Drop-in Hours: by appointment only

Jo Butterfield is an adjunct assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa. Her research examines the creation of modern human rights standards.

Her book manuscript (in progress), “Social Justice, Not Charity: International Women’s Activism, Gender Politics and the Making of Modern Human Rights” explores how feminist activists navigated international politics and ideas about gender in their efforts to promote a global “social revolution” for women in the aftermath of World War II. Activists’ efforts centered on the creation of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which serves as the foundation of human rights standards to this day. During the drafting process, feminist delegates lobbied to incorporate long-standing women’s rights claims into the new, emerging human rights framework. Ultimately, feminist activism and ideas about appropriate gender roles influenced UDHR drafters’ views about human rights in ways that expanded, but also significantly curtailed postwar human rights standards for men and women alike.

She teaches courses on the World since 1945, the US in World Affairs, the History of Human Rights, and Cold War America.

Publications

Articles

• "Historicizing Gender and Conflict," co-author with Elizabeth Heineman, in The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict, Eds., Dina Haynes Fionnuala Ni Aoláin, Nahla Valiji, and Naomi Cahn
• "Eleanor Roosevelt: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights," co-author with Blanche Wiesen Cook, in Junctures in Women's Leadership: Social Movements, Eds., Mary K. Trigg and Alison R. Bernstein