A/67/287 29. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has emphasized the need to take “appropriate measures to remedy structural forms of discrimination so as to ensure that the underrepresentation of persons from certain communities in public life does not adversely affect their right to take part in cultural life”. 30 This suggests that measures are needed to ensure that particular communities are not exclusively represented by members traditionally vested with the power or authority to represent the community, such as religious leaders or community elders, most of whom are male, and that women are equally able to represent their communities. 30. Access covers, inter alia, the right of everyone to know, understand and benefit from the cultural heritage and cultural life of their own communities as well as that of other communities. Accessing and enjoying cultural heritage implies the ability, inter alia, to know, understand, enter, visit, make use of, maintain, exchange and develop cultural heritage; to contribute to the identification, interpretation and development of cultural heritage, as well as to the design and implementation of preservation/safeguard policies and programmes (A/HRC/17/38, para. 79). Access encompasses the right to freely engage with people and to benefit from ideas, events and information beyond those of one’s own community(ies), regardless of frontiers and without fear of punitive actions, including from non-State actors. 31. Equal cultural rights would ensure women’s ability to seek proactively knowledge and creative human expressions, scientific knowledge, applications and technologies (A/HRC/20/26, paras. 27 and 29) and to widen their horizon, including beyond the cultural communities in which they are born and raised. Women must be able to access cultural goods and resources, institutions and infrastructure that enable them to follow a specific way of life, including in the areas of leisure, sports, culture and education. 32. Information and communication technologies, including the Internet, are especially important for accessing information, establishing and developing contacts with persons with similar views beyond primary communities, as well as expressing oneself and contributing one’s own knowledge and ideas. 33. Equal contribution to cultural life entails the ability to use imagination and intellect in both experiencing and producing works and events of one’s own choice: spiritual and material, intellectual and emotional, including in all forms of artistic creativity, for example music and literature. Equally important is being able to engage in critical reflection to form conceptions of, and contribute to establishing, key values, norms and standards. Women must have the freedom to undertake scientific research, be recognized as knowledge holders and be able to contribute to the scientific enterprise without encumbrances (A/HRC/20/26, para. 39). 2. Cultural rights as empowering and transformative rights 34. All human communities, including nations, are characterized by a dominant culture that reflects the viewpoint and the interests of those with the power to ensure adherence to prescribed norms. The dominant culture is almost inevitably patriarchal in nature. __________________ 30 12-45930 General comment No. 21 (2009), para. 52 (g). See also paras. 21, 22, 25, 49 (a) and (e), 52 (b) and 55 (a) and (b). 11