lost some of its analytical sharpness and heuristic potentiality. On the one hand, the binary reduction of life to the opposition between nature and history, bare life and qualified life, when systematically applied from philosophical inquiry in sociological or anthropological study, erases much of the complexity and richness of life in society as it is in fact observed. On the other hand, the normative prejudices which underlie the evaluation of the forms of life and of the politics of life, when generalized to an undifferentiated collection of social facts, end up by depriving social agents of legitimacy, voice, and action. The risk is therefore both scholarly and political. It calls for ethical attention. In fact, the genealogy of this intellectual lineage reminds us that the main founders of these theories expressed tensions and hesitations in their work, which was often more complex, if even sometimes more
obscure, than in its reduced and translated form in the humanities and social sciences today. And also biographies, here limited to fragments from South African lives that I have described and analyzed in more detail elsewhere, suggest the necessity of complicating the dualistic models that oppose

biological and political lives. Certainly, powers like the market and the state do act sometimes as if human beings could be reduced to mere life, but democratic forces, including from within the structure of power, tend to produce alternative strategies that escape this reduction. And people themselves, even under conditions of domination, manage subtle tactics that transform their physical life into a political instrument or a moral resource or an affective expression. But let us go one step further: ethnography invites us to reconsider what life is or rather what human beings make of their lives, and reciprocally how their lives permanently question what it is to be human. The blurring between what is human
and what is not human shades into the blurring over what is life and what is not life, writes Veena Das.

In the tracks of Wittgenstein and Cavell, she underscores that the usual manner in which we think

of forms of life not only obscures the mutual absorption of the natural and the social but also emphasizes form at the expense of life.22 It should be the incessant effort of social scientists to return to this inquiry about life in its multiple forms but also in its everyday expression of the human.

( ) Biopolitics does not result in genocide Ojakangas, 05

(Mika Ojakangas, PhD in Social Science and Academy research fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies at University of Helsinki, The Impossible Dialogue on Biopower: Foucault and Agamben, May 2005, Foucault Studies, No. 2, http://wlt-studies.com/no2/ojakangas1.pdf)

Admittedly, in the era of biopolitics, as Foucault writes, even massacres have become vital. This is not the case, however, because violence is hidden in the foundation of biopolitics , as Agamben believes. Although the twentieth century thanatopolitics is the reverse of biopolitics, it should not be understood, according to Foucault, as the effect, the result, or the logical consequence of biopolitical rationality. Rather, it should be understood, as he suggests, as an outcome of the demonic combination of the sovereign power and biopower, of the city-citizen game and the shepherd-flock game
or as I would like to put it, of patria potestas (fathers unconditional power of life and death over his son) and cura maternal (mothers unconditional duty to take care of her children). Although

massacres can be carried out in the name of care, they do not follow from the logic of biopower for which death is the object of taboo. They follow from the logic of sovereign power, which legitimates killing by whatever arguments it chooses, be it God, Nature, or life.

( ) Democracy checks the impact to biopolitics Dickinson, 04

(Edward Ross Dickinson, Associate Professor of History at the University of California-Davis, Biopolitics, Fascism, Democracy: Some Reflections on Our Discourse about "Modernity", in Central European History, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2004), pg. 18-19)
In an important programmatic statement of 1996 Geoff Eley celebrated the fact that Foucault's

ideas have "fundamentally directed attention away from institutionally centered conceptions of government and the state ... and toward a dispersed and decentered notion of power and its 'microphysics.'"48 The "broader, deeper, and less visible ideological consensus" on "technocratic reason and the ethical unboundedness of science" was the focus of his interest.49 But the "power-producing effects in Foucault's 'microphysical' sense" (Eley) of the construction of social bureaucracies and social knowledge, of "an entire institutional apparatus and system of practice" (Jean Quataert), simply do not explain Nazi policy.50 The destructive dynamic of Nazism was a product not so much of a particular modern set of ideas as of a particular modern political structure, one that could realize the disastrous potential of those ideas. What was critical
was not the expansion of the instruments and disciplines of biopolitics, which occurred everywhere in Europe. Instead, it was the principles that guided how those instruments and disciplines were organized and used, and the external constraints on them. In National Socialism, biopolitics was shaped by a totalitarian conception of social management focused on the power and ubiquity of the volkisch state. In

democratic societies, biopolitics has historically been constrained by a rights-based strategy of social management. This is a point to which I will return shortly. For now, the point is that what was decisive was actually politics at the level of the state. A comparative framework can help us to clarify this point. Other states passed compulsory sterilization laws in the 1930s. Indeed, individual states in the United States had already begun doing so

in 1907. Yet

they did not proceed to the next steps adopted by National Socialism, mass sterilization, mass "eugenic" abortion and murder of the "defective. " Individual figures in, for example,
the U.S. did make such suggestions. But neither the political structures of democratic states nor their legal and political principles permitted such poli? cies actually being enacted. Nor did the scale of forcible sterilization in other countries match that of the Nazi program. I do not mean to suggest that such programs were not horrible; but in

a democratic political context they did not develop the dynamic of constant radicalization and escalation that characterized Nazi policies.

( ) Zero risk of impactthe massacres that their over-hyped impact evidence cites are NOT because of biopoliticsbiopower prevents those massacres Ojakangas, 05
(Mika Ojakangas, PhD in Social Science and Academy research fellow @ the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies at University of Helsinki, The Impossible Dialogue on Biopower: Foucault and Agamben, May 2005, Foucault Studies, No. 2, pg. 20-21, http://wlt-studies.com/no2/ojakangas1.pdf)
According to Foucault, it is that transformation which constitutes the background of what he calls governmentality, that is to say, biopolitical rationality within the modern state.78 It explains why political power that is at work within the modern state as a legal framework of unity is, from the beginning of a states existence, accompanied by a power that can be called pastoral. Its role is

not to threaten lives but to ensure, sustain, and improve them, the lives of each and every one.79 Its means are not law and violence but care, the care for individual life.80 It is precisely care, the Christian
power of love (agape), as the opposite of all violence that is at issue in bio-power. This is not to say, however, that bio-power would be nothing but love and care. Bio-power is love and care only to the same extent that the law, according to Benjamin, is violence, namely, by its origin.81 Admittedly, in the era of bio-politics, as Foucault writes, even massacres have become vital.82 This is the case, however, because violence is hidden in the foundation of bio-politics, as Agamben believes. Although

the twentieth century thanatopolitics is the reverse of bio-politics,83 it should not be understood, according to Foucault, as the effect, the result, or the logical consequence of bio-political rationality.84 Rather, it should be
understood, as he suggests, as an outcome of the demonic combination of the sovereign power and bio-power, of the city-citizen game and the shepherd-flock game85 or as I would like to put it, of patria potestas (fathers unconditional power of life and death over his son) and cura materna (mothers unconditional duty to take care of her children). Although

massacres can be carried out in the name of care, they do not follow from the logic of bio-power for which death is the object of taboo.86 They follow from the logic of sovereign power, which legitimates killing by whatever arguments it chooses, be it God, Nature, or
life.

( ) Foucauldian criticism is flawed it obscures genuine analysis and denies progressive action Sangren, 95
(P. Steven Sangren, Department of Anthropology at Cornell University, Power Against Ideology: A Critique of Foucaultian Usage, 1995, Vol. 10, Issue: 1, JSTOR) It is Foucault's explicit disarticulation of power from subjectivity or agency that arguably most defines the novelty of his usage, and it is this element of his thinking that is most widely emulated by other scholars. Against Foucault's reifying, transcendental notion of power - a notion in which intentional action is incidental to power - I argue that power can be employed coherently as an analytical category only when it is linkable to some socially constituted agent - that is, to a person or to a socially constituted collectivity. This is not to say that actors or agents are possessed of complete knowledge of how their own desires and motives are also products of complex social circumstances or of how their actions have effects that exceed intentions.8 As Foucault frequently emphasizes, people, selves, the subjects are in part products of historically and locationally specific circumstances, cultures, discourses. However, denying agency - that is, power to actors, viewing people even at the level

of their desires primarily as products and only trivially, if at all, as producers, is not only fatalistic, it significantly misrecognizes the realities of social life.9 In comparing "Chinese" notions
of power (or, more precisely, some notions of power produced by Chinese culture) with Foucault's, my intention is to draw attention to similarities in their alienating properties. I suggest that in the Foucaultian categories of power and its ineluctable other, resistance, one can perceive remarkable affinities to Chinese contrastive oppositions such as yang (a metaphysically conceived representation of ordering) and yin (yang's disordering, resistant alter). Far from providing the kind of critical insights

that Foucault would claim, Foucaultian power and resistance obstruct genuine critical analysis and constitute elements of a romantic ideology whose "effects of truth" are most socially manifest in providing an avant-gardist intelligentsia an ideology that dissociates its "theory" from its own individual and class interests - and, paradoxically, all this in the name of reflexivity and high-minded political virtue. This representative dissociation of power from intention in Foucault is also apparent in Chinese ideologies of power. Such dissociations-forms of alienation-are defining characteristics of ideology's operations in social processes

Solvency Frontline

*****1NC
( ) Ratification of CEDAW by the United States would have a negative effect on the USs human rights record Turns case Piccard 10
(Ann M. Piccard is a professor of legal skills at Stetson Law. She received her LL.M from the University of Lon don. U.S. Ratification of CEDAW: From Bad to Worse? from 28 Law & Ineq. 119 CVS)

The question that must be asked, unfortunately, is whether ratification of CEDAW by the United States 13 would, in fact, actually do anything to eliminate discrimination against women in this country. The broader underlying question , of course, is whether international law influences a nation's behavior or simply reflects it , particularly in respect to human rights treaties. 14 If nothing else, the nature and content of the RUDs that were formulated by the Clinton administration 5 may so severely conflict with CEDAW's object and purpose that any ratification would be meaningless. Furthermore, ratification under these conditions and in the current circumstances could not have a meaningful impact on the lives of women in the United States if enabling legislation is not forthcoming. 16 In fact, ratification could have a negative effect on the United States' human rights record in general 17 and on the lives of U.S. women specifically. 18

( ) Its too late to ratify CEDAW. It would just perpetuate the division between male and female, and it would end the discussion of discrimination against womyn in the United States
(Ann M. Piccard is a professor of legal skills at Stetson Law. She received her LL.M from the University of London. U.S. Ratification of CEDAW: From Bad to Worse? from 28 Law & Ineq. 119 CVS)

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution have not managed to end discrimination. Ratification of CEDAW is no more likely to be successful, and may, in fact, serve to end the conversation about discrimination against women and to perpetuate the "identity politics" that foster the divisions between men and women.231 It seems at least
possible as of this writing that same-sex civil marriage soon could become legally and culturally acceptable in the United States.232 A treaty that exists solely to address the rights of one sex

may have seen its day come and go. By refusing for so long to ratify CEDAW, the United States may have missed its opportunity to do so with any real meaning. Ratification at this point might be meaningless.

( ) CEDAW has been proven ineffective CINI data in Central Asian CEDAW countries proves. GONZALEZ 11
(Vince A. Gonzales graduated with a degree in Political Science/ Law & Society from the University of California. <

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/528/the-effect-of-cedaw-ratification-in-central-asia> CVS)

Despite the increasing number of states that have ratified binding international human rights treaties, human rights abuses continue unabated. The persistence of rights abuses cast doubt on the efficacy of human rights treaties. This paper empirically examines whether ratification of
international human rights treaties affects state human rights practices. Specifically, it examines whether ratification of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) decreases the likelihood that states will abuse womens rights or allow such rights to be abused. From

1981-2009, there has been a similarity regarding womens rights between most states in the Central Asian region. In the early years of this data collection, the states generally had a very small amount of focus or complete disregard towards the equality of women. The CIRI Human Rights Data Project indicates that there was little equality as far as economic, political, or social variables when it came to women in the beginning years of the data analysis, but as time progressed closer to present day, movement towards equality in every category for most states began to be more visible. If ratification of CEDAW is related to womens economic, political, and social rights, one would expect states that have ratified CEDAW to respect the rights of women more than states that have not ratified. I use the CIRI Human Rights Data Project
measure of womens economic, political, and social rights to analyze this hypothesis. The CIRI human rights data projects measure of womens economic, political, and social rights consists of a scale of 0 (no rights) to 3 (equal rights). The following is analysis of the data itself and the average scores given to the region from 1981-2009. The criteria that the CIRI Human Rights Data Project uses in determining economic rights data involves equal work for equal pay, no discrimination when it comes to hiring, free choice of what job to pursue, no sexual harassment, job security, etc. According to the CIRI Human Rights Data Project, A score of 0 indicates that there were no economic rights for women in law and that systematic discrimination based on sex may have been built into law. A score of 1 indicates that women had some economic rights under law, but these rights were not effectively enforced. A score of 2 indicates that women had some economic rights under law, and the government effectively enforced these rights in practice while still allowing a low level of discrimination against women in economic matters. Finally, a score of 3 indicates that all or nearly all of womens economic rights were guaranteed by law and the government fully and vigorously enforces these laws in practice. (Cingranelli and Richards, CIRI). The average score in Central Asia pertaining to the economic equality of women is 0.9, which indicates that there is major work to be done. This suggests that the average woman in Central Asia is subject to some economic rights, but the government does not enforce these rights effectively. If the government is unable to enforce these rights, then there is no point in having the rights in the first place. The state with the highest present day economic score is Bhutan with a score of 3. According to the dataset, women in Bhutan are living an economic life relatively equal to that of men. The state receiving the lowest score is Iran with a score of 0. This means that Iran has no laws built into place that concern the equality of women. Iran has yet to ratify the CEDAW treaty, so this could be a correlation that shows that states that have ratified the treaty do have a better score pertaining to womens economic rights. On the contrary, Afghanistan also received a 0

in womens economic rights even after they ratified CEDAW in 200 3. The next category of research, womens political rights, consists of the right to vote, run for office, join political parties, hold government positions, and petition government officials. The scoring scheme in
this category, according to the CIRI Human Rights Data Project, goes like so: A score of 0 indicates that womens political rights were not guaranteed by law during a given year. A score of 1 indicates that womens political rights were guaranteed in law, but severely prohibited in practice. A score of 2 indicates that womens political rights were guaranteed in law, but were still moderately prohibited in practice. Finally, a score of 3 indicates that womens political rights were guaranteed in both law and

practice. (Cingranelli and Richards, CIRI). The average score in Central Asia in regards to political equality is 1.55; compared to economic equality, this can be considered progress. This data suggests that the average woman in Central Asia is to expect to have political rights promised by law, but be severely to moderately prohibited in practice. Does this really mean that women have political rights? In the majority of the states in Central Asia, there are no women in office or

holding important roles in politics. Women may be able to vote, but I see no equality when it come political rights and women. The highest score for political rights is shared by India, Kazakhstan,
and Uzbekistan at 2. These states seem to be making progress compared to the other states of the region. The lowest score belongs to Iran with an average of .59, which indicates that women have pretty much no political rights. The last category being examined, social rights, is expressed by the

right to participate in social activities, be exempt from genital mutilation, travel abroad, get a divorce, inheritance, own property, etc. The CIRI Human Rights Data Project defines the scores as
A score of 0 indicates that there were no social rights for women in law and that systematic discrimination based on sex may have been built into law. A score of 1 indicates that women had some social rights under law, but these rights were not effectively enforced. A score of 2 indicates that women had some social rights under law, and the government effectively enforced these rights in practice while still allowing a low level of discrimination against women in social matters. Finally, a score of 3 indicates that all or nearly all of womens social rights were guaranteed by law and the government fully and vigorously enforced these laws in practice. (Cingranelli and Richards, CIRI). The average score given

to the region of Central Asia was a .77; this is by far the lowest average score of the three categories being examined. The average woman in Central Asia can expect to have little to no social rights under law and can certainly expect the government not to enforce these laws at all if there are any in the first place. The highest average score belongs to the state of Kyrgyz Republic with a 1.64. This is peculiar because the Kyrgyz Republic actually has a woman interim president named Rosa Otumbaeva, who is the first woman to hold this status in office within any state in the whole region. The lowest score, again, belongs to Iran with a score of 0. The
situation in Iran concerning womens rights in each category is dire; the state has received abysmal scores in each category being examined and may be at a point where foreign powers should interfere and help out enforcing human rights practices as a whole. After examining the data so far, it looks

like it is agreeing with my hypothesis in that ratification of the CEDAW treaty does not make a state more likely to enforce womens rights laws. There are some aspects of the data that
suggest otherwise though, for example, Iran is the only state in Central Asia that has not ratified CEDAW and they have the lowest score in each category of womens rights being examined. This doesnt seem to be a coincidence either since all the other states that have ratified have received higher scores in average from 1981-2009.