A/67/287 attention needs to be devoted to formulating and implementing culturally relevant measures that catalyse transformative equality processes in each particular area of discrimination. It is suggested therefore that there is a need to understand universality as a transformative dialogue in which disparities in power are acknowledged, the diversity of the world is recognized and positively asserted, and the material necessities for ensuring human dignity are also addressed. 54 66. Particularly in the field of cultural rights, where a large part of the discrimination is structural or systemic, the principle of equality needs to be embraced in society, not just in law. This requires a complex interrogation of the contextual framework to pave the way for multidimensional and culturally sensitive “legitimacy norms”, that is, “norms that are determinate because they have input from and thus consent of those governed by the rules, which will, in turn, result in adherence to the norms”. 55 It must be stressed that the process of cultural legitimization and change inevitably takes place within a political context. 56 67. Issues of legitimacy are a concern of gender equality advocates and women’s rights movements. Research indicates that women’s empowerment initiatives derive legitimacy from accounts of history highlighting women’s contributions and challenges to the status quo and religion, but equally State commitments to gender equality. 57 68. Human rights practice must guard against imposing outsiders’ ideologies, but also against shielding from criticism community practices and norms that perpetuate women’s subordination. It needs to incorporate simultaneously an internal discourse to find legitimacy within all cultures and cross-cultural dialogue as a reciprocal sharing of perspectives. The positing of cultural diversity and the universality of human rights as either irreconcilable or mutually exclusive must be unequivocally rejected. Whenever “gender-biased social arrangements are defended in the name of culture, the purported cultural norms need to be challenged” 58 by asking, inter alia: • Do the purported cultural norms reflect an actual social practice? • Are they representative of the community, or are they simply a generalization of the narrow interests of a few? In other words, is there a uniform interpretation of the source and nature of the practice/norm? • Whose power is preserved through the use of the purported cultural norms? • Who is challenging the practice/norm (outsider/insider, oppressed and/or marginalized person(s) within the community) and what are the claimed harmful outcomes of the practice/norm? __________________ 54 55 56 57 58 12-45930 See, for example, Otto; Nyamu; and Abdullahi An-Na’im, “What Do We Mean By Universal?”, Index on Censorship, 4/5 (September-October 1994). Hernández-Truyol, p. 162. Abdullahi An-Na’im, “State Responsibility Under International Human Rights Law to Change Religious and Customary Laws”, in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, Rebecca Cook, ed. (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994). Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts: Gender, poverty and democratisation from the inside out, available at www.wemc.hk.com. Nyamu, p. 59. See also Partners for Law and Development, “Intersections Between Women’s Equality, Culture and Cultural Rights”, Report of the South Asia Plus Consultation on Culture, Women and Human Rights, 2-3 September 2010, Dhulikhel, Nepal. 19