A/67/287 philosophical vocabulary”. 60 This demands close cooperation between all relevant State and non-State actors in society. 74. The continuing development of human rights standards should be informed by the cultural diversity of humankind while recognizing that cultures are always dynamic: people’s perceptions, views and actions, rather than abstracted “culture”, drive social, economic, political and cultural developments. In the same way that all human rights standards constantly evolve, cultural beliefs and understandings, normative rules and values, as well as practices are continuously created, contested and (re)interpreted. In transforming their culture(s) by adopting new ideas and modes of operation, concerned people often continue to draw upon the moral and spiritual resources within their own traditions. 75. Women’s perspectives and contributions must move from the margins of cultural life to the centre of the processes that create, interpret and shape culture. In order to ensure that the dominant culture of their societies is based on gender equality, the tendency to marginalize women’s concerns and silence their voices must be overcome, obstructions impeding their equal participation in public life eliminated and their underrepresentation in the institutions and processes defining the culture of their communities surmounted. Women must be recognized as, and supported to be, equal spokespersons vested with the authority to determine which of the community’s traditions are to be respected, protected and transmitted to future generations. 76. Measures are required to support and enhance the cultural legitimacy and symbolic validation of new tools and interpretations that enable practices harmful to women to be surmounted. These may include, for example, promoting knowledge about international human rights standards, revising historical narratives to reflect cultural diversity and highlight women’s contributions, and documenting the actual diversity of practices and making these known. It is particularly important to support women’s transformative initiatives: to listen to local women and build on the tools and terminology they use, including elements to be retrieved from cultural heritage that may have fallen into disuse. 61 77. It is important to link the right to take part in cultural life with women’s equal rights in the area of public and political life, as well as family life. These are intricately interlinked: “In all nations, cultural traditions and religious beliefs have played a part in confining women to the private spheres of activity and excluding them from active participation in public life.” 62 78. Women’s cultural rights provide a new framework for promoting all other rights. The realization of equal cultural rights for women would help to reconstruct gender in ways that transcend notions of women’s inferiority and subordination, thereby improving conditions for the full and equal enjoyment of their human rights in general. This requires a shift in perspective: from __________________ 60 61 62 12-45930 Farida Shaheed, “Reflections on human rights, traditional values and practices”, contribution circulated at the workshop on the traditional values of humankind (A/HRC/16/37), p. 5. Oral information provided by anthropologist Jeanette Kloosterman, Oxfam Novib. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, general recommendation No. 23 (1997) on women in political and public life, para. 10. 21