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Essay on Women’s Rights

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100 Words Essay on Women’s Rights

Introduction.

Women’s rights are fundamental human rights that everyone should respect. They include the right to live free from violence, to be educated, to vote, and to earn a fair wage.

History of Women’s Rights

The fight for women’s rights began in the 1800s. Women protested for the right to vote, work, and receive equal pay. Their efforts led to significant changes.

Importance of Women’s Rights

Women’s rights are vital for equality. When women have the same rights as men, societies are fairer and more balanced.

There is still work to be done to ensure women’s rights worldwide. Everyone should strive to promote and protect these rights.

250 Words Essay on Women’s Rights

The historical context.

The fight for women’s rights has been a long-standing struggle. From the suffragettes of the early 20th century who fought for women’s right to vote, to the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s which sought economic and social equality, women’s rights have been a contentious issue throughout history.

Current Status

Despite significant progress, gender inequality persists in many parts of the world. Women are still underrepresented in political and corporate leadership, they are more likely to live in poverty, and they face higher levels of violence and discrimination.

Challenges and Solutions

The path to gender equality is fraught with obstacles, including deeply entrenched societal norms and institutions. However, change is possible. Education, legislation, and societal shifts in attitudes towards gender can play a significant role in promoting women’s rights.

The fight for women’s rights is a fight for human rights. As society evolves, it is crucial to continue advocating for gender equality, not just for the benefit of women, but for the betterment of society as a whole.

500 Words Essay on Women’s Rights

Women’s rights, a subject that has been at the forefront of social and political discussions for centuries, is a complex and multifaceted issue. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from the right to vote and work to reproductive rights and gender equality. This essay aims to delve into the evolution of women’s rights, the current state of these rights, and the challenges that remain.

The Evolution of Women’s Rights

Current state of women’s rights.

The progress made in the past century is undeniable. Women have achieved significant strides in political representation, educational attainment, and economic participation. However, the fight for equality is far from over. Globally, women still earn less than men, are underrepresented in positions of power, and are more likely to experience violence and discrimination.

Challenges and the Way Forward

The struggle for women’s rights faces numerous challenges. These include deeply entrenched patriarchal norms, religious and cultural beliefs, and structural inequalities that disadvantage women. To overcome these obstacles, it is essential to continue advocating for policy changes that promote gender equality, such as equal pay legislation, paid parental leave, and laws to prevent and punish gender-based violence.

In conclusion, while significant progress has been made in the fight for women’s rights, there is still much work to be done. The struggle for gender equality is not just a women’s issue; it is a human issue that affects us all. By continuing to advocate for policy changes and cultural shifts, we can create a world where all women have the opportunity to live free from discrimination and violence, and to realize their full potential.

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Article contents

Women’s rights as human rights.

Jutta Joachim Jutta Joachim Institute for Political Science, Leibniz University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.430
Published in print: 01 March 2010
Published online: 11 January 2018

For centuries, women have been struggling for the recognition of their rights. Women’s rights are still being dismissed by United Nations (UN) human rights bodies and even governments, despite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. It was not until the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria that states began to recognize women’s rights as human rights. However, this institutional change cannot solely be credited to the UN, but more importantly to the work of international women’s organizations. According to the social movement theory, these organizations have been permeating intergovernmental structures and, with the help of their constituents and experienced leaders, framing women’s rights as human rights in different ways throughout time. It is through mobilizing resources and seizing political opportunities that women’s rights activists rationalize how discrimination and exclusion resulted from gendered traditions, and that societal change is crucial in accepting women’s rights as fully human. But seeing as there are still oppositions to the issue of women’s rights as human rights, further research still needs to be conducted. Some possible venues for research include how well women’s rights as human rights travel across different institutions, violence against women, how and in what way women’s rights enhance human rights, and the changes that have taken place in mainstream human rights and specialized women’s rights institutions since the late 1980s as well as their impact.

women’s rights
human rights
United Nations
women’s organizations
discrimination
gendered traditions
societal change

Introduction

Although the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, women’s rights violations were until recently ignored by both governments and United Nations (UN) human rights bodies. It took until the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria, in 1993 for states to recognize women’s rights as human rights. In the Vienna Declaration and the Program of Action adopted at the end of the conference, governments agreed on the following text:

The human rights of women and of the girl-child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life, at the national, regional and international levels, and the eradication of all forms of discrimination on grounds of sex are priority objectives of the international community. Gender-based violence and all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation, including those resulting from cultural prejudice and international trafficking, are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person, and must be eliminated (UN General Assembly 1993 : Article 18).

Since then, a number of institutional changes have occurred: the UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Violence against Women which condemns gender-based violence as human rights violations, appointed a Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, and most recently, the Security Council adopted two resolutions on “Women and Peace and Security” – 1325 and 1820 – that recognize women’s rights in the protection of international peace.

Drawing on social movement theory, this essay attributes these outcomes to the work of international women’s organizations, which engaged in frame extension and frame bridging, seizing political opportunities, and mobilizing their own resources. Working through intergovernmental structures and relying on both their constituents as well as their experienced leaders, these organizations have framed women’s rights as human rights in different ways throughout time. While at the turn of the century, women’s organizations demanded equal political rights and opportunities with men (equal treatment frame), they called for special treatment and (affirmative) action starting in the 1960s based on the assumption that the neglect of women’s rights is structural in nature and that international human rights law is male-biased (the woman’s frame). And since the 1990s, many activists are of the conviction that discrimination and exclusion are the result of gendered institutions and that societal change is needed for women’s rights to be respected as fully human (the gender frame).

This state of the art essay is divided into four parts. The first elaborates on the theoretical concepts of framing, political opportunity structure, and mobilizing resources. The second section then turns to the different frames which women’s rights activists employed at the international level across time, illustrating how they differ in what they identify as being the source for women’s rights’ exclusion from international human rights law, suggest as remedies, and offer as justifications for the proposed changes. The third section provides a genealogy of the international women’s rights movement using the analytical constructs. It shows how the international context and the composition of the international women’s movement determined how women’s rights as human rights were defined at a specific point in time, and contributed to framing contests, the privileging of certain frames, and the marginalization of others. Concluding with the assertion that women’s rights as human rights continues to be a contested proposition, the essay closes by suggesting future venues for research.

Frames, Political Opportunities, and Mobilizing Resources

Given the state-centric character of conventional international relations theories, feminists have often borrowed heuristic devices and methods from other disciplines to study the role of women and gender in global politics. In the case of the international women’s rights movement, quite a number of scholars (e.g. Friedman 1995 ; 2003 ; Clark et al. 1998 ; Joachim 2003 ; 2007 ) have drawn on social movement theory to explain the successes and challenges women’s rights activists and organizations face. Three concepts appear particularly useful in this respect: framing, political opportunity structure, and mobilizing resources.

Frames capture the “conscious strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action” (McAdam et al. 1996 :6). In this respect, frames have a diagnostic, a prognostic, and a motivational dimension (Snow and Benford 1988 ). They “provide a perspective from which an amorphous, ill-defined and problematic situation can be made sense of and acted upon” (Rein and Schön 1991 :263).

Framing is not an easy task, particularly at the international level – not only because new frames frequently challenge existing frames or compete with other frames, but also because they need to “resonate” with people from diverse cultural and political backgrounds. According to social movement scholars, activists frequently engage in what Snow et al. refer to as “frame alignment,” and define as the linking of different frames so that their ideas, beliefs, and interpretations are compatible (Snow et al. 1986 :464). This can take either the form of “frame bridging,” which involves the linkage of two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular problem (p. 467), or “frame extension,” referring to the enlargement of a frame’s boundaries so that it encompasses interests or points of view that are incidental to the frame’s primary objectives, but are of considerable salience to potential adherents (p. 472). Women’s rights activists have engaged in both strategies. They have linked women’s concerns to broader already accepted themes, such as human rights, development, or peace, and by doing so have often pushed the boundaries of already accepted frames.

Frames that resonate with a large number of actors and across different contexts are employed by other NGOs. They become so-called “master frames,” which provide the ideational and interpretative anchoring for subsequent struggles (Tarrow 1994 ). “Women’s rights as human rights” can be considered such a master frame today. While women’s activists employed the human rights discourse to delegitimize violence against women, it is now applied widely by other movements to gain acceptance for their otherwise contested concerns. Whether activists can mobilize support for their frames depends on the political opportunity structure in which they are embedded as well as the mobilizing resources they possess.

The political opportunity structure refers to the broader institutional context that provides opportunities for or imposes constraints on NGOs engaged in framing processes (McAdam et al. 1996 :2–3). For the women’s movement, but also for other movement groups, international organizations, the venues of multilateral negations, international agencies, as well as national ones, and governments are important in this respect. They provide, according to Tarrow, a “coral reef” where transnational activists “lobby and protest, encounter others like themselves, identify friendly states, and from time to time, put together successful global–national coalitions” (Tarrow 2005 :19). Reflecting on the contemporary transnational women’s movement, Friedman identifies the UN conferences as a major element of the political opportunity structure which “conditioned women’s rights organizing, whether in establishing the agenda for global discussion or the rules through which non-governmental representatives can participate” (Friedman 2003 :315). While institutions and the actors comprising them are an important part of the political opportunity structure, it is not limited to them. A number of scholars have also stressed that noninstitutional elements can present a window for activists to make their voices heard, such as, for example, symbolic events like the end of the Cold War.

Mobilizing resources, by comparison, are “the collective vehicles, informal as well as formal, through which people mobilize and engage in collective action” (McAdam et al. 1996 :315). In the case of the international women’s movement, so-called organizational entrepreneurs have contributed to its success. These are individuals and organizations that bring with them a wealth of organizing experiences, are well connected, and have vision and charisma. Furthermore, the building and extension of networks that support and lend credibility to the movement has been a critical factor as has the accumulation of expertise, both with respect to the issues promoted and to the norms and rules that prevail in the international institutions in which they were active (Joachim 2007 ).

Women have been struggling for the recognition of their rights for centuries. Throughout this time they have employed primarily three different frames to justify women’s rights as human rights: the equal treatment frame, the women’s frame, and the gender frame. While all of these frames contest the exclusion of women’s rights from human rights discourse, they differ as to what they consider to be the source of this neglect, how it can be remedied, and on what grounds the linkage of women’s rights and human rights is justified.

The Equal Treatment Frame

The equal treatment frame is premised on the idea of equal access and opportunity. It identifies the unequal treatment between men and women to be the main source of discrimination. Compared to men, women are granted fewer human rights and opportunities. According to equal treatment proponents, this is less a problem of international human rights law itself, which they view as authoritative, than the failure of states and nonstate actors in the past to apply and enforce these rights (Reanda 1981 :11–12; Cook 1993 ).

Disadvantages suffered by women can be redressed by a simple requirement of equal treatment. In practice this means that laws need to be adopted and legal barriers dismantled to bring about women’s legal equality with men in the public sphere and to create a level playing field. Proponents of the equal rights perspective perceive the integration of women’s rights into human rights law as rather unproblematic, because it will neither disrupt nor change the existing structures. Quite the contrary, according to Rebecca Cook , it is only through such recognition that “international law [can] unfold its full potential and fulfill its promise to respect the human rights of all without sexual discrimination” (Cook 1994 :128).

The equal rights approach has been criticized because women’s rights are merely integrated and added in, without challenging existing structures and policies that are considered the real sources of discrimination. According to Teresa Rees , the equal treatment approach, or what she refers to as “tinkering” (Rees 1998 :42), is flawed because it is rooted:

in a narrow distributive conception of justice, and focuses the debate upon the allocation of positions within a hierarchy which is given. It ignores the impact of patriarchy in the home and its interactions with capital to produce gendered organizations which systematically disadvantage women. It discounts the impact of other forms of unequal power relations, for example, those which accrue as a result of class or racial oppression and discrimination. (pp. 29–30)

Although the equal treatment frame might stand a better chance of being accepted by policy makers, its impact is, in the eyes of Walby, most likely to be less substantial (Walby 2005 :324).

The Women’s Frame

In contrast to the equal treatment frame, the women’s frame identifies international human rights law as highly problematic. “Reduced to its simplest and most basic term, the underlying problem […],” according to Riane Eisler is, “that the yardstick that has been developed for defining and measuring human rights has been based on the male as the norm” (Eisler 1987 :33). Put differently, international human rights law reflects a male view of the universe (Charlesworth 1994 :65). “[T]he prototypic ‘human rights’ case is an individual [male] political activist imprisoned for the expression of his views or political organizing” (Binion 1995 :509) with the state directly or indirectly implicated in the rights violations that are brought on to him. All other cases that do not match this “Bill of Rights model of liberty” seldom receive international attention, including issues related to marriage, procreation, labor, property ownership, sexual repression, and other manifestations of unequal citizenship, which are argued to be private, nongovernmental, and reflective of cultural difference.

The women’s frame is predicated on the idea that women’s voices and experiences are distinctive and need to be accounted for in international human rights law. Proponents of this frame call, therefore, for separate conventions, institutions, and positive (affirmative) action. They emphasize strategies and initiatives that “recognize women as a disadvantaged group in society, who deserve and require particular treatment and specialist provision in order to rectify their past discrimination” (Booth and Bennett 2002 ).

According to Hillary Charlesworth , the value of the women’s frame, or what she refers to as “cultural feminism,” is that it “responds more accurately to the reality of most women’s lives” (Charlesworth 1994 :66), “highlight[s] the almost comprehensive exclusion of women’s experiences from the development of the law, and challenge[s] its claim of neutrality and objectivity” (p. 65). However, it too has problems. Similar to the equality frame, “it is concerned with the distribution of positions within hierarchies rather than with challenging the structural status quo which reinforces systems of oppression in those hierarchies” (Rees 1998 :35). This is why Rees refers to the frame as “tailoring.” Although it allows “for ‘add-on’, supplementary measures to take account of women’s ‘special’ position [they are only] ‘nips and tucks’ to accommodate their different shape” (p. 44). Moreover, the adoption of specific women’s rights conventions and the establishment of women’s rights institutions can result in the marginalization of women’s rights in the human rights system and the creation of what Reanda ( 1992 :267) and others (e.g. Bunch 1995 ) have called a “women’s ghetto.”

The Gender Frame

The gender frame differs from the equal treatment and the women’s frames in several respects. Rather than speaking of women and men, gender is introduced to highlight the social construction of alleged differences between men and women. Injustices and inequalities exist, according to this perspective, because relations and institutions are gendered. Women are neither viewed as a monolithic group nor are men exclusively perceived as deliberate oppressors. Instead, the gender frame takes into consideration not only the ways in which class, culture, or race contributes to and compounds differences, but also that men, like women, can be (dis-)empowered by social arrangements.

With respect to the sources of women’s exclusion from international human rights law, proponents of the gender approach consider the distinction between, first, public and private, and, second, that between political and civil rights, on the one hand, and social, economic, and cultural rights, on the other hand, as fundamental. With respect to the former, Eisler points out that the private sphere, traditionally conceived of as women’s domain, is an artificial construct, that is “applied in a selective manner” and serves important “systems maintenance functions in male-dominated or patriarchical societies.” First, it perpetuates “the idea that the rights of women are of a different – or lower – order than the rights of ‘man,’” thereby making it possible “to justify practices that do not accord women full and equal status” (Eisler 1987 :28; see also Romany 1994 :93). Consequently, women in international human rights law become, according to Romany, “paradigmatic aliens – the outsider, the foreigner, the stateless subject” (Romany 1994 :102). Second, the exclusion of the private sphere from international human rights law “serves as a hidden but effective obstacle to fundamental systems change by preventing […] the creation of a social system where the human rights of all persons are fully recognized and respected” (Eisler 1987 ). Finally, the assumption of privacy is misleading because the family is highly political. The violence that occurs within the family (Bunch 1990 :490–91; Sullivan 1995 :127), invades women’s “basic human right to bodily and sexual integrity” (Eisler 1987 :31).

The distinction between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and social, economic, and cultural rights, on the other hand, is equally problematic. Especially the privileging of the former in international human rights law, impedes, according to Bunch, the consideration of women’s rights since much of the abuse against them is part of the larger socioeconomic web in which they are entrapped and can neither be delineated as exclusively political or solely caused by the state (Bunch 1990 :488; see also Romany 1994 :87; Charlesworth 1995 ).

The gender frame is transformative, calling for a just and fair distribution of resources. It involves what Rees refers to as a “paradigm shift” (Rees 1998 :46). According to Hillary Charlesworth , a gender frame suggests “transforming the masculine world of rights, masquerading as ‘human,’ by extending it to include protection against all forms of subordination on the basis of gender.” In practice this means “identify[ing] policies and practices that contribute to women’s inferior position in different societies and insist[ing] that the structure of human rights law offer protection against them” (Charlesworth 1994 :67). Hence, rather than establishing a separate body of law as the women’s perspective suggests, the gender perspective is premised on the assumption that inequalities can only be eliminated, through societal change. Gender needs to be recognized within all areas, including human rights.

Like the other frames, so too has that concerning gender mainstreaming been subject to criticism (e.g. Woodward 2003 ; Hankivsky 2005 ; Rees 2005 ). Just as in the case of the women’s frame, some fear the marginalization of women’s concerns, albeit not by separating them from but, instead, linking them to broader concerns. If no specific institution is tasked with taking gender into consideration, so the argument goes, nobody will take responsibility for it. Others are skeptical about its transformative potential in light of the fact that new gender norms have “to fight their way into institutional thinking,” contradict traditional norms, and may have to compete with other goals (Elgstrom 2000 ). What follows might come, according to Walby, closer to “negotiation […] than simple adoption of new policies” (Walby 2005 :322).

Although the gender, women’s, and equal treatment frames emphasize different reasons for the exclusion of women’s rights from international human rights law, and propose different solutions and justifications for how this problem can be remedied, they should not be viewed as entirely separate or exclusive. According to Booth and Bennett, they are part of what they call the “three-legged equality stool” (Booth and Bennett 2002 :434). Each of the frames plays and played a role in mainstreaming women’s rights. As Charlesworth illustrates:

[t]he model of nondiscrimination can change the formal language and offer[s] particular individuals limited remedies against inequality. Attempting to balance the thoroughly gendered nature of the international human rights system by defining the category of women’s rights can alter a monolithic conception of inequality. And understanding the relations of power and subordination endorsed by the law can suggest methods of reform that will not fall into the same trap. (Charlesworth 1994 :68)

In the following historical section, I will show how the different frames have been interacting within the specific circumstances of different contexts, been subject to conflicts, and have either been privileged or marginalized depending on how compatible they were with other already accepted frames.

Women’s Rights as Human Rights: A Historical Perspective

Women’s activism at both the national and international level is generally divided into three historically specific phases and analyzed in terms of first, second, and third wave feminism (Booth and Bennett 2002 :433). The first covers the years between 1900 and 1950 , when women’s rights activists were primarily concerned with obtaining equal political rights within newly emerging international institutions, such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. The second wave stretches from the 1960s to the late 1980s, with the UN Decade for Women ( 1976–85 ) and the three World Conferences held in Mexico City in 1975 , Copenhagen in 1980 , and Nairobi in 1985 , constituting important focal points. Contrary to the first wave, when the equal treatment frame was particularly prevalent, the women’s frame gained in popularity during this phase of women’s international activism. Since the early 1990s, we can witness a third wave of women’s international activism and a shift to the gender frame.

Women’s Rights as Equal Rights (1900–1950s)

During the first wave of women’s international organizing, campaigns were limited, for the most part, to political and civil rights, including suffrage, labor, and equal nationality rights. They reflected the views of mostly upper class North American and European women comprising the international movement. International conferences organized by either women themselves or by intergovernmental organizations, such as the League of Nations and later the United Nations, provided opportunities for women to mobilize governmental support for their concerns. Quite a number of international women’s rights conventions were adopted and international institutions established to promote and protect women’s rights. Although the equal treatment frame appeared to be the most predominant during this time, the women’s frame mattered as well.

Women’s concern for equal political and civil rights at the turn of the century was, according to Stienstra, no coincidence. Instead, it was spurred by “the contradictions in their lives between the increased ability to obtain education and paid labor and their lack of participation in politics and government, especially in the basic right to vote” (Stienstra 1994 :47). While women had been focusing their efforts on the national level and only communicating with women in other countries through letters, the Seneca Falls conventions held in the United States in 1848 constituted an important symbolic event regarding the formation of an international women’s movement. Over 300 women gathered and adopted the Declaration of Sentiments drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton , Lucretia Mott, and others. Resembling the US Declaration of Independence in structure and language, the declaration identified all men as responsible for women’s oppression and compiled a list of grievances about the ways in which women were denied their rights.

The convention also sparked the formation of the first international networks and organizations. In 1888 , for example, the International Congress of Women (ICW) was established in Washington, DC. Since this was not a suffrage organization per se (Stienstra 1994 :48), Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony , and Carrie Chapman Catt (all from the US) founded the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) in 1904 , which aimed more specifically at “secur[ing] the enfranchisement of the women of all the nations,” but was turned into the International Alliance of Women (IAW) when suffrage was achieved. These organizations were heavily Euro-American. As Rupp and Taylor point out, “[w]omen from the United States, Great Britain, western and northern Europe constituted the original membership of international [women’s] organizations and also dominated their leadership” (Rupp and Taylor 1999 :367; see also Rupp 1994 ). Moreover, apart from the Socialist Women’s International (SWI) founded by Clara Zetkin in 1907 , the members of most international women’s organizations at the time were often of bourgeois or aristocratic decent, “with leisure time and sufficient resources to engage in international travel and communication” (Stienstra 1994 :48). In addition, many of the women were experienced activists and had been at the forefront of social reform movements at the national level, such as, for example, the temperance, antislavery, prostitution, and penal reform movements in the US. Their thinking was inspired by liberal feminist thinkers, such as Olympe de Gouges and her Dèclaration des droites de la femme et de la citoyenne published already in 1791 , Jean Jacques Rousseau , Mary Wollstonecraft ’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman ( 1792 ), and John Stuart Mill ’s The Subjection of Women ( 1869 ).

Convinced that “the advancement of women in different countries required governmental policies and democratic opportunities for women to influence” (Pietilä 2007 :1), women’s rights activists at the international level placed great importance on intergovernmental cooperation from early on. Shocked by the destructiveness of World War I, women from both warring and neutral countries gathered in The Hague in 1915 for their first International Women’s Congress, pleading not only for world peace and for women to be given political representation at both the national and international level (Costin 1982 ; Wiltsher 1985 ), but also traveling around European capitals subsequently to muster support among governments for their international peace proposal, namely a conference of neutrals (Joachim 2007 :47–52).

Women were also present at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 , where the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization (ILO) were founded, asking governments, among other things, to promote universal suffrage and to work for both the abolishment of trafficking in women as well as state-supported prostitution (Pietilä 2007 ). According to Miller, women’s engagement with the League of Nations was not only key to women’s equality, but it also engendered international politics in two important respects. First, women demanded access to intergovernmental meetings, which until then had been the exclusive realm of heads of states, foreign ministers, and diplomats, and second, through their well-prepared proposals, they placed on the international agenda what had previously been perceived as exclusively domestic issues (Miller 1994 ).

Women’s rights organizations, such as the IAW and the ICW, also took advantage of the International Conference for the Codification of International Law conducted by the League of Nations in The Hague in the summer of 1930 to lobby for equal nationality rights with men since it was then, and in some countries still is today, common practice that women would lose their nationality when entering into marriage (Bredbenner 1998 ; Joachim 2007 ). While initially unsuccessful at the international level, women’s rights activists placed the issue squarely on the agenda of the so-called Pan-American Conferences (Waltz 1937 ). In 1933 , government delegates adopted the Convention on the Nationality of Women in Montevideo, which provided a blueprint for the international Convention on the Nationality of Married Women adopted in 1957 within the framework of the United Nations.

The campaign about equal nationality rights is interesting because it highlights the conflictual nature of framing processes. Women’s organizations were divided about how far-reaching the quest for equal rights should be. According to Rupp and Taylor “[i]n fighting for suffrage, labor legislation, and nationality laws for married women, the international women’s movement divided between those who evaluated laws solely on the basis of whether they treated women identically to men and those who had a vision of just laws for both men and women” (Rupp and Taylor 1999 :375). While the first group, the so-called reformers, aimed for equal treatment only in certain areas, such as nationality rights, but special and protective legislation in all other areas, the other group, the so-called equalitarians, called for equality across the board. While the former included organizations, such as the ICW, the IAW, the International Federation of Women, and the World Union of Women for International Concord among others, the equalitarians were comprised of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the All-Asian Conference on Women, which called on the League of Nations to “ensure that all future codification […] shall be free from inequalities based on sex” (Stienstra 1994 :66) as well as the World Women’s Party (WWP), whose aim it was “to defeat any proposed world treaties that would impose special restrictions on women” (Pfeffer 1985 :467; see also Rupp and Taylor 1999 :372–3).

Women’s engagement at the international level was not without risk. Quite frequently they were met with opposition, ridicule, or even outright hostility. To justify their entitlement to political and civil rights, women’s rights activists at the turn of the century invoked the women’s frame. Studying women’s international organizing between 1899 and 1945 , Leila Rupp finds that protagonists commonly referred to themselves as “Mothers of the Human Race,” “carriers of life,” “Mothers of the Nations,” or “guardians of the new generations” (Rupp 1994 :1583). Women were entitled to rights because of the distinct contribution they made to the welfare of their respective societies. As Nitza Berkovitch notes:

The campaign for suffrage was predicated on the construction of women as being essentially different from men and as having higher ethical standards and superior characteristics. This would make women’s contributions, once they were politically equal with men, essential for making a morally better society. Women’s suffrage would purify politics, help pass prohibition laws, help abolish state regulation of prostitution, help eliminate wars, and secure peace. (Berkovitch 2003 :145)

If the scope of equal treatment was still contested at the outset of the nineteenth century , the frame became firmly rooted in the United Nations. The UN Charter affirms not only “the dignity and worth of the human person,” but also “the equal rights of men and women” (Pietilä 2007 ). Thanks to the unyielding efforts of women’s organizations and the commitment of Eleanor Roosevelt of the United States, who had chaired the drafting committee, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 reads, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” instead of “All men” and following an extensive debate, phrases such as “every man” or “no man” were replaced with “everyone” and “no one” throughout the text (Glendon 2001 ; Pietilä 2007 :18). Moreover, UN Member States adopted a series of international conventions whose rationale it is “to place women in the same position as men in the public sphere” (Charlesworth 1994 :64). They include, among others, the Political Rights of Women adopted in 1952 , which recognized at least on paper that “the achievement of full status for women as citizens was the key to acceptance of women as equal participants in the life of the community” (McDougal et al. 1975 :514), and the Conventions against Discrimination in Education ( 1962 ) and on Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age of Marriage, and Registration of Marriages ( 1964 ). But even the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Social, Economic and Cultural Rights are reflective of the equal rights frame.

In addition to the equal treatment frame, the women’s frame, however, was also still prevalent. Debates about the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), established in 1946 , help to illustrate this point. While many women’s organizations welcomed the establishment of the Commission to promote equal rights between men and women, they were opposed to what had been the initial plan, granting it only the status of a sub-commission under the umbrella of the then still existing Commission on Human Rights (CHR). Fearing that such an arrangement would result in a peripheral treatment and invisibility of women’s issues, Bodil Begtrup , the first chair of the sub-commission, supported by accredited women’s organizations, successfully pushed a resolution through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as a result of which CSW became an autonomous entity (Stienstra 1994 :83–4). The institutional separation concerning women’s rights and human rights that appeared to be the best solution at the time, became, as is shown later, contested at the end of the decade.

Evidence for the women’s frame can also be found in the first conventions that were adopted within the UN framework. According to Kaufman Hevener , they contained, for the most part, protective or corrective provisions which reflected a societal concept of women as a group which needed special treatment (Kaufman Hevener 1986 ). This is particularly true for conventions adopted within the ILO, such as the Convention Concerning Equal Remuneration for Men and Women Workers for Work of Equal Value ( 1951 ), the Convention Concerning Maternity Protection ( 1952 ), or that on Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation ( 1960 ) (Whitworth 1994 ; Berkovitch 2003 ).

Women’s Rights as Separate Rights (1960s–1980s)

With respect to the second wave of the women’s movement, the UN Decade for Women ( 1976–85 ) and more precisely the three world conferences on women convened during it – the first in Mexico City in 1975 , the second in Copenhagen in 1980 , and the final one in Nairobi in 1985 – constituted a watershed (for broader reviews, see, e.g. Fraser 1987 ; Wetzel 1993 ; Chen 1995 ; Friedman 1995 ; 2003 ; Winslow 1995 ; Zinsser 2002 ; Antrobus 2004 ; Fraser and Tinker 2004 ; Jain 2005 ). Not only did they inspire the formation of international and national women’s organizations as well as networks, but they also resulted in, first, the broadening of the movement to include women from developing countries as well as other classes, and, second, the inclusion of a wider set of women’s issues on the global agenda. While the equal treatment frame still played an important role, the women’s frame became more prevalent during this phase.

The UN women’s conferences took place against the backdrop of the ongoing Cold War and decolonialization. Women’s concerns and issues were quite frequently sidelined as a result of what Jaquette refers to as “bloc politics”; that is, the prevailing conflicts between North and South, on the one hand, and East and West, on the other (Jaquette 1995 ). This was particularly true for the conferences in Mexico City and Copenhagen, with delegates from developing countries tabling resolutions that called for a new international economic order or condemning apartheid, racism, imperialism, and Zionism and Northern governments voting against them (see also Fraser 1987 ). Moreover, contrary to other special conferences taking place at the time, the women’s conferences had fewer resources and staff (e.g. Fraser 1987 :21; Pietilä and Vickers 1994 :78; Stienstra 1994 :124; Allan et al. 1995 :32). In contrast to the UN Population Conference in Bucharest in 1974 , for example, which had a three million dollar budget, that of the first Women’s Conference in Mexico City in 1975 was only $350,000 (Teltsch 1975 ), with many of the activities around the meeting being funded almost exclusively through voluntary contributions (Stienstra 1994 :124).

The conflicts around the UN conferences and the rejection of patriarchal, governmental structures prompted some women to organize outside of intergovernmental structures. In 1976 a small group of mostly Northern women organized the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women in Brussels as a “counteraction” to the first UN World Conference in Mexico City, of which they were highly distrustful. Bringing together more than two thousand women from over forty countries and modeled after the war tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo, the tribunal saw participants testifying about the male violence they had suffered from and condemned all human forms of oppression as a crime against women (Russell and Van de Ven 1984 ; see also Joachim 2007 ). Almost a decade later, women organized the International Tribunal and Meeting on Reproductive Rights in Amsterdam in July 1974 parallel to the UN Population Conference in Bucharest, where four hundred women from sixty-five countries spoke out against international population policies which treated women as objects or “targets” rather than individuals with rights and needs (Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights 1986 ; see also Joachim 2007 ). The tribunal became a master frame of organizing in the 1990s for the campaign on women’s rights as human rights.

Compared to the women’s meetings in Brussels and Amsterdam, which defined women’s issues broadly, the range of issues that made it onto the governmental agenda of the UN women’s conferences was much more confined, including health, family, political participation, and employment (Stienstra 1994 :125). Nevertheless, they were reflective of a differently constituted international women’s movement. Through the UN women conferences and the financial assistance of both foundations and the UN, the international women’s movement had grown not only bigger in size, but it had also become more diversified. Southern women had joined what had until the late 1970s been a Northern movement. They brought with them different concerns, including survival, the provision of basic needs, and racism (Berkovitch 2003 :158), and had a different understanding of the sources of women’s oppression. It is therefore not surprising that the NGO meetings that took place in conjunction with the UN women’s conferences were equally conflictual as were the meetings of governments. Contrary to Northern women, who focused on discrimination and attributed women’s subordination to unequal treatment on the basis of sex or to sexism, “Southern advocates saw women’s inequality as part of a larger ‘inequality between nations’ or ‘dependency’ frame, in which Southern peoples were seen as victims of a historical process of Northern exploitation of Southern countries to advance development in the North” (Friedman 2003 :318).

That the meaning of women’s rights had become broader was also reflected in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (hereafter the Women’s Convention) adopted by the UN General Assembly on Dec. 18, 1979 , which was heralded by both women’s organizations and observers at the time as the most comprehensive document of international law pertaining to women’s rights. It “touches every aspect of women’s lives, in the political, social, economic, legal, health, and family spheres” (Tinker 1981 :42), and “expressly addresses the traditional justification of denying human rights to women on the basis of ethnic customs and practices” (McIntosh 1981 ; Eisler 1987 ).

The Women’s Convention also highlights once again the interconnectedness of the various frames. While most of its statues had been written in nondiscriminatory language emphasizing equal treatment between men and women (Kaufman Hevener 1986 :87), Kaufman Hevener notes that it contains protective and corrective provisions as well (e.g. with respect to maternity). However, contrary to earlier treaties, the Women’s Convention “clearly legitimates temporary programs to redress imbalances or eliminate wrongs which have developed due to discriminatory practices (p. 87).

In contrast to the pre- and immediate postwar years, women activists by the time of the Decade no longer referred to their reproductive capabilities or their moral superiority to justify their claims. Instead, they began to link their concerns and demands to already accepted mainstream discourses. The major frame of reference to demand women’s equality with men was “development” (Fraser and Tinker 2004 ). The final document adopted at the end of the UN World Conference in Mexico City in 1975 , for example, stated that “[t]he full and complete development of any country requires the maximum participation of women as well as of men in all fields: the under-utilization of the potential of approximately half of the world’s population is a serious obstacle to social and economic development” (United Nations 1975 : para. 15). Women “were constructed as ‘workers’ and ‘resources’ who differ from men only in their level of training” (Berkovitch 2003 :145). However, and as Zinsser points out, traditional images of women had still not entirely vanished. Examining the final documents of the UN women’s conferences, she finds that especially those adopted in Mexico City:

defined women according to traditional patriarchal images and within patriarchical ideologies and structures of national and international relations. Women were either victims of forces beyond their understanding and control, or so marginal to the implicit model of the world that the Declaration and Plan of Action asked only that women be given “access” to training, be “integrated” into development programs, and allowed to “participate” in the political life of their country. (Zinsser 2002 :143–4)

It took until the 1980s and the Nairobi conference for such images to disappear and for women to take, as Zinsser puts it, “control of the language […] [to] use international phrases and procedures confidently and aggressively […] [to] demand […] the end to sexual stereotypes and gender discrimination […] [to speak] with new assurance and [to] assert their rights, opportunities, and responsibilities as ‘equal partners with men’” (p. 144).

From Special Rights to Gender Mainstreaming (1990s–Present)

If there had been a consensus among second wave women’s rights activists that women’s rights needed to be treated separately to prevent their marginalization, their isolated treatment became increasingly contested throughout time. Starting in the late 1980s, many women’s rights advocates began to question the ideational and institutional separation of women’s rights and human rights manifested in the existence of special treaties and the UN Commission on the Status of Women. This “ghettoization,” as some called it (Bunch 1995 :11), had not only resulted in less powerful and less resourced institutions (see, for example, Galey 1984 ; Coliver 1987 ; Zearfoss 1991 ), but was also no longer in line with women’s reality, since women’s rights violations, or more precisely, their specific manifestations, were often directly linked and compounded by class and race, a result of socioeconomic structures (Bunch 1990 :488), and had to be understood within the context of both culture and religion (Moller Okin 1999 ).

Women took advantage of the series of special conferences on environment, population, human rights, social, and women’s issues that the UN had organized in the early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War. As one observer notes, activists “shaped global understandings of issues from human rights to population growth, simultaneously mainstreaming gender analysis into areas formerly considered ‘gender-neutral’ and prioritizing women’s rights as integral to the achievement of conference goals” (Friedman 2003 ). At the UN Conference on Climate and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 , women’s organizations, for example, were able to extend the initial occasional mentioning of women in Agenda 21, the final document, into an entire chapter entitled “Global Action for Women towards Sustainable and Equitable Development” and numerous references throughout the text (Commission on the Status of Women 1995 ; Pearl 2002 ). At the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994 , women’s organizations provoked a shift in the UN’s approach to population from “counting to consciousness” of women’s reproductive rights and health despite severe opposition from conservative forces (Higer 1999 :123; see also Joachim 2007 ).

The World Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993 deserves particular mention here, because women’s organizations “regender[ed]” human rights (Friedman 2003 ), by focusing on violence against women. Under the leadership of the Center of Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), they organized a global campaign comprised of “16 days of activism against violence against women,” circulated a global petition which had been translated from an initial six into twenty-four languages and was sponsored by over a thousand groups that gathered almost half a million signatures from 124 countries, and conducted an 18-hour Tribunal on Violations of Women’s Human Rights at the conference in Vienna, giving victims of gender-based violence the opportunity to testify (Bunch and Reilly 1994 ).

Women’s rights activists challenged the traditional framing of human rights in two respects. They demanded not only that state responsibility for human rights violations be extended from the exclusive focus on violations in the public sphere to that perpetrated by private actors in the family, but also that rather than being treated as separate, political and civil rights, on the one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights, on the other hand, are indivisible (Friedman 2003 :320–21; see also Bunch 1990 ).

The acceptance of women’s rights as human rights provoked institutional changes. Following the Vienna Conference on Human Rights in 1993 , the then still Commission on Human Rights and now Council on Human Rights committed itself to integrating women’s human rights into its work. To this end, a Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women was appointed in March 1994 , who “seeks and receives information on the problem, its causes and consequences, recommends measures to eliminate violence against women, works closely with other special rapporteurs, special representatives, working groups and independent experts […], transmits urgent appeals and communications to States regarding alleged causes of violence against women, undertakes fact-finding missions, and submits thematic reports” (see w ww2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/rapporteur ). In addition, since the mid-1990s the High Commissioner on Human Rights, on the one hand, and the UN Division for the Advancement of Women and CSW, on the other hand, cooperate and coordinate their work more closely (UN Commission on Human Rights 1998 ). Furthermore, major nongovernmental human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International (see, for example, Amnesty International 1991 ) and Human Rights Watch began to investigate gender-based violations and/or established a women’s rights program.

In addition to “gendering mainstream agendas,” the meaning of women’s rights became once again broadened so that by the 1990s, according to one author, “all issues [were] women’s issue” (Pietilä 2007 ). This was particularly apparent at the UN Women’s Conference in Beijing, China in 1995 . Building upon previous achievements, the final document called for strategic action in twelve areas, including poverty on women, education, health care, violence against women, the effects of armed or other kinds of conflict on women, inequality between men and women in sharing power and decision making, access to and participation in communication systems, inequalities in the management of natural resources and safeguarding the environment, and the rights of the child.

Finally, during the 1990s, women’s organizations made inroads into what had been considered until then the most insulated policy domain, namely security. Following the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, governments at the UN condemned the massive, organized, and systematic detention and rape of women in 1992 . “[M]assive, organized and systematic detention and rape of women” was included as part of the mandates of both the International War Crimes Tribunals of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in 1993 as well as the Rome Statute establishing the new International Criminal Court in The Hague. Furthermore, the UN Security Council adopted the resolutions 1325 (S/RES/1325) and 1820 (S/RES/1820) on “Women and Peace and Security” on Oct. 31, 2000 and Jun. 19, 2008 , respectively. Resolution 1325 calls for the integration of women in all conflict resolution processes as well as actions for resettlement, rehabilitation, and post-conflict construction. It also recommends special training for all peacekeeping personnel on the protection, special needs, and human rights of women and children in conflict situations (UN Security Council 2000 ). Resolution 1820 states that “rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity or a constitutive act with respect to genocide.” Moreover, it urges Council members to consider imposing “targeted and graduated” measures against warring factions who committed rape and other forms of violence against women and girls when establishing and renewing state-specific sanction regimes (UN Security Council 2008 ).

If women’s groups have been successful in obtaining international legitimacy for women’s rights as human rights and contributed to institutional changes, the rights of women continue to nevertheless be contested. Evidence for this can be found at the ICPD in Cairo, where women’s demands for reproductive rights and health were met with fierce opposition from Catholic and fundamentalist Islamic countries, which entered into an unprecedented alliance to prevent the issue’s inclusion in the Platform of Action. In the eyes of representatives from the Vatican, reproductive rights and health “was coercive and demeaning to women” and constituted “a most grave threat to human dignity and liberty” (John Paul II 1994 ). Furthermore, at the Beijing conference, the term “gender” itself became a lightning rod and was the most heavily bracketed term in the Platform of Action (Friedman 2003 :325). In the preparatory conference, representatives of the Vatican opposed the term on the basis that it “challenges Catholic doctrine […] and opens the door to acknowledging different sexual orientations.” Others argued that the goal of the Beijing Conference was “to force society to accept five types of gender: masculine, feminine, lesbian, homosexual and transsexual” (Franco 1998 :282; see also Friedman et al. 2001 :28). And conservative NGOs opposed the platform on the grounds that it was not only promoting homosexuality and abortion, but that it called into question what they considered the “natural family” and equated with “the fundamental societal unit, inscribed in human nature, and centered on the voluntary union of a man and a woman in the lifelong covenant of marriage.” In the eyes of these organizations, “Western powers” tried to impose a radical” “feminist” “angry, leftist world agenda” on “beleaguered developing nations” (Jalsevac 2000 ). Although the term gender was eventually kept, over twenty governments issued reservations with the final document (Friedman 2003 :326).

There also continues to be disagreement and debate among women’s organizations as to how women’s rights can be best ensured and whether women should work inside and with established institutions or rather outside of them. At the NGO forum held parallel to the Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993 , participants, according to one observer, “fiercely debated as to whether human rights law, or legal solutions in general, were the appropriate solutions to entrenched social problems, and whether the often-abusive State could be turned to as an agent of protection for women” (Friedman 2003 :321). Similarly, in the lead up to the ICPD, women were divided over the women’s declaration on population policies entitled Women’s Voices ’94 , which had been prepared as a lobbying document by the Women’s Alliance and circulated among women’s groups around the world. Critics felt that (1) the perspectives of the alliance were not representative of the entire women’s movement, but rather of its more pragmatic wing; (2) that women’s ability to control their fertility had been defined in a narrow fashion, emphasizing almost exclusively rights and ignoring the issue of development; and (3) it was too accepting of population policies and institutions (see Joachim 2007 :151–5).

Future Venues for Research

Although women’s rights are now internationally recognized as human rights, the relationship remains, as the historical section illustrates, an ambivalent one. The remainder of this essay, therefore, proposes four venues for future research.

First, more studies are needed on how well women’s rights as human rights travel across different institutions. Because scholars have focused most of their attention on the UN, we know rather little to what extent human rights constitutes an equally powerful frame to mobilize support for women’s rights issues in other settings. Does it provide women’s organizations leverage in, for example, international economic institutions, such as the World Trade Organization or the World Bank, where they are starting to make inroads? Are women’s rights accepted as human rights in regional organizations, such as the European Union, the Organization of American States, and the African Union? And is the discourse of human rights helpful for addressing women’s rights violations, especially in countries where these are excused as cultural or religious practices? Answering these questions would help us to determine not only the power and scope of the “women’s rights as human rights” frame, but also its limitations.

Second, to demonstrate the exclusion of women from human rights law, women’s rights activists organized their global campaign, as illustrated above, around violence against women. The choice of the issue was no coincidence. It offered a unifying agenda for women across the globe (Mertus and Goldberg 1994 :209–10) and demonstrated in a compelling fashion the gendered nature of abuse (Bunch 1995 :15). However, the narrow focus on sex-based harm also raises questions. Would other issues also of grave concern to women have been accepted as human rights, as for example, literacy, poverty, or discriminatory divorce (Mertus and Goldberg 1994 :210) or been subject to conflict and been rejected? Furthermore, was it the nature of the issue that made gender-based violence acceptable for the human rights community, as some suggest (Keck and Sikkink 1998 ), or did it reaffirm traditional beliefs about women as being in need of protection, as others claim (Miller 2004 :40), or was it both, resonating with women as subjects and with audiences thinking of women as objects? Inquiries are needed that help us to evaluate the alleged success of the international women’s rights movement, whether and to what extent women’s rights were and are truly accepted as human rights.

Third, legal scholars have voiced concern about integrating women’s rights and human rights in the past. Some expressed worries that the human rights frame might suffer in its ideational integrity and credibility, if too many special rights are taken into consideration. Others fear that the frame will loose its effectiveness when it comes to implementation given the limited resources, on the one hand, and the broader set of rights that require attention, on the other hand. While these are indeed important concerns, it also appears necessary to approach the problem from a different angle. Instead of asking what might be lost from integrating women’s rights into human rights, we should also examine how and in what way women’s rights enhance human rights. To this end, scholars might study how the work of human rights organizations, for example, has changed since they started to investigate women’s rights violations or, drawing on human rights and women’s rights indexes, analyze whether and to what extent the overall human rights situations in countries changes in response to improvements concerning women’s rights.

Finally, we need to investigate both the changes that have taken place in mainstream human rights and specialized women’s rights institutions since the late 1980s as well as their impact. How far has the integration of women’s rights into the work of mainstream human rights institutions progressed and what obstacles have been encountered along the way? While feminist scholars have started to assess the merits of gender mainstreaming in different policy areas (e.g. Verloo 2001 ; Booth and Bennett 2002 ; Daly 2005 ; Rees 2005 ; Walby 2005 ; Woodward 2008 ) and NGOs such as the Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) are monitoring the implementation of global commitments (e.g. Women’s Environment and Development Organization 2005 ), we need more research on how well women’s rights are accounted for by human rights institutions. What role do women’s rights play in the newly established Council on Human Rights, which is equipped with more authority than its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights? What impact has the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women had since the office was established? Is the enforcement record still dismal or has it improved in response to the reports issued or the fact-finding missions conducted by the Rapporteur? Entertaining these and other questions will reveal more about whether women have been fully integrated into the activities of international human rights institutions or whether their concerns continue to be marginalized and treated in an isolated fashion.

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Teltsch, K. (1975) The Selling of Women’s Year. New York Times (Jun. 4).
Tinker, C. (1981) Human Rights for Women: The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Human Rights Quarterly 3 (2), 32–43.
UN Commission on Human Rights (1998) Integrating the Human Rights of Women throughout the United Nations System . At www1.umn.edu/humanrts/UN/1998/Res051.html , accessed Aug. 11, 2009.
UN General Assembly (1993) Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action . World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 14–25 Jun. A/CONF. 157/23.
UN Security Council (2000) Resolution 1325: Women and Peace and Security , S/RES/1325 (2000). New York: United Nations. At http://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N00/720/18/pdf/N0072018.pdf?OpenElement , accessed May 8, 2009.
UN Security Council (2008) Resolution 1820: Women and Peace and Security , S/RES/1820 (2008). New York: United Nations. At http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N08/391/44/PDF/N0839144.pdf?OpenElement , accessed May 8, 2009.
United Nations (1975) Report of the World Conference of the International Women’s Year . Mexico City, Jun. 19–Jul. 2. E/CONF. 66/34, sales no. E.76.IV.1.
Verloo, M. (2001) Another Velvet Revolution? Gender Mainstreaming and the Politics of Implementation. IWM Working Paper, 5/2001. Vienna: IWM. At www.iiav.nl/epublications/2001/anothervelvetrevolution.pdf , accessed May 8, 2009.
Walby, S. (2005) Gender Mainstreaming: Productive Tensions in Theory and Practice. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender State, and Society 12 (3), 321–43.
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Wetzel, J.W. (1993) The World of Women: In Pursuit of Human Rights . New York: New York University Press.
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Wiltsher, A. (1985) Most Dangerous Women: Feminist Peace Campaigners of the Great War . Westport: Greenwood.
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Links to Digital Materials

Amnesty International: Stop Violence Against Women. At www.amnesty.ca/campaigns/no_exceptions/theme_indexes_women.php , accessed May 8, 2009. Provides information on AI’s work on the issue of violence against women, ongoing and past campaigns, events, reports on individual countries, publications, and resources.

Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, China, 1995, Declaration and Platform of Action. At www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/fwcwn.html , accessed May 8, 2009. Official Fourth World Conference on Women website set up by the conference secretariat. It contains official documents (the Beijing Declaration and the Plan of Action), statements by governments, UN, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental organizations as well as a photo gallery.

Bibliography on the International Women’s Human Rights Movement. At www.aaanet.org/committees/cfhr/bib_kozma_intlwomen.htm , accessed May 8, 2009. A bibliography put together by the American Anthropological Association listing books and articles grouped according to different subjects.

Human Rights Watch: Women’s Rights Division. At www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/women's-rights , accessed May 8, 2009. Site of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, providing information on different women’s rights issues and different countries as well as alerts for upcoming campaigns and events.

Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women. At www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/women/rapporteur , accessed May 8, 2009. The site provides a list of women’s rights conventions and links to their texts; it contains the annual reports that have been issued by the rapporteur as well as information about country visits, issues in focus, and consultations with civil society.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Women Rights Are Human Rights. At www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/isswom.htm , accessed May 8, 2009. Provides an overview of conventions pertaining to women’s rights as well as information on what has been done to mainstream women’s rights into human rights.

Project Diana: Human Rights Cases. At http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/diana.asp , accessed May 8, 2009. An online human rights case archive at the Lilian Gold Law Library at Yale University.

UN Division for the Advancement of Women. At www.un.org/womenwatch/daw , accessed May 8, 2009. This site provides links to CSW and CEDAW. It informs about upcoming events related to women and has a special site devoted to violence against women. It also connects to NGOs working on women’s rights issues.

University of Toronto’s Bora Laskin Library: Women’s Human Rights Resources Programme. At www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana , accessed May 8, 2009. The Women’s Human Rights Resources Programme (WHRR) collects, organizes, and disseminates information on women’s human rights law to facilitate research, teaching, and cooperation. The information introduces women’s human rights law in general, emphasizes selected international and Canadian topics, and explores the interconnections between domestic and international human rights law.

UN World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, Austria, 1993, Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. At www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/(symbol)/A.CONF.157.23.En , accessed May 8, 2009. The full text of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action from the World Conference on Human Rights held Jun. 14–25, 1993.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my two research assistants, Daniel Steffens and Alexa Brase , for their invaluable help and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

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Essay on Feminism

500 words essay on feminism.

Feminism is a social and political movement that advocates for the rights of women on the grounds of equality of sexes. It does not deny the biological differences between the sexes but demands equality in opportunities. It covers everything from social and political to economic arenas. In fact, feminist campaigns have been a crucial part of history in women empowerment. The feminist campaigns of the twentieth century made the right to vote, public property, work and education possible. Thus, an essay on feminism will discuss its importance and impact.

Importance of Feminism

Feminism is not just important for women but for every sex, gender, caste, creed and more. It empowers the people and society as a whole. A very common misconception is that only women can be feminists.

It is absolutely wrong but feminism does not just benefit women. It strives for equality of the sexes, not the superiority of women. Feminism takes the gender roles which have been around for many years and tries to deconstruct them.

This allows people to live freely and empower lives without getting tied down by traditional restrictions. In other words, it benefits women as well as men. For instance, while it advocates that women must be free to earn it also advocates that why should men be the sole breadwinner of the family? It tries to give freedom to all.

Most importantly, it is essential for young people to get involved in the feminist movement. This way, we can achieve faster results. It is no less than a dream to live in a world full of equality.

Thus, we must all look at our own cultures and communities for making this dream a reality. We have not yet reached the result but we are on the journey, so we must continue on this mission to achieve successful results.

Impact of Feminism

Feminism has had a life-changing impact on everyone, especially women. If we look at history, we see that it is what gave women the right to vote. It was no small feat but was achieved successfully by women.

Further, if we look at modern feminism, we see how feminism involves in life-altering campaigns. For instance, campaigns that support the abortion of unwanted pregnancy and reproductive rights allow women to have freedom of choice.

Moreover, feminism constantly questions patriarchy and strives to renounce gender roles. It allows men to be whoever they wish to be without getting judged. It is not taboo for men to cry anymore because they must be allowed to express themselves freely.

Similarly, it also helps the LGBTQ community greatly as it advocates for their right too. Feminism gives a place for everyone and it is best to practice intersectional feminism to understand everyone’s struggle.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Feminism

The key message of feminism must be to highlight the choice in bringing personal meaning to feminism. It is to recognize other’s right for doing the same thing. The sad part is that despite feminism being a strong movement, there are still parts of the world where inequality and exploitation of women take places. Thus, we must all try to practice intersectional feminism.

FAQ of Essay on Feminism

Question 1: What are feminist beliefs?

Answer 1: Feminist beliefs are the desire for equality between the sexes. It is the belief that men and women must have equal rights and opportunities. Thus, it covers everything from social and political to economic equality.

Question 2: What started feminism?

Answer 2: The first wave of feminism occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It emerged out of an environment of urban industrialism and liberal, socialist politics. This wave aimed to open up new doors for women with a focus on suffrage.

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5 Powerful Essays Advocating for Gender Equality

Gender equality – which becomes reality when all genders are treated fairly and allowed equal opportunities – is a complicated human rights issue for every country in the world. Recent statistics are sobering. According to the World Economic Forum, it will take 108 years to achieve gender parity . The biggest gaps are found in political empowerment and economics. Also, there are currently just six countries that give women and men equal legal work rights. Generally, women are only given ¾ of the rights given to men. To learn more about how gender equality is measured, how it affects both women and men, and what can be done, here are five essays making a fair point.

Take a free course on Gender Equality offered by top universities!

“Countries With Less Gender Equity Have More Women In STEM — Huh?” – Adam Mastroianni and Dakota McCoy

This essay from two Harvard PhD candidates (Mastroianni in psychology and McCoy in biology) takes a closer look at a recent study that showed that in countries with lower gender equity, more women are in STEM. The study’s researchers suggested that this is because women are actually especially interested in STEM fields, and because they are given more choice in Western countries, they go with different careers. Mastroianni and McCoy disagree.

They argue the research actually shows that cultural attitudes and discrimination are impacting women’s interests, and that bias and discrimination is present even in countries with better gender equality. The problem may lie in the Gender Gap Index (GGI), which tracks factors like wage disparity and government representation. To learn why there’s more women in STEM from countries with less gender equality, a more nuanced and complex approach is needed.

“Men’s health is better, too, in countries with more gender equality” – Liz Plank

When it comes to discussions about gender equality, it isn’t uncommon for someone in the room to say, “What about the men?” Achieving gender equality has been difficult because of the underlying belief that giving women more rights and freedom somehow takes rights away from men. The reality, however, is that gender equality is good for everyone. In Liz Plank’s essay, which is an adaption from her book For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity, she explores how in Iceland, the #1 ranked country for gender equality, men live longer. Plank lays out the research for why this is, revealing that men who hold “traditional” ideas about masculinity are more likely to die by suicide and suffer worse health. Anxiety about being the only financial provider plays a big role in this, so in countries where women are allowed education and equal earning power, men don’t shoulder the burden alone.

Liz Plank is an author and award-winning journalist with Vox, where she works as a senior producer and political correspondent. In 2015, Forbes named her one of their “30 Under 30” in the Media category. She’s focused on feminist issues throughout her career.

“China’s #MeToo Moment” – Jiayang Fan

Some of the most visible examples of gender inequality and discrimination comes from “Me Too” stories. Women are coming forward in huge numbers relating how they’ve been harassed and abused by men who have power over them. Most of the time, established systems protect these men from accountability. In this article from Jiayang Fan, a New Yorker staff writer, we get a look at what’s happening in China.

The essay opens with a story from a PhD student inspired by the United States’ Me Too movement to open up about her experience with an academic adviser. Her story led to more accusations against the adviser, and he was eventually dismissed. This is a rare victory, because as Fan says, China employs a more rigid system of patriarchy and hierarchy. There aren’t clear definitions or laws surrounding sexual harassment. Activists are charting unfamiliar territory, which this essay explores.

“Men built this system. No wonder gender equality remains as far off as ever.” – Ellie Mae O’Hagan

Freelance journalist Ellie Mae O’Hagan (whose book The New Normal is scheduled for a May 2020 release) is discouraged that gender equality is so many years away. She argues that it’s because the global system of power at its core is broken. Even when women are in power, which is proportionally rare on a global scale, they deal with a system built by the patriarchy. O’Hagan’s essay lays out ideas for how to fix what’s fundamentally flawed, so gender equality can become a reality.

Ideas include investing in welfare; reducing gender-based violence (which is mostly men committing violence against women); and strengthening trade unions and improving work conditions. With a system that’s not designed to put women down, the world can finally achieve gender equality.

“Invisibility of Race in Gender Pay Gap Discussions” – Bonnie Chu

The gender pay gap has been a pressing issue for many years in the United States, but most discussions miss the factor of race. In this concise essay, Senior Contributor Bonnie Chu examines the reality, writing that within the gender pay gap, there’s other gaps when it comes to black, Native American, and Latina women. Asian-American women, on the other hand, are paid 85 cents for every dollar. This data is extremely important and should be present in discussions about the gender pay gap. It reminds us that when it comes to gender equality, there’s other factors at play, like racism.

Bonnie Chu is a gender equality advocate and a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur. She’s the founder and CEO of Lensational, which empowers women through photography, and the Managing Director of The Social Investment Consultancy.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

138 Women’s Rights Research Questions and Essay Topics

🏆 best topics related to women’s rights, ⭐ simple & easy essay topics on women’s issues, 📌 most interesting research topics on women’s issues, 👍 good women’s rights research paper topics, ❓ research questions about women’s rights.

Women’s rights essays are an excellent way to learn about the situation of the female gender throughout the world and demonstrate your knowledge.

You can cover historical women’s rights essay topics, such as the evolution of girl child education in various countries and regions or the different waves of the feminism movement.

Alternatively, you can study more current topics, such as the status of women in Islam or the debate about whether women’s rights apply to transgender women.

In either case, there is a multitude of ideas that you can express and discuss in your paper to make it engaging and thought-provoking. However, you should not neglect the basic aspects of writing an essay, especially its structure and presentation.

The thesis statement is critical to your essay’s structure, as it has to be at the center of each point you make. It should state the overall message or question of your paper comprehensively but concisely at the same time.

Afterwards, every point you make should directly or indirectly support the claim or answer the question, and you should make the relationship explicit for better clarity.

It is good practice to make the thesis a single sentence that does not rely on context, being fully self-sufficient, but avoids being excessively long.

As such, writing a good thesis is a challenging task that requires care and practice. Do not be afraid to spend additional time writing the statement and refining it.

It is beneficial to have a framework of how you will arrange topics and formulate your points so that they flow into one another and support the central thesis before you begin writing.

The practice will help you arrange transitional words and make the essay more coherent and connected as opposed to being an assortment of loosely associated statements.

To that end, you should write an outline, which deserves a separate discussion. However, the basics are simple: write down all of the ideas you want to discuss, discard the worst or fold them into other, broader topics until you have a handful left, and organize those in a logical progression.

Here are some additional tips for your structuring process:

Frame the ideas in your outline using self-explanatory and concise women’s rights essay titles. You can then use them to separate different points in your essay with titles that correspond to outline elements. The outline itself will effectively become a table of contents, saving you time if one is necessary.
Try to keep the discussion of each topic self-contained, without much reference to other matters you discussed in the essay. If there is a significant relationship, you should devote a separate section to it.
Do not forget to include an introduction and a conclusion in your paper. The introduction familiarizes the reader with the topic and ends with your thesis statement, setting the tone and direction of the essay. The conclusion sums up what you have written and adds some concluding remarks to finish. The introduction should not contain facts and examples beyond what is common knowledge in the field. The conclusion may not introduce new information beyond what has been stated in the essay.

You can find excellent women’s rights essay examples, useful samples, and more helpful tips on writing your essay at IvyPanda, so visit whenever you are having trouble or would like advice!

Women’s Rights and the Advancement of Democracy The degree of citizen involvement in the political process, including the participation of various social groups in political parties and decision-making bodies, determines the quality of democracy in addition to the structure of current political […]
What Causes Women’s Rights Violation? Most women have been abused in modern societies due to illiteracy and lack of exposure to their rights. Most developing nations are struggling to adopt democratic policies and forget that women deserve the right to […]
“Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” by Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton’s speech about women’s rights effectively convinces her audience that women rights are an indispensable part of human rights through the use of logical argument, repetition, historical facts, and emotional stories.
Women’s Rights in the 21st Century: Education and Politics The lack of equity in the specified areas affect women’s lives on range of levels, depriving them of the opportunities that they are supposed to be entitled to and posing a tangible threat to the […]
Foot Binding in China in Terms of Women’s Rights The practice of foot binding in China can be traced back to the Sung Dynasty that prevailed between 960-1280 AD, supposedly as an imitation of an imperial concubine who was required to perform a dance […]
Women’s Rights and Gender Inequality in Saudi Arabia Indeed, it is crucial to understand the importance of women’s rights, see the connections between the past, the present, the local, and the global, and realize how political and media discourse represents the social issue […]
Utilitarian Permissive Concept for Women’s Right to Choose Abortion Utilitarians believe that the right to choose abortion should be protected under the law as a matter of justice since a woman should have the right to make decisions concerning her own body and health.
Women’s Rights: Democratic Perceptions Therefore, it is proper to claim that women would not be able to exercise their rights and freedoms as frequently without the efforts of Democrats.
Abortion and Women’s Right to Control Their Bodies However, the decision to ban abortions can be viewed as illegal, unethical, and contradicting the values of the 21st century. In such a way, the prohibition of abortion is a serious health concern leading to […]
The Women’s Rights Movement and Indigenous People In this article, the author addresses the differences between the Euro-American and Native American societies and the role of women in them.
The Texas Abortion Law: A Signal of War on Women’s Rights and Bodies The purpose of this paper is to examine the structure and implications of the Texas Abortion Law in order to demonstrate its flaws.
Women’s Rights and Reform Impulses The reform impulses altered women’s place in society, making them equal to men in the ability to speak publicly, pursue their liberty, and attain their goals.
The Evolution of Women’s Rights Through American History From the property-owning women of the late 18th century to the proponents of the women’s liberation in the 1960s, women always succeeded in using the influential political theories of their time to eventually make feminist […]
Invisible Southern Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement Based on 36 personal interviews and multiple published and archived sources, the author demonstrates that black women in the South have played a prominent role in the struggle for their rights.
Injustices Women Faced in Quest for Equal Rights The source Alice Paul depicts the numerous contributions that she and her fellow suffragists made to the new rights of women.
Catharine Beecher and Women’s Rights Catharine Beecher’s “An Appeal to American Women” is a discussion kind of piece that considers the power of women in office and how the issue should be approached.
The Aftermath of the Progression of Women’s Rights Period At the end of the 1800s and the beginning of 1900s, women’s organizations and women struggled for social reforms, to gain the right to vote, and for diverse political and economic equality.
Lucy Parsons as a Women’s Rights Advocate and Her Beliefs She was a believer in anarchism and thought that it was the means to liberty and freedom. She wanted the constitution to be amended to say that men and women are equal in all aspects.
Women in Islam: Some Rights, No Equality Notwithstanding the principles of equality of men and women in Islamic tradition, women’s low status should be attributed not to the ideals set in the Quran but to the cultural norms of the patriarchal society.
Primary Source on Women’s Voting Rights The combination of statements that degrade the image of suffragettes and suffrage and quotes of leaders’ opinions is a way for the editor to influence the audience.
Syrian Conflict and Women Rights: Way to Equality or Another Discrimination The main reason for a low percentage of women in the workforce is Syrian social norms, which stereotypically reflect the role of women in homes serving their husbands and in the private sector.
Movement for Women’s Rights in Great Britain and the United States This essay analytically explores some of the conditions which helped bring about movement for women’s right in Great Britain and United States before the close of the last century. In addition, the most significant demand […]
Shirin Ebadi’s Perspective on Women’s Human Rights Activism and Islam It is worth noting that Shirin Ebadi’s self-identity as an Iranian woman and a Muslim empowers her experience and perspective in women’s rights activism.
Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights In other instants, women in the struggle for civil rights can also file a case in a court of law demanding the lawmakers to enact some policies of which they feel when passed will protect […]
The Success of Women’s Rights Movement They sought the equal treatment of women and men by law and fought for voting rights. The women’s rights movement was successful because they were united, had a strong ideological foundation, and organized campaigns on […]
Refugee Women and Their Human Rights According to the researches have been made by UNHCR, 1998, found that 80% of the refugees immigrating to the United States and other countries of second asylum are women or children.
Women’s Rights Movement in the 19th Century In this paper, the peculiarities of women’s suffrage, its political and social background, and further reactions will be discussed to clarify the worth and impact of the chosen event.
Women Rights: New Data and Movements For example, whereas the women’s health rights movement is a global affair, the fact that events related to the movement are mainly held in the US means that other countries do not feel the impact […]
Planned Parenthood and Women’s Rights It took decades for the government to acknowledge the necessity of the services offered in these clinics and even longer for the public to accept a woman’s right to reproductive health care, the establishment of […]
Understanding Women’s Right in Islamic World The role of women in the Islamic society during and soon after the death of Prophet Mohammed was similar to that of men.
Saudi Arabian Women’s Right to Drive: Pros and Cons The objective of this paper is to present the arguments from both sides of the discussion on the issue of whether women should be able to drive legally in Saudi Arabia.
Arab Spring’s Impact on Women’s Rights and Security The aim of the research is to define the effects that the Arab Spring has had on the perception of women in the Arab society.
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Women’s Fight for Equal Human Rights According to the readings assigned, the term feminist could be used to refer to people who fought for the rights of women.
Women in New France: Rights, Freedoms and Responsibilities However, the development of New France was quite distinct due to peculiarities of the gender roles in the North America and France.
Women’s Family and Social Responsibilities and Rights The uniqueness of Addams and Sanger’s approach to discussing the rights of females is in the fact that these authors discuss any social responsibilities of women as the key to improving their roles in the […]
Women’s Rights in the Great Depression Period The pursuit of the workplace equality and the protection of women from unfair treatment by the employers were quite unsuccessful and slow due to the major division in the opinions.
Women’s Roles and Rights in the 18-19th Century America We can only do the simplest work; we cannot have a good job because that is the men’s domain, and they have the necessary training to do it.
Debate Over Women’s Rights At times, the problem is that there is bias and discrimination about the strength of the woman and no chance has ever been given to them to prove if the allegation is wrong.
The Women of the Veil: Gaining Rights and Freedoms The author chides the activities of the Western colonies in Afghanistan in restoring the rights of the women of the veil.
The Role of African American Women in the Civil Right Movement The role of women in the Civil Rights Movement started to change in the 1960s. Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers.
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Gender Studies: Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia This paper will review the a issue of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia from the perspective of four different groups including the modern Saudi women, traditional Saudi women, Government officials, and international women’s rights organizations.
African-American Women and the Civil Rights Movement The key factors that left the Black women unrecognized or led to recognition of just a few of them as leaders are class, race and gender biases.
Women’s Rights – Contribution of E. Cady Stanton and S.B. Anthony The first significant and most important move was made by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, on the other hand, was born in a Quaker family and her father was also quite a successful […]
Women’s Role in Contemporary Korea The effort of women to work in professional and high positions in different sectors, the government decided to boost their effort and maintain their morale.
Non Governmental Organization of Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights Development and Peace In most cases the rights of women which are mainly suppressed include the right to own property, the right to work or hold a public office, the right of receiving education, the right to vote […]
The Development of Women’s Rights However, she cannot agree to such distribution of the roles, and she calls upon all people to look again at the situation, connected to women’s rights, and provide all women with a chance to participate […]
Jane Cunningham Croly: Fighting for Women Rights The problem of women inequality with men had been considered in the society and Jane Cunningham Croly was one of those who wanted to contribute to the movement, and her journalistic activity was that measure.
Women’s Suffrage Discussion The entrenchment of equal rights of women and men and more noticeably the right of every American woman to vote came into being after the enactment of the nineteenth amendment.
Disclosing the Aspects of Female Authorship as Presented in Woolf’s Professions for Women and Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Right of Woman In their works called A Vindication of the Right of Woman and Professions of Women respectively, they express their vigorous desire to liberate women from the professional taboos to enter female authorship imposed by the […]
Power of Women’s Rights How the Anti-Slavery Movement Challenge Established Notions of Manhood and Womanhood Kathryn Kish Sklar’s general idea in the book is to enlighten people on the role of women in the society during the 19th century, […]
Women’s Rights in the Muslim World Ahmed first focuses on the gender pattern in the Middle East prior to the emergence of the Islam in order to gain ground to describe the Islamic doctrine on women that were practiced in the […]
Afghan Women and Violation of Their Rights It is for this reason that the Taliban have been the party mostly blamed for the mistreatment of women in the country. The U.S.has the necessary resources to ensure that this is achieved therefore guaranteeing […]
Did Flappers Have a Positive Effect on Women’s Rights in America in the 1920s?
Abigail Adams’ Inspiring Rebellion for Women’s Rights
The Power of the Internet and Women’s Rights in Guatemala
Pencils and Bullets Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
Women’s Rights in Supreme Court Decisions of the 1960’s and 1970’s
Women’s Rights: A Path into the Society to Achieve Social Liberation
The Taliban: Deprivers of Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
Henrik Ibsen’s Description of Women’s Rights as Depicted in His Play, A Doll’s House
Perceptions on The Islamic Practice of Veiling: Relevance to the Quest for Women’s Rights
The Effects of Christianity on Women’s Rights in China
Women’s Rights in the 1920’s and Examples in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Pornography and Feminist Fight for Women’s Rights
The Progression of Women’s Rights from the Early 20th Century
Islamic Head Scarf: Women’s Rights and Cultural Sensibilities
The Women’s Rights Movement in England: 18th Century and Beyond
Comparing Cultures: the Development of Women’s Rights in China and Saudi Arabia
Mary Wollstonecraft and the Early Women’s Rights Movement
The Progression of Women’s Rights in the Middle East
Elizabeth Stanton’s Impact on Women’s Rights Movement
Women’s Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean
Women’s Rights and Their Importance to the Development of True Democracy
Women’s Rights Within A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Every Woman Has Her Day: The Women’s Rights Movement in 19th Century
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Women’s Rights Essay | Essay on Women’s Rights for Students and Children in English

February 13, 2024 by Prasanna

Women’s Rights Essay: Ever since time unknown, there have been differences between the two genders. The issue of women empowerment or women rights women’s Rights Essay | Essay on Women’s Rights for Students and Children in English e not something new and have been continuing from a very long time.

There are feminists worldwide who argue that men get more privileges than women. Today it is right to say that the gender roles have somewhat become equal than what it was in the past, yet there is still a long way to go.

You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Women’s Rights for Students and Kids in English

We are providing students with samples of essay on an extended piece of 500 words and short writing of 150 words on the topic “Women’s Rights Essay” for reference.

Long Essay on Women’s Rights 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Women’s Rights is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Feminism is a movement that has always stood up for women’s rights. It recognises the idea that individuals are treated differently based on their biological identities, and they still exist a dominance of the male gender. No matter what the environment is, be it a school or work, women are treated in a subordinate manner.

Across time and culture, women rights movement have changed in form and perspective. Many argue for the notion that women’s rights are in the domain of workplace equality. Still, many say that even domestic equality is in the niche of women’s rights.

There are exceptional circumstances like in case of maternity leave that women require unique treatments. In the USA the concept of maternity leave came up long back, and nowadays the idea has reached to the developing countries. Women of many countries are subjected to social ills, but if there are special provisions for the safeguard of women, then there can be women equality ensured.

The history of women rights movements could be traced back to the 1700s and the 1800s. The first-ever convention to take place in favour of women’s rights was in Seneca Falls, situated in New York. Later, the marriage protest of 1855 by Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell advocated the rights of women. They protested against the laws that bound women in their husband’s control and supported that women should have their own identity and should exist outside the control of their husbands.

The National Organization for Women or more commonly known as NOW was another step forward in women rights movements. It took place in 1966 and were entirely based on the idea of equality. This organisation wanted to provide equal opportunity to women so that as humans, their full potentials could develop.

In 1979, a United Nations Convention took place for discussing women’s rights. The main focus of this convention was to take suitable measures for removing all discrimination against women, which was a significant step forward in the women’s right movement. This convention made it clear that gender equality should exist in all sphere, no matter if it is economical, political, civil, social, or cultural. This convention looked forward to reducing all the prejudices against women, the abolition of sex trafficking or child marriages.

Europe saw the first-ever proto-feminist movements in the 19th century. This movement propounded the ideals of feminism, and such a concept inspired many women. The most well-known effect of this proto-feminist movement is the Female Moral Reform Society which gave the women a significant representation.

Ever since the historical times, women have actively participated in building the society. Several women took place in the first and the second world wars, and their works received not much recognition. The several waves of feminism that took place throughout the timeline reflected the contribution of women, and therefore we must realise their importance. We should build a society of equality and harmony where women are not in the suffering end.

Short Essay on Women’s Rights 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Women’s Rights is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

The issue of women rights is not something new and have been a source of constant struggle since time immemorial. The concepts of feminism, gender equality and women’s rights are intertwined, and one cannot address either topic disregarding another.

The first wave of feminism took place as early as the 1800s and raised numerous challenges that later contributed to the women rights movement. The first and second waves raised questions on racial discrimination and inequality in society. Other than the feminist movements, there have been numerous conventions and organisations that have taken up this issue on their hands. There are multiple well-known feminists, like Alice Walker, who have stated that social activism is a step forward in promoting women equality and feminist ideals.

Numerous pieces of evidence can prove in favour of the argument that women are the essential contributors in historical development. It is time to acknowledge such a contribution and change our goals to make a better society.

10 Lines on Women’s Rights Essay in English

1. The women rights’ struggle is going on for a long time. 2. The progression of Egyptian women have been the greatest. 3. People must address women rights’ issue 4. proto-feminist movements started in Europe. 5. There are many historical events in favour of women rights. 6. Women took essential roles during the first world war. 7. The first feminist wave came in the late 1800s. 8. The 1960s saw the second feminist wave. 9. Women right movements led to social reconstruction. 10. Women rights issue can create chaos worldwide.

FAQ’s on Women’s Rights Essay

Question 1. How can women achieve their rights?

Answer: There are numerous ways to achieve this, the first and the essential being raising one’s voice against injustice. By sharing the workload, and by supporting each other, we can reach women rights too.

Question 2. When did movements start for women rights?

Answer: These movements started in the 1800s, specifically between 1848 and 1920.

Question 3. What is the need for gender equality?

Answer: We can achieve a peaceful and better society with gender equality, as well as full human potential and overall development.

Question 4. Who are some eminent leaders of women rights?

Answer: There is Thelma Bate, Eva Cox in Australia, Cai Chang in China, B. R. Ambedkar, Manasi Pradhan in India, Jane Addams, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Lucy Stone in the USA. These are only a few names from the long list of eminent leaders.

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Gender Matters

Feminism and women’s rights movements.

There are people who believe that we do not need feminism today, but nothing could be further from the truth. Women have struggled for equality and against oppression for centuries, and although some battles have been partly won - such as the right to vote and equal access to education – women are still disproportionally affected by all forms of violence and by discrimination in every aspect of life.

Jokes about feminism and stereotypes about feminists persist, and many of these are also homophobic and assume that being lesbian is something ‘bad’. In fact, being a feminist is not something particular to any sex or gender: there are women and men who consider themselves feminists, some are gay or lesbian, some heterosexual, bisexual or transgender - and some may identify differently.

The concept of feminism reflects a history of different struggles, and the term has been interpreted in fuller and more complex ways as understanding has developed. In general, feminism can be seen as a movement to put an end to sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression and to achieve full gender equality in law and in practice .

Women’s movements and the history of feminism

There have been many extraordinary women who have played an important role in local or world history, but not all of these have necessarily been advocates of women’s issues. The women’s movement is made up of women and men who work and fight to achieve gender equality and to improve the lives of women as a social group . In most societies, women were traditionally confined to the home as daughters, wives and mothers, and we are often only aware of women in history because of their relation to famous men. Of course many women throughout history did in fact play an important role in cultural and political life, but they tend to be invisible. An organised women’s movement only really started in the 19th century, even though women activists and the struggle for equality have always been part of all human societies.

One of the early pioneers, who thought and wrote about women as a group, is the Italian writer Christine de Pizan, who published a book about women’s position in society as early as 1495 . Christine de Pizan wrote about books she had read by famous men, who wrote books about the sins and weaknesses of girls and women, and questioned whether women were really human beings at all, or whether they were more similar to animals. Christine de Pizan’s work offers a good example of the early stages of the struggle for women’s equality. However, she was very unusual in being able to read and write, which was not at all common for women of that time.

The women’s movement began to develop in North America, mainly because women there were allowed to go to school earlier than in Europe - and women who can read and write, and who are encouraged to think for themselves, usually start to question how society works. The first activists travelled around North America and fought for the end of both slavery and women’s oppression. They organised the ‘First Women’s Rights Convention’ in 1848, and continued to campaign to improve the social position of all women. The movement also began in Europe with the same broad aims: activists collected signatures demanding that working women should receive their own wages and not their husbands’, that women should be able to own a house and have custody of their children.

First wave of feminism

The fight for women’s right to vote in elections is known as the ‘suffragette movement’. By the end of the 19th century, this had become a worldwide movement, and the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist movement’ started to be used from that point on.

This first wave of feminism activism included mass demonstrations, the publishing of newspapers, organised debates, and the establishment of international women’s organisations. By the 1920s, women had won the right to vote in most European countries and in North America. At around the same time, women became more active in communist, socialist and social democratic parties because increasing numbers of women began to work outside the home in factories and offices. Women were first allowed to go to university in the early 20th century, having both a career and a family . In certain countries, when fascist parties gained power the feminist movement was banned.

Women started organising again after the end of the Second World War, and they soon gained equal political rights in most European countries, with women’s emancipation becoming an important aim and most women being allowed to take on full-time jobs, divorce their husbands and go to university.

Second wave of feminism

The second wave of feminism also resulted in new areas of science : women’s studies became a discipline to be studied at university, and books began to be published about women’s achievements in literature, music and science, and recording women’s previously unwritten history.

Finally, the women’s movement played an important role in the drafting of international documents about women’s rights, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979).

Third wave of feminism

The third wave of feminism mainly refers to the American movement in the 1990s, and was a reaction to the backlash of conservative media and politicians announcing the end of feminism or referring to ‘post-feminism’. The term ‘backlash’ was popularised by Susan Faludi in her book Backlash. The Undeclared War against Women , published in 1991, and describing the negative reaction of the patriarchal system towards women’s liberation. This was hardly a new phenomenon: women’s movements had always been met with antagonism. However, in the 1980s, institutionalised forms of attacks on women’s rights grew stronger. The third wave of feminism can be characterised by an increased awareness of overlapping categories, such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation . More emphasis was also placed on racial issues, including the status of women in other parts of the world (global feminism). This was also a moment when a number of feminist non-governmental organisations were established , but focusing on specific feminist issues, rather than claiming to represent general feminist ideas.

Third wave feminism actively uses media and pop culture to promote its ideas and to run activities , for example by publishing blogs or e-zines. It focuses on bringing feminism closer to the people’s daily lives. The main issues that third wave feminists are concerned about include: sexual harassment, domestic violence, the pay gap between men and women, eating disorders and body image, sexual and reproductive rights, honour crimes and female genital mutilation.

Cyberfeminism and networked feminism (fourth-wave feminism)

The term cyberfeminism is used to describe the work of feminists interested in theorising, critiquing, and making use of the Internet, cyberspace, and newmedia technologies in general. The term and movement grew out of 'third-wave' feminism. However, the exact meaning is still unclear to some: even at the first meeting of cyberfeminists The First Cyberfeminist International (FCI) in Kassel (Germany), participants found it hard to provide a definition, and as a result of discussions, they proposed 100 anti-theses 52 (with reference to Martin Luther’s theses) on what cyberfeminism is not. These included, for example, it is not an institution, it is not an ideology, it is not an –ism.

Cyberfeminism is considered to be a predecessor of ‘networked feminism’ , which refers generally to feminism on the Internet: for example, mobilising people to take action against sexism, misogyny or gender-based violence against women. One example is the online movement #metoo in 2017, which was a response on social networks from women all over the world to the case of Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood producer who was accused of sexually harassing female staff in the movie industry.

This term is very often present in feminist literature as well as in the media and everyday life, and it is an important concept in understanding feminism. Sexism means perceiving and judging people only on the basis of their belonging to a particular sex or gender . It also covers discrimination of a person on the same basis. It is important to note that sexism applies to both men and women, however, women are more affected by sexism than men in all areas of life. Everyday sexism takes different forms , sometimes not easily recognisable – for example, telling jokes about girls, commenting on the female body (objectifying women), reacting to the way women are dressed, assigning women easier tasks in Internet games or objectifying women in advertising.

The literature mentions three types of sexism 53

Traditional sexism: supporting traditional gender roles, treating women as worse than men, employing traditional stereotypes which portray women as less competent than men.
Modern sexism: denying gender discrimination (‘it is not a problem anymore’), having a negative attitude towards women’s rights, denying the validity of claims made by women
Neosexism: This notion refers to ideologies that justify discrimination towards women on the basis of competences – 'men are effectively better competent for some things' – for example in managerial or leadership positions, and not on a direct discrimination of women. Defenders of these ideas tend to ignore or deny the difficulties faced by women in society as having an influence on 'competences'.

If it is true that the situation of women’s human rights has improved in recent years, this does not mean that sexism has ended.

In March 2019, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted Recommendation CM/Rec(2019)1 on preventing and combating sexism . The Recommendation defines sexism as

Violating the inherent dignity or rights of a person or a group of persons;
Resulting in physical, sexual, psychological or socio-economic harm or suffering to a person or a group of persons;
Creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment;
Constituting a barrier to the autonomy and full realisation of human rights by a person or a group of persons;
Maintaining and reinforcing gender stereotypes .

The Recommendation stresses that sexism is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men , which leads to discrimination and prevents the full advancement of women in society . The Committee of Ministers asks Governments of member states to take measures to prevent and combat sexism and its manifestations in the public and private spheres, and encourage relevant stakeholders to implement appropriate legislation, policies and programmes.

Women’s rights are human rights

Why do we need women’s rights, when these are simply human rights? Why do we need human rights treaties about women’s rights, when we have already general human rights instruments? Almost everywhere in the world, women are denied their human rights just because of their sex or gender. Women’s rights should not be seen as special rights : they are human rights enshrined in international human rights treaties and other documents, and include such rights as freedom from discrimination, right to life, freedom from torture, right to privacy, access to health, right to decent living conditions, right to safety, and many others . However, there are also human rights instruments that take into account the specific situation of women in society with regards to accessing or exercising their human rights, or which aim to protect them from violence.

52. 100 anti-theses 53. Based on: Todd. D. Nelson, Psychology of Prejudice, Pearsons Education, Inc. publishing as Allyn and Bacon, 2002

Themes related to gender and gender-based violence

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

The UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security (2000) recognises the fact that armed conflicts or wars affect women differently than men, and highlights the specific role of women in peace building processes. This resolution was followed by 7 other resolutions subsequently adopted in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2015.

At the level of the Council of Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights obliges member states to respect and promote all human rights in the Convention without discrimination on any grounds, including sex (Article 14 of the Convention). A further treaty, the Revised European Social Charter (1996), provides for equality between women and men in education, work and family life, and calls for positive measures in order to ensure equal opportunities and the right to equal remuneration.

The Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence

Recommendation No. R (79)10 of the Committee of Ministers concerning women migrants , calls on member states to ensure that national legislation and regulations concerning women migrants are fully adapted to meet international standards. It also recommends that measures should be taken to provide relevant information to women migrants, to prevent discrimination in their working conditions, to promote their socio-cultural integration and to improve their access to vocational guidance and training. The Council of Europe Gender Equality Strategy for 2018 – 2023 foresees the review and update of this Recommendation.

Recommendation No. R (90)4 of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, on the elimination of sexism from language , calls on member states to promote the use of language reflecting the principle of equality between women and men and to take appropriate measures to encourage the use of non-sexist language, taking account of the presence, status and role of women in society. The Recommendation also calls on member states to bring terminology used in legal documents, public administration and education into line with the principle of equality, and to encourage the use of non-sexist language in the media.

Recommendation No (2012)6 of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers on the protection and promotion of the rights of women and girls with disabilities asks member states to adopt appropriate legislative measures and to undertake other positive actions likely to encourage the participation of women and girls with disabilities in all areas of life. Noting that women and girls with disabilities may suffer multiple discrimination, the proposed measures cover areas such as education and training, employment and economic status, health care, access to social protection, sexual and reproductive rights, motherhood and family life, access to justice and protection from violence and abuse, participation in culture, sport, leisure and tourism, and raising awareness and changing attitudes.

Recommendation CM/Rec(2019)1 of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers on preventing and combating sexism

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Women's Rights — Women’s Rights in Today’s Society

Women's Rights in Today's Society

Categories: Women's Rights

About this sample

Words: 1636 |

Published: Nov 19, 2018

Words: 1636 | Pages: 4 | 9 min read

Feminism as a Defense of Women's Rights in Today's Society

Personal thoughts and conclusions, women’s rights essay outline.

1) Introduction

Personal connection and significance of the topic
The significance of women’s rights and feminism in contemporary society

2) Historical Context

Women’s historical lack of legal and political rights
Persistent gender inequality

3) Feminism Defined

Political, economic, and social gender equality
Debunking common misconceptions
Ashley Judd’s speech as an example of feminist activism

4) Gender Pay Gap

Overview of the wage gap
Disparities for women of color
Unequal benefits and contraceptive costs

5) Gendered Pricing

Gender-based pricing in consumer goods
Economic impact on women
Reasons behind gendered pricing

6) Media’s Role

Media’s influence on feminist perceptions
Social media and feminist movements
Addressing media-generated stereotypes

7) Opposition to Feminism

Recognizing feminism’s critics
Analyzing anti-feminist arguments

8) Sexual Harassment

Prevalence and definition
Impact on victims
Importance of a safe reporting environment

9) Personal Experience and Conclusion

Sharing a personal experience related to sexual harassment
Reflecting on the impact
Emphasizing the urgency of gender equality
Reiterating the importance of women’s rights and feminism

10) Works Cited

Works Cited

Adichie, C. N. (2014). We should all be feminists. Anchor Books.
Hooks, B. (2000). Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics. Pluto Press.
The National Organization for Women. (2021). Women’s Rights. https://now.org/issues/
Steinem, G. (2015). My life on the road. Random House.
United Nations Development Programme. (2021). Gender equality. https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-5-gender-equality.html
Davis, A. Y. (2016). Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement. Haymarket Books.
Federici, S. (2019). Caliban and the witch: Women, the body and primitive accumulation. Verso Books.
Shetterly, M. L. (2016). Hidden figures: The American dream and the untold story of the black women mathematicians who helped win the space race. HarperCollins.
Johnson, A. G. (2014). The gender knot: Unraveling our patriarchal legacy. Temple University Press.
Orenstein, P. (2012). Cinderella ate my daughter: Dispatches from the front lines of the new girlie-girl culture. HarperCollins.

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Presentation Presidential Elections and Voting in U.S. History

Women's suffrage.

What strategies did women use to win a constitutional right to vote?

In July 1848, powerful calls for women’s suffrage were made from a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. This convention kicked off a sustained campaign, led by women, to secure voting rights. Over seventy years later, Congress and three-fourths of the state legislatures approved the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Examine selected primary sources and come to conclusions about how different groups have won and protected the right to vote. In this section, explore the different strategies that women used to win a constitutional right to vote.

The following process can support exploring and analyzing each source:

Observe: What do you see? Look for how the information is arranged on the page. Identify details that look unfamiliar or strange.
Reflect: Think about the purpose of the source, who created it, and the intended audience. Consider the larger story and historical context.
Question: What new questions do these sources raise about the strategies women used to win a constitutional right to vote?

Record thoughts on the Primary Source Analysis Tool from the Library of Congress

Annual Women’s Suffrage Convention, 1890

Article with the title, The woman suffragists, twenty-second annual convention and a reorganization.

At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, the first large gathering dedicated to women’s rights in the U.S., attendees drafted and signed a document called the Declaration of Sentiments. The Declaration called for civil, social, political, and religious rights for women—rights that had long been denied to women by states and the federal government. Many of the signers of the Declaration, including Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, would go on to become the leaders of a generation of suffrage activists.

In the decades that followed the Seneca Falls Convention, formal groups were established to lead American women in their bid for voting and other rights.

Newspaper coverage of the women’s suffrage campaign was important to the movement’s strategy to raise awareness and keep the issue in the public’s attention. This article, which highlighted notable leaders and the union of two suffrage associations, came from a weekly paper published out of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Source Analysis

What perspective or point of view is offered from this article about women’s suffrage?
Who do you think was the audience for this article? What makes you think that?
How does the author of this article describe the convention and the women leading the convention? What words, phrases, or other language choices stand out and why?
The article concludes with a comment from the author about both old and new leaders in the suffrage movement. Why is that significant to the campaign to secure voting rights for women?

Talk by Mary Church Terrell, 1908

A typed speech with some handwriting overlayed on the text.

While suffrage organizations and leaders talked about goals of greater equality, they did not always include all women. White leaders often excluded people of color from full participation. However, Black women still organized and advocated for suffrage and equality throughout the movement. Some Black leaders worked closely with white leaders and used the opportunity to advocate for racial equality. Frederick Douglass also helped the movement, bringing his celebrity as a public speaker to the cause for women’s suffrage.

This excerpt comes from a full speech delivered by Mary Church Terrell on an anniversary of the first Seneca Falls Convention. She spoke about the significance of Douglass to the women’s suffrage movement. Terrell was a Black activist who fought for women’s suffrage and broader civil rights for African Americans.

Look at the year that Mary Church Terrell delivered this speech. What can the date tell you about the length of the women’s suffrage movement? What might be some risks and rewards of advocating for an issue or cause for a long period of time?
How does Terrell describe Frederick Douglass’s contributions to the women’s suffrage movement? What words and phrases stand out and why?
What can we learn from this speech about the possible tensions or conflict within the women’s suffrage movement? Why is that important to consider?
How does this speech excerpt contribute to an understanding of different strategies that women and their allies used to win the right to vote? What new questions does this source raise about the campaign for women’s suffrage?

Women picketing at The White House, 1917

A photograph of three women dressed in warm coats and hats, standing outside the White House. Two women hold a banner and one woman holds a flag.

The fight for suffrage rights escalated when the United States entered World War I in April 1917, and many women moved into the workforce. One new strategy adopted by the suffrage movement was regular picketing of the White House. Protesters carried banners naming President Wilson as an opponent of suffrage. The resulting arrests and press coverage of the arrests brought more attention to the suffrage movement.

This photograph, taken November of 1917, shows picketers bringing attention to President Wilson’s appeals to the principles of democracy as reason for fighting in World War I. The suffragists picketing used these appeals to bring attention to their cause as well.

What in this photograph most stands out? Why?
Read the text on the banner that the women are holding. What does it say? What terms or phrases are compelling and why? Are any words unfamiliar?
How does this sign use global events to make a case for women’s suffrage?
What First Amendment freedoms do you see being exercised in this photograph? How does this photograph show a strategy for winning a constitutional right to vote?
If a similar protest happened today, would anything look similar? What would be different?

Alice Paul on hunger strike, 1917

An article with the title, Charged hunger striker is to be railroaded. Railroaded is in quotation marks.

Alongside organizing formal suffrage groups and rallying at conventions and meetings, supporters of women’s suffrage used a number of other strategies. Activists exercised their First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble and petition the government. Alice Paul, founder of the National Women’s Party, organized pickets outside of the White House and, along with other picketers, was arrested for obstructing traffic. While in jail, Paul led a hunger strike—a tactic that she had learned from suffragists in England.

The media’s coverage of the hunger strike brought increased attention to and sympathy for the cause of women’s suffrage. These two articles give attention to the conditions that Alice Paul endured—one from the beginning of her hunger strike and another several weeks into her strike.

What can these two articles also tell you about events happening at the time? How can that help with understanding the strategies that women used in the suffrage movement?
Based on these two articles, do you think that the hunger strike was a successful strategy? Why or why not?
If something like this were to happen today, how would media coverage be different? In what ways might that help or hurt a campaign’s strategy to gain attention and support?

Announcement of women’s suffrage amendment, 1920

Front page of a newspaper with the headline, Suffrage Ratification is completed by Tennessee; opponents will try to-day to reverse close vote.

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote, was approved by Congress on June 4, 1919. State legislatures then considered ratifying the amendment, and a total number of three-fourths of the state legislatures that ratified it was reached on August 19, 1920. After the Amendment was ratified, women used the organizing skills they had practiced during in the suffrage movement to continue to fight for equality.

Opposition to women’s suffrage continued even after the passage of the Amendment. State and national groups such as the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage and Association Opposed to Woman’s Suffrage actively resisted suffrage rights for women. These groups were often opposed to any role for women outside the home, fearing the downfall of the family as well as a decrease in women’s work in communities and their ability to influence societal reforms.

This article from the New York Tribune captures some of the sentiments, both for and against women’s suffrage, that were expressed at the announcement of the Amendment’s passing.

Note the date of this newspaper article. Reflect on the time between the first convention for women’s suffrage (1848) and the passage of the 19th Amendment that guaranteed a women’s right to vote. What can that tell you about the strategies women used to win a right to vote?
How many articles from this front page are related to the women’s suffrage campaign? What can that tell us about the level of attention that the issue received at the time?
What do you notice about the range of coverage related to women winning the national right to vote? How are opponents to women’s suffrage covered?
In what ways does this front page preview the significance of women as a voting demographic (group)?

Forming Conclusions: Women’s Suffrage

Think about the sources you examined in this section.

What patterns did you notice about the strategies that women used to win a constitutional right to vote?
How did the sources you study support or challenge what you already understood about women’s suffrage and why?
Based on the sources you reviewed, what conclusions can you make what strategies women used to win a constitutional right to vote? What new questions do you have?

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‘A Rebel with a Cause’: The Real Subversive Potential of Transgressive Fiction

“In olden days a glimpse of stocking / Was looked on as something shocking. / Now, heaven knows, Anything goes.” This epigraph begins Chris Jenks’ 2003 work Transgression , exemplifying the sense in which acts of transgression can have real, tangible, palpable effects on society. Jenks defines “transgression” as violating, infringing upon, or going beyond the limits set by a boundary or convention (2). Transgressive fiction, then, is the genre of literature that depicts various acts of boundary-crossing in order to analyze and criticize them for the purpose of reflecting upon the ideological constructions that its characters react against or wholly reject.

Digital (R)evolution and Cyber Censorship in South Asia

From election campaigns to marches for equal rights in a patriarchal society, the digital landscape in South Asia has commanded a space which was not easily possible before the digital revolution. In the same breadth, fake news and propaganda narrative has also marred noble causes which hinders this evolutionary social mobility enabled by the digital media. In this scenario, the digital space becomes a double-edged sword where the dominant narrative can be deemed as the ‘truth’. Weaving through the complexity created by opposing narratives, this panel would involve discussions about the medium and culture of the digital world as well to further contextualize echo chambers and shadow bans, which act as filters of information.

Poetics and Politics of Memory/Trauma-Scapes in South Asian Literatures

Conference Dates: 29 May - 01 June 2025

The Marilynne Robinson Society at ALA

The Marilynne Robinson Society will be hosting two panels at the annual American Literature Association Conference (May 21-24, 2025; Boston, MA). The first panel will focus on a wide variety of topics connected to Robinson’s essays and novels.

Please submit a 350-word proposal and short bio to [email protected] by November 15, 2024.

Holocaust Studies Conference

The Fifteenth Biennial

HOLOCAUST STUDIES CONFERENCE

At Middle Tennessee State University

March 6-7, 2025

Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Keynote Speaker: Professor Daniel Magilow, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Giving Up: Literature, Criticism, Politics [ACLA 2025, Virtual]

See ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) listing for submission portal: https://www.acla.org/giving-literature-criticism-politics

Paper proposals cannot be accepted via email.

ACLA conference will take place May 29–June 1, 2025, via Zoom.

Medieval Performances of Chastity and Gender

Special session hosted by the Society for Queer and Trans Meival Studies at the International Congress for Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI in May 2025 seeks submissions for the panel "Medieval Performances of Chastity and Gender."

Henri Nouwen Academic Symposium

Following the inaugural Henri Nouwen Lectureship, the Henri Nouwen Society, in partnership with the Oblate School of Theology, is pleased to announce an Academic Symposium dedicated to the life, work, and enduring influence of Henri Nouwen, a profound thinker and writer whose contributions to theology, spirituality, and pastoral care have inspired countless individuals and communities. This symposium aims to bring together scholars and practitioners to explore and critically engage with Nouwen’s rich body of work.

Leeds 2025 Call for Papers (Hybrid) - Learning, Knowledge and Awareness

In an ideal situation, learning leads to knowledge and knowledge raises awareness. Set within the context of the past, this simple statement leads us to consider a range of different questions. How did medieval and early modern people learn and what did they learn? How did they teach and what did they teach? Who was taught and who was not? Who decided what was to be taught? Such questions, among others, help us understand the process of how learning and knowledge was acquired in the premodern world. But it also helps us better appreciate what we know about the premodern world and what people were trying to achieve when they set out to gain knowledge about their world and the society they lived in.

Love and Death in Dostoevsky's novels and Beyond, NeMLA March 6-9, 2024

This session seeks to examine how Dostoevsky's portrayal of love and death reflects his broader philosophical concerns and how these themes interact within his narrative structures. Although this session primarily aims to explore the themes of love and death in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, papers on other Russian authors will also be considered.

CFP - Sex Work From Feminist and Queer Perspectives

The journal Gender a výzkum / Gender and Research announces a call for papers for the special issue "Sex Work From Feminist and Queer Perspectives". Issue editors are Barbora Doležalová (FSV UK), anna řičář libánská (FF UK) and Isotta Rossoni (Leiden University).

Political Speeches in Film

Dear colleagues,

Please find below the links to the call for papers of the international conference "Political Speeches in Film" which will take place at the Université de Lorraine, Nancy, France on March 17, 18, 2025:

https://idea.univ-lorraine.fr/sites/default/files/2024-04/CFP%20-%20Political%20Speeches%20in%20Film%20-%20EN-1_0.pdf (English version)

Contemporary Women Filmmakers and Posthumanism

Call for Papers

Editors Evdokia Stefanopoulou and Yannis Mazarakis invite book chapter proposals for a scholarly collection entitled Contemporary Women Filmmakers and Posthumanism . Edinburgh University Press has expressed interest in publishing the book.

International Conference on Fostering Multimodal Literacy Through English Language Education

Location: Bangalore, India

Subject Fields: English Language Teaching/ English Literature/Linguistics/Computer Science/Education

Venue: CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bannerghatta Road Campus, Bangalore, India

Mode: Offline and Online (Only for Presenters)

Date: 20 January 2025 (Tentative date. Final date to be announced soon)

Time: 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

Emotions in Turmoil: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Painful Emotions

Painful emotions such as grief, anger, shame, and depression profoundly shape individual lives and society at large. However, they are often hidden from view and have frequently been stigmatized in the past, as they are today. Through a multi-faceted lens, this symposium explores how these and other painful emotions have influenced broader historical, cultural, and political change. Focusing and revealing the politics that frame and delimit feelings, we invite submissions of abstracts for 20-minute papers that address the symposium’s theme from various disciplinary perspectives. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

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Answer 2: Women's rights are the essential human rights that the United Nations enshrined for every human being on the earth nearly 70 years ago. These rights include a lot of rights including the rights to live free from violence, slavery, and discrimination. In addition to the right to education, own property; vote and to earn a fair and ...
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Following the inaugural Henri Nouwen Lectureship, the Henri Nouwen Society, in partnership with the Oblate School of Theology, is pleased to announce an Academic Symposium dedicated to the life, work, and enduring influence of Henri Nouwen, a profound thinker and writer whose contributions to theology, spirituality, and pastoral care have inspired countless individuals and communities.