Human Rights Watch comments on the March 4, 2026 draft of:
CEDAW General Recommendation No. 41 on Dismantling Gender Stereotypes and the Unequal Power Relations that Sustain them
Human Rights Watch would like to congratulate the CEDAW Committee on the important work it has undertaking to develop this General Recommendation on the crucial topic of gender stereotypes. We are grateful for the opportunity to review the document in draft form and share our comments. The staff at Human Rights Watch includes experts in thematic areas including the rights of children, LGBT people, older people, people with disabilities, and people facing racial discrimination, as well as the rights of women, and our comments on the draft reflect these varied areas of expertise. We hope they are helpful to the committee.
In the text below we have referenced specific paragraphs of the draft, suggesting edits to those paragraphs and, as appropriate, explaining the reasoning behind those proposed edits. We would, of course, be glad to further discuss any of these suggestions with the committee.
We suggest:
Paragraph 2—Revising the sixth sentence by deleting the words “and maternity” and replacing them with “care-giving, and gender roles.” We believe that this broader framing better captures the full scope of areas in which stereotypes police the roles of women and girls and undermine gender equality. We also suggest, in the same sentence, replacing “women’s participation” with “participation by women and girls.” We are acutely aware that the impact of gender stereotypes begins very early in the life of children of all genders, and we have suggested adding additional references to girls at various points throughout the draft. In the last sentence of paragraph 3, we suggest adding “too often” before “promoted and reproduced” to acknowledge the work by many educators and learners to push back against stereotypes.
Paragraph 5-- Replacing "surge of organized gender backlash" in the second sentence of para 5 with "backlash against the rights of women and girls in all their diversity in recent years" as we believe this is a more precise way to refer to this phenomenon, which we are seeing globally including at the UN. By adding “in all their diversity” the document can emphasize early on the need for intersectional thinking, which is especially important because of the overlaps in backlash against the rights of women and girls and backlash against the rights of LGBT people, and because one of the crucial backlash attempts is to remove gender identity-related diversity from our understanding of women (by insisting on a definition based on sex only).
Paragraph 9--Adding "or girls or boys" at the end of para 9 to maintain a strong focus on the impact of gender stereotypes on children.
Paragraph 10--Adding "and girls" to the mention of "notions of women's inherent inferiority" in the first sentence of para 10 to maintain a strong focus on the impact of gender stereotypes on children.
Paragraph 11--Adding "These stereotypes help drive exclusion of women from political and public life, decision-making processes, and many occupations, and contribute to the gender pay gap." as a penultimate sentence in para 11 to complement the strong last sentence on gender-based violence.
Paragraph 13--Adding “Gender stereotypes also harm men and boys by pressuring them to conform with stereotypes about masculinity and stigmatizing those who are seen as failing to conform with these stereotypes.” as a penultimate sentence in para 13, to emphasize early in the document that stereotypes also harm men and boys.
Paragraph 15—Adding in the first sentence: “or justified based on” between “embedded in” and “traditions”; in the second sentence: replacing “are” with “may be” between “inequality” and “perceived”; in the third and last sentences adding “and girls” after “women” ; in the fourth sentence: adding “often imposed by the dominant group in a society, but are also” between “Traditions are” and “dynamic.” These changes should help counter any criticism against the CEDAW as being against culture and tradition and trying to impose a Western vision of human rights.
Paragraph 17--Adding in the fourth sentence: “and care-giving” after “domestic”, to emphasize the large role girls often play in care-giving within families and elsewhere; adding “forced motherhood and menstrual segregation” to the list of harmful practices in the last sentence. In the last sentence, adding: “forced” between “early and” and “pregnancy,” to strengthen the idea that girls who become pregnant in places with no access to abortion are subject to pregnancy against their will, even at early age; adding “child motherhood and menstrual segregation” between “FGM” and “other forms” to help to counter the idea in many countries that have no or limited access to abortion that girls who become pregnant must accept their role as mothers.
Paragraph 18—We have extensive comments on this paragraph and have proposed a revised version of the full paragraph below. We urge that the general recommendation should recognize that discrimination can be cumulative as well as intersectional. For example, gender discrimination in education, hiring, promotion and pay throughout women’s working lives accumulate into widening gender pay gaps as women get older, gender pension gaps, and income inequality in older age. We also note that widowhood and divorce also impact younger women; adding widowhood and divorce to the list of other forms of discrimination would ensure their inclusion without suggesting they exclusively impact older women. In addition, gendered ageism against older women is being increasingly recognized as a unique form of systemic discrimination. See: Paula A Rochon, Surbhi Kaliaa and Paul Higgs, “Gendered ageism: addressing discrimination based on age and sex,” We have proposed replacing “notion” with “belief” out of concern that “notion” trivializes the deeply entrenched gendered ageism against older women; we note that “ideas, belief and attitudes” are used above in the definition of stereotypes, in paragraph 9.
Finally, the harm gendered ageism does to older women extends beyond access to health services, including in the following areas:
- Employment: The jobs available to women progressively narrow as they get older until they only have access to the lowest most precarious and under-valued work.
- Social security: The average gender pension gap among OECD countries was 24 percent in 2022.
OECD, “Pensions at a Glance 2025,” November 27, 2025,
- Care and support in the community: Older women are disproportionately affected by institutionalization in nursing homes and other care facilities.
For example, in the UK in 2021, there were 23 older women in care homes to every 10 older men.
- Violence: According to UN Women, reliance on data on violence against women from DHS surveys which stop at age 49 means that data are generally lacking on violence against older women, particularly from low- and middle-income countries.
For these reasons, we propose that paragraph 18 be revised to read as follows:
18. The Committee also observes that the impact of gender discrimination accumulates throughout women’s lives with severe consequences in older age. Discrimination against older women is also intersectional, with the age factor combining with one or more other forms of discrimination based on sex; gender; ethnic origin; disability; poverty; widowhood; divorce; and other factors. When stereotypes based on age, known as ageism, combine with gender stereotypes they create gendered ageism, a unique form of systemic discrimination against older women. The stigma against women’s aging is based on the belief that older women are no longer reproductively useful or productive in society beyond their gendered and age-based roles in the family. Stereotypes about their limited value often hinder their access to health services, employment, social security, care and support in the community, and responses to violence against women.
Paragraph 19—We have extensive suggestions on this paragraph, including on the importance of framing the discussion around the rights of people with disabilities, and state obligations to them, as opposed to needs. We have also proposed language: describing legal capacity in line with the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities; framing discrimination as arising from harmful societal attitudes and stereotypes that drive rights violations; and emphasizing the role of many women and girls with disabilities as care givers.
For these reasons, we suggest that paragraph 19 be revised to read as follows:
19. Women and girls with disabilities are disproportionately subjected to intersectional discrimination and gender stereotypes based on their sex, gender, and disabilities. This can be further exacerbated, for example, by poverty, ethnicity, caste, and class. Such stereotypes are reflected in laws, policies, and data collection practices, contributing to their exclusion from legal frameworks, policies, and programs. Many women with disabilities face social exclusion and lack access to full education and infrastructural accommodations. In many contexts, existing laws and policies deny or restrict their right to legal capacity, contrary to international human rights standards, contributing to higher rates of institutionalization, gender-based violence, abuse, and exploitation. Women with disabilities are also frequently denied their sexual and reproductive health rights, including access to services and information, based on discriminatory assumptions that they are incapable of parenting, making autonomous decisions, are unreliable, or that they are asexual. Law and policy frameworks also frequently fail to recognize and support the women and girls with disabilities who are also caregivers and support providers.
Paragraph 20—Adding “and sex characteristics” at the end of the first sentence, as intersex women are specifically mentioned in the next sentence, and sex characteristics are the grounds for their discrimination. We suggest adding the following as a new penultimate sentence in this paragraph: “In addition, the lack of legal gender recognition contributes to discrimination against trans and intersex women, and the lack of protection from medically unnecessary surgeries contributes to rights violations against intersex women and girls.”
We also suggest adding a new additional paragraph, immediately after paragraph 20, reading as follows: “Gender stereotypes severely impact transgender women, often forcing them to conform to strict binary roles (e.g., hyper-femininity) to gain social recognition or medical access. These stereotypes drive discrimination, harassment, and violence, as trans women are often judged based on rigid, conventional assumptions of female behavior rather than their true identities.”
Paragraph 21 (which would become para 22)—Adding in the first sentence: “comes from within and outside their communities and” after “Discrimination against Indigenous women”. We suggest adding a new second sentence which reads as follows: “In some communities, Indigenous women and girls face elevated levels of violence, along with restrictive norms and rules that limit their participation in political and economic life. Individualization of land ownership or control, even within some communal territories, has weakened women’s access and control of land.”
Paragraph 22 (which would become para 23)—We note that the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has enumerated measures that need to be taken to overcome stereotypes that have gender dimensions. See: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/WRGS/2013-Gender-Stereotyping-as-HR-Violation.docx. In light of this guidance, we suggest revising the second sentence of this paragraph to read as follows: “This has promoted enduring inequalities for women of African descent, such as employment and educational opportunities, economic disparities, mental and physical health outcomes, unequal political and public participation, poverty, stigma and discriminatory treatment, social exclusion, sexual violence and rape, and past and contemporary forms of enslavement.” We also suggest adding a new additional last sentence reading as follows: “Women of African descent also experience inequality in controlling resources within their communities based on racism and on discriminatory gender roles and gender stereotypes, and in countries with pronounced gender and race intersectional iniquities.” In relation to the proposed new last sentence, please see: “We Must Ask for What Is Already Ours”: Afro-descendant Women and Access to Land in Alto Mira y Frontera, Colombia | HRW.
Paragraph 23—Adding in the second sentence, after “gender”, “ gender identity”; Revising the third and fourth sentences to read as follows: “They often experience multiple rights violations during the migration and displacement cycle, including human trafficking, gender-based violence including sexual violence and sexual exploitation, discrimination, and harassment; survivors of these abuses frequently face a lack of access to services and assistance. Women and girls can also face barriers to assistance when ration cards are assigned to male heads of household. During asylum procedures, women are often presumed only to have protection claims derivative to those of male family members and may face barriers if they wish to seek asylum independently, including the need for protection from domestic violence, even though many women asylum-seekers are political leaders, journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, and judges.”; Deleting the last sentence to avoid the use of “exploitation of prostitution” as “sexual exploitation” would now be referred to earlier in this paragraph. The term “sexual exploitation” is, in our view, more commonly used and helps to avoid the conflation of trafficking and sex work that is often deployed to undermine the rights of sex workers.
Paragraph 24—In the second sentence, after “women and men” adding “and girls and boys”; in the same sentence, after “perceived biological differences” adding “the perceived binaries of both sex and gender”; in the third sentence, after “women and men” adding “and the perception of binary sex and gender.” We note that the assumption of sex and gender binary is a key underlying factor for discrimination experienced by LBTI women. We encourage the Committee to be explicit about this. In the fourth sentence, changing “women’s capacity to reproduce” to “women and girls’ capacity to reproduce.”
Paragraph 25—In the first sentence, adding “and girls” after “women”; in the third sentence, adding “forced pregnancy and child maternity” before “child marriages”; Revising the fourth and fifth sentence to read “Pregnant girls and child and young mothers are treated as adults. Married women and girls often face family and social pressure to have children, and barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health services. These factors severely limit many women and girls’ ability and autonomy…”
Paragraph 28—In the fourth sentence, adding “including” before “in schools” and revising the text after “schools” to read “including physical, psychological, financial and sexual forms of violence.”
Paragraph 29—In the second sentence adding “in part” after “due”; At the end of the paragraph adding the following additional text: “Occupations dominated by women tend to be lower paid than occupations dominated by men, because of gender stereotypes. Work available to women progressively narrows as they get older until they often only have access to the lowest paid and most precarious and under-valued work. The impact of wage-gaps, lack of promotions, and occupational segregation accumulate into gender pension gaps. Pension regulations, including eligibility criteria based on the number of contributing years and contribution age caps, disadvantage women whose work has been disrupted due to gender stereotypes about their marital and childcare responsibilities.” In 2022, the average gender pension gap among OECD countries was 24 percent.
Paragraph 30—Adding the following text as a new fourth sentence: “Women experiencing often debilitating perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms can have limited access to reproductive health care services.”
Paragraph 31—In the fifth sentence, after “political violence” adding “including gendered forms of political violence.”; in the penultimate sentence adding the word “supposed” before the word “weakness”.
We also propose a new paragraph that addresses gender stereotyping of women in sport, specifically as it manifests in sex testing of women. Sporting bodies for decades have, and continue, to try to exclude women with variations in their sex characteristics, or inter sex traits, from competing in elite women’s competitions. These efforts reinforce negative stereotypes of what women should look like, promote the stigma that women with sex variations are not women, and cause devastating consequences across many rights for the women targeted. (See p. 39 https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Discrimination/LGBT/BackgroundNoteHumanRightsViolationsagainstIntersexPeople.pdf, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Women/WG/Communications/OL-OTH-62-2018.pdf, and Human Rights Watch’s “They are chasing us away from sport”.) Plans to reintroduce sex testing only for women athletes are imminent. The new paragraph would read:
“Gender stereotypes of women have fueled demands for and the practice of sex testing of women - and only women – athletes. The goal is to exclude women athletes who, often through variations in their sex characteristics, have higher than typical natural testosterone, from competing as women. These women are often selected for testing if they present more masculine than stereotypical and the practice has also often been informed by racist as well as gender stereotypes. The discriminatory assumptions driving sex testing, the manner in which it has been conducted, the stigma it creates, and the consequences that flow from it, have been devastating for many women athletes, and have a chilling effect on women and girls who do not conform to stereotypes pursuing careers sports.
Paragraph 32 (now paragraph 34)—We suggest some changes to this paragraph to reflect the need for women to participate in all forms of technology creation and governance (while acknowledging that simply adding women isn't enough), drawing on ITU Res 70 https://www.itu.int/en/action/gender-equality/Documents/S22-PP-Res70-E.pdf. We suggest revising the second and third sentences of this paragraph to read as follows: “Artificial intelligence systems reproduce and reinforce sex and gender specific biases as they are designed, developed, and deployed by humans, and rely on input, algorithms, and feedback that reflect gender stereotypes. The Committee therefore notes with concern the discrimination built into this technology, the need for gender informed regulation and sensitization, and the need for women to participate fully as creators of artificial intelligence and other careers in science and technology, in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes concerning technology governance.” In the last sentence adding “and girls” after “women”.
Paragraph 33 (now paragraph 35)—In the penultimate sentence, after “divorce” adding “access to and control of land”.
Paragraph 34—Adding “menstrual segregation” to the list of harmful practices in the first sentence.
Paragraph 37—In the last sentence using common UN terminology by replacing “LBTI status” with “sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or sex characteristics (SOGIESC)”.
Paragraph 43—At the end of the penultimate sentence adding “and are full participants in all decision-making processes”.
Paragraph 46—Adding “and girls” to each mention of women in this paragraph, to reflect the harms experienced by girls in conflict with the law. At the end of the last sentence, we suggest adding “and girls, and that women and girls who encounter discriminatory treatment based on stereotypes have effective forms of recourse”.
Paragraph 52(b)—Adding “in their diversity” after “identities”.
Paragraph 52(f)—Adding “and marginalized” after “multifaceted”. We have also made this suggestion regarding some other paragraphs where it was important to refer not just to women with multifaceted identities but specifically to those with marginalized identities.
Paragraph 53(f)—Adding “and support equality in care giving” at the end of the sentence.
Paragraph 53(g)—Adding a new item here, before the current 53(g), which says: “Ensure pension regulations do not further disadvantage women and contribute to the gender pension gap.”
Paragraph 55(b)(i)—We suggest, after “paternity” adding “adult carer”. It is important to equally compensate women’s care responsibilities for adults, including older family members.
Paragraph 55(e)-- It is important to articulate key social security entitlements. “Entitlements’ is a term that implies a right, whereas “benefits” suggests a safety net or charity. We suggest revising this sentence, after the word “social” by deleting “benefits and replacing it with “security, including sick pay, unemployment and pension entitlements”.
Paragraph 56(a)(3)—Adding “and marginalized” after “multifaceted”.
Paragraph 56--Adding a new last section (d) that says: “Ensure that all healthcare delivery respects the rights of equality and bodily autonomy, in particular, end harmful medically unnecessary surgical procedures on intersex children.”
Paragraph 57(c)— Adding “and marginalized” after “multifaceted”.
Paragraph 58(b)--Adding “and marginalized” after “multifaceted”.
Paragraph 62(c)-- Adding “and marginalized” after “multifaceted”.
