World leaders, civil society and the private sector are preparing to make 2020 the biggest year yet for the advancement of women’s rights. Over the course of the year, thousands of people are expected to attend high-level UN events and forums in Mexico City and Paris to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing platform for action, a landmark agreement to end gender…
It seems like every year is dubbed the “year of the woman,” in recent memory at least, but for good reason. The back half of the 2010s, a breathtaking, world-changing decade now less than two weeks away from its long-awaited end, was dominated by the resurgent political consciousness of marginalized groups, including women. Fourth-wave feminism has produced words like “manspreading” and “mansplaining,”…
Sudan has repealed a restrictive public order law that controlled how women acted and dressed in public. On Twitter, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok paid tribute to women who had “endured the atrocities that resulted from the implementation of this law”. The country’s transitional authorities also dissolved the party of former President Omar al-Bashir. Mr. Bashir seized power in a 1989…
By Megan Brenan Gallup’s poll reveal a Record-Low of 46% of Women are Pleased With Society’s Treatment. Gallup polling finds a record-low 46% of U.S. women are satisfied with the way women are treated in society. This marks a 15-percentage-point decline since the summer of 2016 before the #MeToo movement exploded in the U.S. While women have become markedly less…
What keeps Melinda Gates up at night? The thought that people will move on from addressing systemic gender inequality. That the groundswell surrounding #MeToo will recede. That companies will only pay lip service to fixing gender inequities at work rather than prioritizing them. “There is too much at stake to allow that to happen. Too many people–women and men–have worked too hard to get…
A wave of hope swept through Saudi Arabia when the government there announced in early August that it would soon extend significant new rights to women. The changes, which started applying at the end of August, were anticipated to dramatically change the conservative kingdom’s so-called guardianship system, allowing women to get passports, travel, work, keep custody of minors and register births and divorces without…
Beijing+25: Celebrating 25 years of championing women’s rights.
On 1st, January 2019, in one of the biggest movements for women’s rights in India, 5 million women lined up across the length of the southern state of Kerala to “uphold Renaissance values.” What they were demanding was an end to violent agitations against women trying to enter Kerala’s Sabarimala temple, a popular Hindu pilgrimage site. This followed a ruling by the Indian…
Looking back on 2017, we are reminded of the undeniable power of women’s movements—because when women and girls come together, they are stronger, more effective in driving sustainable change, and better able to resist injustice, fear, and hate. This article celebrates some of the best moments for Women’s Rights in 2017. Government and policy-making still plays such an important role in…
