I believe that a concept that may have some flaws is nonetheless important as a tool to critique abuses on all sides of the political spectrum. In the end, I think that a more useful 'universal' concept than that of a 'right', though, is a 'need'.

If there are more than two sexes, then so be it and, of course, the assumption that there are two helps shape, as many have argued, the binary logic that underpins much of the history of western philosophy.

Ethically and politically it is important to face up to the need for a universal perspective in our divided, multi-cultural, unequal and unjust world.

I think that both pornography and the imposition (common in some areas of the world) of a dress code on women are problematic.

The subject of feminism cannot be purely a fiction, as some postmodern writers suggest, produced by the discourses of power.

If someone says that they have to 'tolerate' cultural differences and cultural groupings different from themselves then that may make it difficult, at the same time, to condemn unjust practices within those cultures.

The universal basis for the categorisation 'woman' will, no doubt, be constantly shifting but it is important not to deny it's existence altogether. There is a partly biological basis for this identification. The 'nature' of woman may be conceptualised in the early Greek sense of a force or a power, in its turn shaped by forces outside it, rather than in terms of some set of properties.