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This dissertation addresses the question, "What has prevented the goal of gender equality from being achieved in three countries - South Africa, India, and Turkey?" All three countries ratified the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a United Nations human rights treaty that requires states to examine and redress gender inequality within their laws, policies, customs, and practices. Yet despite their ratification of CEDAW, gender inequality persists. To investigate the research question, a policy implementation analysis was conducted using Brinkerhoff's Success Case Method (2001) and an adapted version of McPhail's Feminist Policy Framework (2003) to discover themes as to why the goal of gender equality within each country has not yet been attained. Ultimately, the findings gave rise to two themes. First, the analysis showed the need to further address the private domain of women's lives within the implementation of CEDAW. All three countries have been able to resist full implementation of gender equality by citing women's rights within the "private domain" were restricted based on cultural, religious, and other factors. The second theme is more provocative. Overall, at the policy implementation level in these three countries, CEDAW appears to advance women's rights in the public sphere. Yet the ultimate goal of CEDAW is gender equality which has not yet occurred. If the attainment of equal rights is equivalent to the attainment of gender equality, the question that surfaces from this study asks, is making the goal of gender equality enough for women to gain de facto equality with men ? Recommendations based on these findings include reforms to CEDAW which will integrate more thoroughly the private domain to the advancement of women's rights. The international policy community should work to strengthen provisions so that culture and traditions can work to promote rather than inhibit women's rights. Finally, it is recommended that women activists, researchers, and academicians re-examine the language of gender equality as a whole to determine if this construct is sufficient in achieving the overall goal of all individuals having the ability to exercise the same rights. Implications for policy analysis, social work practice and future research are discussed.
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