In the modern era, the experiences of women across the world varied greatly depending on where the woman lived. Women in the Global North who found professional opportunities worked to promote feminist principles, parental leave, reproductive justice, and ending sexual harassment. These women thrived in a far more equitable society than their foremothers had. Meanwhile, women in the Global South worked to rebuild their societies in the wake of colonization, advocate for women’s rights and suffrage, and call for increased autonomy. 

Women activists shared their advances and setbacks across national borders, refining the arguments they used to demand equality. For the organizers who placed the interests of women at the center of their activism, the goals of Second Wave Feminism, while diverse, coalesced around the idea that women’s needs were important, their voices needed to be heard, and their issues - while often intimate and personal - deserved to be addressed politically. This perspective dominated international arenas despite other interpretive feminist frameworks.

Women and the United Nations 

After World War II, women assumed a number of leadership positions in governments and international organizations around the world. Women’s participation in the war was a catalyst for Women’s Liberation Movements all around the world, in pursuit of equality, and participation in the political system was key to that. Some nations would see their first female political leaders, while others would see new generations of women taking the helm. 

One of the mechanisms meant to prevent the next world war was the United Nations (UN). In 1946, the UN established the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) as a global policy-making body dedicated to promoting gender equality and women's empowerment. The CSW has since provided a key platform for discussing women's rights issues, reviewing progress, and developing strategies to advance gender equality worldwide. From 1947 to 1962, the CSW focused on establishing standards and sponsoring international conventions to combat discriminatory legislation and raise global awareness of women's issues. 

The 1947 meeting of the United Nations in Queens, New York, included 15 female government representatives, including former first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a crucial figure in the creation of the UN, serving as the US delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 to 1952, and at this 1947 meeting, read "An Open Letter to the Women of the World," which was initiated by Hélène Lefaucheux from France, who also held prominent positions as the President of the French National Council of Women and the President of the International Council of Women (ICW) from 1957 to 1963. Lefaucheux and Roosevelt, leading the charge, aimed to promote human rights, social justice, and international cooperation. 

Eleanor Roosevelt with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Roosevelt traveled extensively, both within the United States and abroad, to engage in conversation on human rights issues. She also served as the first Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and was instrumental in advocating for the adoption and implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1984. The UDHR explicitly recognized the equal rights and dignity of all individuals, regardless of gender, and emphasized the importance of eliminating discrimination based on sex. This marked a significant step towards recognizing women's rights as human rights on an international scale.

Recognizing the need for data and analysis to support the legal rights of women, the commission undertook a global assessment of women's status. This extensive research produced a detailed, country-specific overview of women’s political and legal standing, becoming the foundation for drafting human rights policies. Subsequently, in 1963, the UN General Assembly tasked the CSW with drafting a Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, which was adopted in 1967. The legally binding Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) followed in 1979, with the Optional Protocol in 1999, introducing the right of petition for women victims of discrimination.

Yet it is important to remember that feminism looked different in different places around the world, and just because the UN promoted equality didn’t mean women gained rights, freedoms, and respect in their home countries. However, increasingly, women activists shared their advances and their setbacks across national borders, seeking to define their grievances and refine the language with which they demanded greater equality and agency. 

Feminism in the Communist World

Part of what made transnational feminism important but also challenging, was that there was no singular goal that women were striving toward, as the goals of women were shaped by their individual societal makeup, religious beliefs, and cultural values. What a woman in Western Europe viewed as progress might vary greatly from what a woman in South America, Africa, Asia, or even Eastern Europe viewed as progress. This can be particularly clear when we consider the sociopolitical divide between the communist and capitalist world during the Cold War. 

Kasimov Zhenotdel (women’s branch of the party’s Central Committee), 1926

Women in the communist world experienced the emergence of feminism in a form supported and controlled by state and party interests.The Russian Revolution had initially embraced equality, allowing women to assume various political roles, yet that had shifted under Stalin’s reign. Russian women advocated for feminist ideas without explicitly labeling themselves as such, as women's liberation was not a central focus of communist political goals. Instead, it was believed that a natural outcome after achieving socialism was social equality, including that between the sexes. In practice, however, male comrades often resisted treating female comrades as equals, despite the central political message of working-class socialism. 

In China, feminism was part of the “Cultural Revolution” led by Mao Zedong from 1966 to 1977. The Cultural Revolution sought to eradicate the "Four Olds": old thoughts, old culture, old habits, and old customs. It promoted revolution and rebellion as positive forces in order to level old class distinctions and establish a more equitable society in line with socialism. During the Cultural Revolution, there was a strong emphasis on the promotion of proletarian values and the suppression of perceived bourgeois elements. This included challenging traditional gender roles and hierarchies. The movement sought to dismantle perceived elitism and privilege, and individuals who were seen as upholding those values, regardless of their gender, could become targets. 

Actors performing “Red Detachment of Women,” a Chinese opera about Mao’s revolution in 1972

The Chinese government brought healthcare, education, and industrialization to the countryside, which was viewed as an act of progress. However, the movement also led to violent actions by the Red Guards, who attacked local party and government officials, teachers, intellectuals, factory managers, ethnic minorities, religious figures, and others perceived as enemies of the revolution. These figures of varying authority were viewed as stewards of the “olds.”

Sampho Tsewang Rigzin and his wife being tortured in a “struggle session” as enemies of the state, while forced to wear traditional Tibetan aristocratic clothing to mark them both as members of the bourgeois and ethnic minorities

Communist feminism in these environments faced significant challenges. Despite communist ideals of gender equality, it was not often upheld and women still bore the double burden of domestic work and paid employment, mirroring a problem seen in the Western capitalist world as well. Women were rarely seen in top political leadership positions, and communist feminism faded into obscurity within a decade of its inception in each country. Most damaging, in China, the one-child policy enacted in 1979 created pressure in a patriarchal society to have male children which led to femicide.

Chinese propaganda poster showing a family with just one child, with a caption that reads “Planned childbirth is everyone's responsibility.”

Communist economies, by the 1970s, showed little progress in catching up to capitalist economies. Likewise, various incidents like the horrors of Stalin's "Terror" and the gulag, as well as Mao's Cultural Revolution and the genocide in communist Cambodia, undermined communist claims to moral superiority over capitalism. While China remains a communist nation, the Soviet Union dissolved in the early 1990s, transitioning to a republic known as the Russian Federation. 

For women living in communist systems, the transition to democracy wasn’t necessarily the answer to all their problems. The loss of basic rights, including sexual equality and reproductive rights, has become a harsh reality. Despite democratic reforms and the promotion of equality ideals, traditional norms and biases continue to dominate. Surprisingly, the absence of a feminist movement in this context is notable, or more precisely, the existing feminism is limited to a relatively marginalized elite and lacks widespread societal support, even from accomplished women activists.

Western Feminism

Meanwhile, globally, there was a broader embrace of democracy, feminism, and human rights as the intended path of humankind. However, it is important to note that while further embracing feminism, the goals of feminists in Western nations have never been fully realized. In the United States in particular, the workplace opened up to women in new ways thanks to the effective agitation by liberal feminist organizations, but issues such as child and elder care, and lack of maternity and parental leave hobbled women’s equality. 

Nonetheless, the democracies of Europe attended more to the fundamental issues that secured equity for women. Thus, in the Western world, feminist movements and organizations appeared to advance women’s lives economically, politically, and personally. Just as in the communist world, the goals of these groups varied over time and across national borders based on the values inherent in their given societies. 

1975 demonstration in front of the Hague for equal pay

Liberal feminists, like those who headed to the UN to make change, sought to reform institutions from within existing governing structures. These groups tended to attract middle-class women who expressed confidence that their efforts would bring positive results. By contrast, radical feminists rejected the idea that reform through traditional societal institutions would bring about the liberation of women. Radical feminists advocated reshaping society in a non-hierarchical and non-authoritarian manner. They rejected the male dominance of power structures and advocated the creation of new models for advancing women’s power. Yet, radical feminists debated even amongst themselves whether it was the patriarchy or capitalism that was the root of oppression and the major force that needed to be overthrown.

A number of feminist groups took shape around specific issues, and membership in these groups occasionally overlapped. Further, when groups were formed around specific issues, their cause could become obsolete, and their members often moved toward other feminist causes as a result. For example, cultural (or difference) feminists rejected the notion that women should be more like men. They argued that there is a ‘female nature’ or ‘essence’ that makes women fundamentally different from men, but they reject any notion of male superiority in relation to those differences. New understandings of gender as a result of the LGBTQ+ movement, and the idea of gender fluidity have made “difference feminism” outdated or out of place in the present context.

Feminism in France

Women in France protested a rigid patriarchal system, a dogmatic and powerful Catholic Church, and the presumption that women did not need a life in the public sphere. French women who had taken part in the famed protests of 1968 (against French policies, capitalism, the effects of colonialism, and more) were frustrated at the domination of men in the movement, despite the fact that men and women alike shut down universities, barricaded the streets, went on strike, and demanded a loosening of social restrictions in French life. As they watched their male colleagues write theoretical treatises and make public speeches, women were relegated to tasks that were not recognized by the public or appreciated by their male colleagues.

Women and men in the “May 68” protests in Toulouse

Nine women affiliated with the mouvement de libération des femmes (Women’s Liberation Movement, or MLF) launched a women’s liberation protest in Paris. They laid a wreath at the Arc de Triomphe, the site of commemoration for the unknown dead in France’s wars.  They called attention to “the one person more unknown than the unknown soldier, his wife.” The march and wreath laying received wide media coverage in France and was an important event in the evolution of France’s organized struggle for women’s liberation.       

The most immediate political goal of the MLF was changing the criminal status of abortion in the French Penal Code. Abortion was illegal except to save the life of the mother. On April 5, 1971, the MLF published the Manifeste des 343 (Manifesto of the 343) in La Nouvelle Observateur, a weekly news magazine. This document was both a petition to the national government to change the penal code and an act of civil disobedience, as 343 women came forward to declare, “Je me suis fait avorter” (“I have had an abortion”). 

As would be the case in other countries calling for such change, you also had opposition. Women similarly participated in, and led, the charge against abortion, typically for religious reasons. In France, Laissez les Vivre (Let Them Live), an anti-abortion association, was founded in 1971 and for half a century, the organization has distributed anti-abortion propaganda. In 1979, they collaborated with the National Association of Catholic Families to bring 40,000 demonstrators to the National Assembly. Since the 1980s, members have participated annually in a March for Life in Paris to publicize their position. In spite of active resistance from anti-abortion groups in France, the practice remained legal. Further, it is now generally accepted on all sides of the political divide, though individuals remain opposed. 

March for Life protest in Paris, 2010

As is typical of many social movements, not everyone is considered in the goals or included when successes are achieved. Lesbians in France had to struggle for their own voice within the discourse of French feminism. Monique Wittig was a prominent feminist theorist and a founder of the Front Homosexual d’Action Revolutionnaire (Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action, or, HFRA). On April 4, 1971, a small group of female FHRA members met to discuss their grievances. An angry member of the audience called the group “gouines rouges” (“red [communist] dyke”). While this was a slur meant to be hurtful, for the FHRA, it became a badge of honor. The Gouines Rouges worked to organize women and later joined forces with MLF to integrate lesbian issues into the platform of France’s women’s liberation movement.

Marine Le Pen

The efforts of numerous groups continued to call for further gender equality and the 2017 presidential campaign of Emmanuel Macron promised a commitment to the principle of equality in politics. In spite of Macron’s - albeit limited - efforts to promote women in traditional electoral politics, many women have been drawn to the nationalist ideology of candidates like Marine Le Pen, who serves as president of the far-right National Rally. She is a member of the French National Assembly who spars with Macron’s administration and amplifies the generalized anti-government sentiment noted in the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) demonstrations of 2018. Le Pen’s prominence and national candidacy demonstrates that extreme nationalism transcends gender.      

A woman stands at the forefront of the yellow vest demonstration, face-to-face with French riot police

Feminism in the United Kingdom

Similar efforts were taking place in the United Kingdom. As late as 1970, women in Britain needed a husband or male relative’s permission to borrow money and had to have an escort to certain restaurants and pubs in the evening. Jobs were advertised by gender in the ‘help wanted’ columns, and only 26 of the 650 members of Parliament (MPs) were women in 1970. Domestic violence and marital rape were not designated as crimes, male doctors were often underqualified to address women’s health issues, husbands often retained child custody in the case of divorce, and marriage — allowed only to heterosexuals — was still idealized as the high point of a woman’s life.

A very public campaign came in the three-year effort to gain higher wages for women who cleaned London offices at night, which took place between 1970-1973. The Night Cleaners Campaign highlighted both class and gender as sources of women’s oppression through several years of picketing and leafleting in support of their cause. While this was a matter of labor justice, the Transport and General Workers Union offered no support to the night cleaners, as the majority of union men believed that women’s “nature” required them to be in the home rather than on the assembly line or in an office cleaning at night. As ever, this ignored the economic constraints that forced women into this field in the first place. 

Despite the efforts of this movement and the many others like it, the legal system was slow to act on behalf of women. Married women gained the right to retain money they earned after marriage in 1964, but since most women did not work outside the home, the law granted only some women minimal financial independence. The Sex Discrimination Act, which outlawed only certain types of discrimination (primarily employment, education, and the provision of goods and services) based on sex or marital status, was not passed until 1975.

Britain also saw the work of radical feminists. Feminists have long protested the objectification of women represented by beauty pageants, as the parade of women in evening gowns or bathing suits was often likened to a cattle auction. The 1968 protests at the Miss America pageant where a sheep was crowned as an alternative beauty queen was front page news in England. On November 20, 1970, members of Britain’s Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) stormed the Miss World pageant at the Royal Albert Hall. The in-person audience and 100 million worldwide television viewers witnessed protesters throwing tomatoes and flour bombs and shooting water pistols at the stage. The WLM slogan was “We’re not beautiful, we’re not ugly, we’re angry!” Just as the American protestors were unable to stop the Miss America pageant, the British protestors failed to stop the pageant, but the women got the publicity they needed.

Abortion within 24 weeks of conception was legalized in Britain in 1968, but two doctors had to first consent to the procedure, affirming that it was necessary to preserve the life of the mother. While that may seem reasonable, not all communities have access to two doctors in a timely manner, and this becomes even more challenging if one of the doctors disagrees on the medical necessity of the procedure for any number of reasons. Even with the constraints of this law, many women and men in Britain opposed such access to abortion procedures. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children was founded in January of 1967 in London when the debates for such a law began, and today remains the UK’s largest ‘pro-life’ organization.

In Ireland, the powerful Catholic Church largely commanded the discussion around abortion care. Anti-abortion activists in America, who felt they had “lost the fight” after the Roe v. Wade ruling, encouraged the Church to remain strong, even sending speakers and advertisers to project their anti-abortion message to the Irish public. The nation ultimately banned abortion, though women (with means) were not penalized for traveling outside of the country to obtain one. As is all too common in regions where abortion is banned, those without the means to access this care sought dangerous and illegal abortions at home, resulting in the deaths of many. In 2018, the Irish people voted to repeal their ban.

Feminism in Germany

In the aftermath of World War II, Germany was split into the communist East (under the direction of the Soviet Union) and the capitalist West (under the direction of the Western Allies); the epitome of the Iron Curtain, or wall between the two dominant global worlds. Not unexpectedly, the lives and needs of women in either region were different, and also constantly evolved with the realities of the Cold War. Feminism emerged more pronounced in West Germany, mirroring their capitalist neighbors. 

It was not until 1977 that West German married women were allowed to work outside the home without her husband’s permission. Abortion was one of the personal and political issues that inspired West German women to write letters, sign petitions, and risk arrest in public demonstrations. The battle over access to abortion was thus an example of the transnational feminism and communication as feminists in the United States, France, Britain, West Germany, and elsewhere, facilitated national political action in relation to this measure of bodily autonomy. They also shared similar hurdles and legal shortcomings that showed shared threads across the Western world. 

Law 218 of the German Penal Code was passed in 1871 and prohibited abortion under all circumstances. Neue Frauenbewegung (New Women’s Group) activists focused on abortion as essential to a woman’s freedom, and soon, the struggle to legalize the termination of a pregnancy in the first trimester activated the women’s movement in West Germany in the 1970s. Women who called themselves Brot und Rosen-Frauenaktion 70 (Bread and Roses—Women’s Action 70) articulated the earliest demands for access to abortion. Their slogan was “Mein Bauch gehort mir!” (“My belly belongs to me!”).

A 1974 hunger strike in protest of West German abortion laws

Abortion was not a popular topic to all Germans, and not surprisingly, German Catholic leaders objected to any loosening of legal restrictions on abortion. Cardinal Joseph Hoffner of Cologne issued a statement on abortion that not only reiterated the Church’s position that human life starts at conception, it also reminded politicians of the political power of the Church. For them, this was a fringe issue, and they believed existing law should remain in place.        

On June 6, 1971, the popular news magazine Stern published a statement under the banner headline “We Had an Abortion,” protesting bans on abortion, describing them as outdated. The statement was the creation of Alice Schwarzer, a journalist who was inspired by the efforts of French feminists. The 374 German women from diverse educational and socioeconomic backgrounds who put their names to the Stern statement declared that they had had abortions and thus broken the law. This was a powerful public statement from women who were expected to keep their private lives private. 

Stern’s “We Had an Abortion,” cover

The “scandal” of so many women admitting to having broken the law brought women from all over West Germany to the larger cause of women’s liberation. The publishers of Stern printed the statement on the magazine’s title page. Thousands of people, many with no political affiliation, wrote letters and signed petitions in support of the Stern women. Women’s “personal” issues had become broadly political.       

A few years later, in March of 1974, West Germany’s popular magazine, Der Spiegel, printed a statement from 329 doctors and nurses who said they had performed unpaid (but nevertheless illegal) abortions. They issued a statement, saying that “Every day 2,000 to 3,000 illegal abortions are carried out in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany). Our campaign ought to put an end to the hypocrisy.” To put an end to the misinformation about the procedure, 14 doctors said they were prepared to break the law by performing an abortion in public. The operation took place on March 9, 1974, at the Kreuzberg Women’s Center and was filmed by the public television Panorama network. However, the procedure did not reach the television audience because of a legal challenge brought by the Catholic Church. Panorama executives instead aired footage of an empty studio in protest. 

In the days after the showing, women in West Germany staged acts of civil disobedience, but the law did not change. West German feminists ‘disrupted beauty contests, bricked up sex-shops, sat in at churches and doctors’ conventions, and organized tribunals on abortion, violence against women, and other central themes in the women’s movement. One radical women’s group, Rote Zora, destroyed property in 45 arson attacks and bombings of sexist institutions between 1975 and 1995.

As is the case with her European counterparts, Germany has also seen its fair share of liberal and conservative sparring over the years, which can often center on the discussion of women’s rights and sees women’s participation on both sides of the political aisle. Mirroring the conservative rise in many places around the world, “white women have joined the ranks of angry people willing to express their grievances against minorities, foreigners, big government advocates, and immigrants thought to represent a challenge to traditional values and practices.” However, women’s support of far-right movements does not always ensure that their contributions are respected or that they will be supported by that movement in turn. When conservative Corinna Miazga was elected to Germany’s parliament in 2017, her nationalist, anti-immigrant platform was not enough to save her from the misogyny of her own party who claimed she would make a better pole dancer than an MP. When she stood up for herself and called him out, she was criticized for damaging the reputation of the party, while her male colleague - and his initial remark - was not.

Feminism in Mexico

Many Mexican feminists looked to traditional channels and the legal system to integrate women more equally into the public sphere. This ‘feminism of equality’ sought to force political, economic, and social institutions to provide more opportunities for women. Arguing from a differing perspective, proponents of ‘feminism of difference’ were less concerned with equality in society than with locating the source of women’s equality in gender itself. Like others, their areas of focus were violence against women and the demand to legalize abortion. 

The transnational nature of challenges to traditional authority, anti-war protests, and a recognition of the need for a movement that would act specifically on behalf of women was evident in protests led by Mexican students in the late 1960s. A Mexican women’s movement began taking shape as young activists protested the Vietnam War, decried an antiquated and 

repressive university system, and mocked cultural mores that restricted the lives of young people. Women participants in the protest more directly challenged the traditional authority of their parents, specifically their fathers, the paternalism of university administrators, and the intransigence of their government. 

When students rallied in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlateloco neighborhood of Mexico City on October 2, 1968, they were unprepared for the violence perpetrated by military and police forces. The Tlateloco Massacre took 300 young lives and imprisoned and tortured many others. The treatment of the students undermined confidence in the government, the police, and other voices of authority in Mexican society. 

Mexican students gathering in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas

The Second Wave feminist movement in Mexico was initially inspired by the events of October 1968 and the connections women had made with feminists in Europe and the United States. The time had come for a new feminist movement in Mexico, and women began to speak for themselves and were convinced that they would never return to the subservient status they had occupied. Still, many political parties promoted pejorative caricatures of feminists as self-indulgent and egotistical, anti-family and anti-male, and divisive of community and class solidarity. Such stigmas made it difficult to imagine that a feminist movement of any significance would ever take root there. Nonetheless, the movement grew as Mexican feminists had transcended their fear of police reprisals and public mockery to articulate their demands. In the late 1970s, lesbian and gay organizations joined with feminist groups to demand equality.       

On Mothers’ Day in 1971, women staged a protest at the Monument to the Mother in Mexico City, defying the authorities who denied them a permit to gather at the monument. They called their action Protesta Contra el Mito de la Mujer (Protest of the Myth of the Mother). Coincidentally, contestants in the Miss Mexico competition were also gathered at the monument for a photo opportunity. The irony of potential Miss Mexicos competing for space with protesting mothers was not lost on the local television stations, which showed footage of both groups.

In an act similar to Mexico’s Protest of the Myth of the Mother, pro-choice feminists protesting in São Paulo on the International Women's Day in 2009

Feminism in Japan

This transition was not exclusive to the West or their communist counterparts. Japanese women in the immediate aftermath of World War II saw the creation of the Women’s Committee on Post-War Policy led by Fusae Ichikawa who negotiated more political rights for women, ensuring greater autonomy for them in the political sphere, if not yet in their homes. Women made political progress but they were still, in many respects, second-class citizens despite their efforts uniting Japanese feminists with their international counterparts.

 Fusae Ichikawa 

By the late 1960s, Japan’s Second Wave feminists coalesced around their protest on the Vietnam War and Japanese capitalism. Additionally, women voiced their opposition to the male 

leadership of New Left organizations and insisted that issues related to sexuality, the absence of power and agency for women, and the role of motherhood in promoting inequality, deserved attention. Most male movement leaders paid little attention to the women’s demands, and further, the emergence of feminist organizations in the 1970s contributed to a debate in Japanese society about the threat to masculinity posed by women. 

Still, Japanese feminists sought more than legal equality. They argued for a transformation of society in which male and female perspectives were equally acknowledged and respected. In 1970, the movement started to focus on this cultural notion of masculinity calling not only for sexual liberation for women, the liberation of both women and men from these strict notions of masculinity and femininity. 

Women in Leadership

While these movements faced many hurdles and ongoing resistance, the 20th century also saw the rise of women appointed and elected for political office. It had taken centuries since the fall of monarchies, but finally, democracies were coming around to the idea of female leadership. In fact, in September 2022, the United Nations reported there to be 28 current female world leaders. Female prime ministers, in particular, made up roughly 21% of prime ministers worldwide. While more than 70 countries have now seen women serving in their country’s highest position, there are a handful of women whose impacts were particularly significant.

In 1960, Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka) became the world’s first female prime minister. Bandaranaike was persuaded to enter the political sphere after her husband, who became prime minister in 1956, was assassinated in 1959. She served as prime minister for two terms initially and created a legacy of female leadership when, in 1994, her daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, became president of Sri Lanka. Her daughter then appointed Bandaranaike to return as prime minister for a third term.

Sirima Kumaratunga and Golda Meir

Golda Meir became Israel’s first female prime minister in 1969. She was particularly instrumental in the creation of the State of Israel as an independent nation as she was one of the 24 signatories (and one of the only two women) to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence. She would later earn the title of “Iron Lady” for her leadership during the 19-day Yom Kippur War.

The year 1979 was particularly monumental for female prime ministers. Maria da Lourdes Pintasilgo of Portugal became the nation’s first female prime minister in this year, as did Lidia Gueiler Tejada of Bolivia. Of course, the most well-known woman to be elected as prime minister in 1979 was Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher became the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom and would also become the longest serving prime minister in modern history with nearly 12 years of public service in the role. 

Maria da Lourdes Pintasilgo, Lidia Gueiler Tejada, and Margaret Thatcher

Thatcher was tenacious, also earning her the name of the “Iron Lady” (and more widely recognized for the name) for her strong-willed leadership style. It is notable that Thatcher’s goal in political prominence was not that of elevating the status of women, but the status of her political party and their agenda. Historian Barbara Tischler writes,

Thatcher’s Conservative Party was committed to rolling back the social advances of the previous decades, and she took on that mission with energy. Writing in The Guardian, Hadley Freeman told her readers that Thatcher was no feminist who smashed Britain’s political glass ceiling, Rather, she was the ‘aberration, the one who got through and then pulled up the ladder right after her’. Far from promoting the political careers of other women, Thatcher appointed only one woman, Edwina Currie, to a lower-level cabinet position. Currie served as Junior Health Minister from 1986-1988. Thatcher considered men to be ‘fun but dumb ‘and feminist women to be ‘strident’.  In her article, Freeman described Thatcher as a classic example of a certain kind of conservative women who believed that all women should pull themselves up just as she had done, conveniently overlooking that not all women are blessed with the privileges that had been available to her, Thatcher never acknowledged that her success was attributable to anything but her own efforts, and she certainly did not consider herself a feminist. Her biographer wrote that ‘In Margaret Thatcher's view, her sex is an irrelevancy, and she is annoyed by people who make too much of a fuss over it’. The Iron Lady shaped British politics and society during her administration and after. She left a legacy of pro-business individualism that left women to press for social change on their own.

This mentality does not negate Thatcher’s work as prime minister, and while she remains quite controversial, it does not place her under arbitrary labels of “good” or “bad”. Rather, Thatcher is a prime example that women in power are not single-minded or universally aligned. They are human beings who think, feel, and act based on their values. 

Benazir Bhutto became the first female prime minister of Pakistan in 1988, but she also set another precedent during her time in this role. Bhutto became the first female world leader to give birth to a child while in office, though she would not be the last. Two years later, in 1990, Mary Robinson became the first female president of Ireland. She played a significant role in the arenas of human rights, gender equality, and climate change. She was very well-liked throughout the country, receiving a 93% approval rating from the Irish public at her peak.

Benazir Bhutto and Mary Robinson

New Zealand, in particular, has seen a number of female prime ministers, beginning with Jenny Shipley in 1997, succeeded in 1999 by another female prime minister, Helen Clark. And, in 2017, Jacinda Arden became New Zealand’s third female prime minister. Arden followed in Bhutto of Pakistan’s footsteps when she too gave birth to a child while serving as prime minister. Arden set other precedents as the youngest female world leader, banning military-style semi-automatic firearms after the tragic 2019 mosque shootings, and becoming the first prime minister to march in a Pride parade.

New Zealand’s female prime ministers: Jenny Shipley, Helen Clark, and Jacinda Arden 

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made history in 2005 becoming President of Liberia in West Africa, and Africa's first elected female president. Her path to power was long and arduous, having served in various financial roles under different regimes, earning a reputation for personal financial integrity. During Samuel K. Doe's military dictatorship, she faced imprisonment twice and narrowly escaped execution. Then, in the 1985 national election, her open criticism of the military government led to arrest and a ten year prison sentence, but she was later released and allowed to leave the country.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2015

Exiled for 12 years, Sirleaf became an influential economist, working for international financial institutions as well as the United Nations. She returned to Liberia and played a crucial role in overseeing preparations for democratic elections. When she was finally elected in 2005, she was known as Liberia’s "Iron Lady," just as Thatcher and Meir had been before her. President Sirleaf erased nearly five billion dollars in foreign debt, attracting foreign investment and increasing the annual government budget substantially. 

Her presidency faced challenges, including high unemployment and the aftermath of civil war from the late 1980s through 2003, but despite controversies, including the fact that she rejected the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Committee's report, she was reelected in 2011, and she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside other women. The Nobel Committee noted her role in maintaining peace after the civil war and her dedication to advancing the rights and status of women as significant factors in their decision. In her final week in office, President Sirleaf signed an executive order on domestic violence, aiming to protect women, men, and children against various abuses. Yet, a crucial part of her proposal, the abolition of female genital mutilation (FGM) against young girls under 18, was removed, leaving Sirleaf disappointed as she stepped down in 2018.

Despite the successes of these women, we cannot forget that these women were not universally accepted. Segments of their population continued to practice misogyny and hold these women to unfair standards due to their gender. Further, these women at the top don’t represent all women, and everywhere, women remain the majority of those living in poverty.

UN Women’s Conferences in the Late 20th Century

Addressing the disproportionate impact of poverty on women in the 1960s, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) focused on women's needs in community and rural development, agricultural work, family planning, and scientific and technological advances. The commission also advocated for the expansion of technical assistance to advance women's rights, especially in developing countries.

In 1972, marking its 25th anniversary, the CSW recommended designating 1975 as International Women's Year, leading to the First World Conference on Women in Mexico City, and called for the UN Decade for Women from 1976-1985. This period saw the establishment of new UN offices dedicated to women, including the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW).

First World Conference on Women in Mexico City, 1975

In 1987, following the Third World Conference on Women in Nairobi, the CSW took the lead in coordinating and promoting the UN system's work on economic and social issues for women's empowerment. Efforts shifted towards integrating women's issues as cross-cutting and mainstream concerns, and the commission played a key role in highlighting violence against women internationally. This led to the adoption of the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in 1993, and in 1994, the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women.

Perhaps the most significant CSW World Conference was the fourth, which occurred in 1995 in Beijing, China. There, tens of thousands of women flocked together to craft the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and created systems to monitor it in the decades that followed. Out of the eight thousand Americans who journeyed to China, over a thousand were women of color, affording them the opportunity to engage with 22,000 activists from various nations. The connections established during those ten days would lead to fresh enthusiasm, goals, and the emergence of novel organizations, such as the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. 

Delegates to the Beijing CSW World Conference in 1994

The most memorable event from the conference was when then First Lady of the United States, Hilary Clinton, addressed the assembly and declared, “If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard.” 

First Lady Hilary Clinton speaking at the CSW World Conference in Beijing

While Clinton was the one to popularize this refrain - which followed a long list of violations too routinely found around the world - it was not her’s; it belonged to the grassroots efforts of thousands of women from around the world. In fact, this groundbreaking event underscored, unlike anything else, the valuable lessons activists could glean from their global counterparts. This included insights into the detrimental impacts of neoliberal economic policies and the structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on women. 

Further, the new connections made during this conference led to important initiatives, one of the most important being the transnational movement to recognize the survivors of Japanese sexual slavery during World War Two, and to bring restitution to the “Comfort Women.” Thanks to the Violence Against Women in War-Network Japan (VAWW-NET Japan) including efforts by women from the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, a Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery was held in Tokyo in 2000. It helped bring to light the suffering of the so-called Comfort Women, and continued the fight to memorialize their experiences.

Women and Climate Change

Climate change is defined as long-term, large-scale changes in temperature and weather patterns. Scientists have found that today our planet is around 1.1C (1.8F) warmer than it was in the late 19th century, and that warming has been caused by human activities. A changing climate is already impacting agriculture, economic productivity, health, and migration across the world. 

A schematic showing the regions where more natural disasters will occur due to climate change

When people are forced to travel because their homes or their livelihoods have been destroyed by climate events, it is called climate migration. Climate migration affects women and men, but often in different ways. For example, when changes in the climate decrease agricultural productivity, rural families are less able to feed themselves or make a living. In these circumstances, it is more common for men to travel to cities to find jobs. Women, however, are less able to migrate to new opportunities or safer environments because they are more likely to be responsible for taking care of children or ailing family members. Additionally, women on average have less money and are therefore less able to adjust to a changing climate, which might include buying air conditioning units or adopting new farming technologies. Climate change is also likely to increase the hours of unpaid care labor that women must do, since health services and social services are expected to be impacted by severe weather events.

In response, women all over the world have also taken up the fight against climate change. In 1977, Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an indigenous grassroots organization that empowers women through planting trees. Trees can absorb carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas that causes climate change, and so one key solution to a changing climate is to protect the world’s forests. For her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace,” Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, becoming the first African woman to do so.

Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai

However, to solve a global problem, we need global solutions. In 2010, Costa Rican diplomat Christiana Figueres was appointed Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, otherwise known as the UNFCCC. The UNFCCC is responsible for the annual climate conferences in which all countries try to work together to solve climate change. For six years, Figueres worked to bring the nations of the world together, eventually succeeding in the adoption of the 2015 Paris Agreement, through which countries agreed to work together to keep warming below 2°C (3.6 °F).

The adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, with Christiana Figueres in blue in the middle

Since then, young women have taken center stage to keep countries honest about their commitments. In 2018, at just 15 years old, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg began her Skolstrejk för Klimatet (School Strike for Climate), which has since grown into a global youth movement in which students skip school on designated Fridays to attend demonstrations to pressure governments to take climate action. 

Greta Thunberg speaking to the EU Parliament about climate law in 2020

In Uganda, a country already facing rising temperatures, activist Vanessa Nakate initiated her own Fridays For Future strike in 2019, protesting outside of the Parliament of Uganda. She has since founded the Rise Up Climate Movement to raise the voices of African climate activists as well as spearheaded a campaign to save Congo’s rainforests. Whether planting trees, building coalitions, or raising their voices, you can find women at the forefront of fighting climate change.

Vanessa Nakate

Challenges for Women Today

Despite the efforts of hundreds of women’s rights organizations and initiatives over the past half-century, many women still face significant obstacles in exercising their basic freedoms, including the right to vote. In Syria, for example, women are effectively excluded from political engagement, including the ongoing peace process. In certain areas of Pakistan, patriarchal customs are used to prevent women from voting, despite it being their constitutional right. Afghanistan has introduced mandatory photo screening at polling stations, making it difficult for women in conservative areas to vote, as they traditionally cover their faces in public. 

Women of Afghanistan in 2006

Amnesty International advocates for the effective participation of all women in the political process, as part of striving for gender equality. Sexual and reproductive rights are an integral part of these efforts, as every woman and girl should have the right to make decisions about their own body. Further goals include equal access to health services like contraception and safe abortions, the ability to choose if, when, and whom to marry, and the freedom to decide if they want to have children, as well as how many and with whom.

Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go to ensure these rights for all women. Access to safe and legal abortions remains limited in many parts of the world, forcing individuals to make risky choices or face legal consequences. A Latin American movement - Ninas No Madres - gained the attention of the UN Human Rights Committee. Norma, Lucia and Susana were each 12 years old when they were raped by older authority figures (including their own male relatives for two of the girls) and forced to carry their resulting pregnancies to term because of the laws in their countries of Ecuador and Nicaragua. The UN Committee condemned these states for not protecting the rights of girls and ordered them to take all necessary measures to ensure they provide abortion services to those in such a position as these girls had been. This was backed by 170 countries around the world. 

Organizations like the UN, Amnesty International, and other women’s rights groups have campaigned for changes to strict abortion laws in countries like Argentina, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland, and South Korea, achieving significant progress in some cases. However, these laws are constantly in flux. The United States, after several decades of federal abortion protection, saw the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, leading to increasing state laws that limit women’s access to safe healthcare including abortion.

Map showing legality of abortion as of 2023

Freedom of movement, a fundamental right, is still restricted for many women around the world. In some places, women may not have their own passports or may need permission from a male guardian to travel. Although Saudi Arabia recently lifted the ban on women driving, women's rights activists advocating for their rights continue to face persecution and detention by the authorities.

Loujain al-Hathloul, a Saudi women's rights activist, arrested on several occasions for defying the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia.

One other major issue facing women globally is the policing of their sexuality. For example, forced marriage is particularly problematic in Burkina Faso. Usually young girls are married off to older men without their consent. In parts of West Africa and the Horn of Africa, female genital mutilation continues to be a serious problem, with its roots believed to be in Ancient Egypt. Practices range from cutting the clitoris, to cutting and sewing up the vulva to create a small opening to the vagina. Women elders are often in charge of the practice which is often part of puberty rights, rooted in cultural associations around the need to limit women’s desire as well as the belief that it is required by religion. 

Ugandan billboard campaign against female genital mutilation

In many parts of Southern Africa, confusion around sexual consent and limited access to sexual health services have left women and girls vulnerable to unwanted pregnancies and higher risks of HIV infection. In Jordan, women’s autonomy is threatened by an oppressive male "guardianship" system that restricts women's freedoms and subjects them to degrading "virginity tests." In Iran, women are subjected to a morality police that enforces female chastity and conservative dress codes. 

Woman being arrested by Iranian morality police for an improper hijab in 2007

Women are, of course, fighting back against these policies. Women and their allies in Iran made history when they rose up against the government in 2022 after Masa Amini was killed in police custody for improperly wearing her hijab. Following the reports of this incident, protests erupted across Iran, particularly led by women who tore off their hijabs and adopted a rallying cry of "women, life, freedom." 

Amini's significance lies in being an ordinary woman, not an activist, making her relatable to many. Her death galvanized the Iranian people and drew international attention, resulting in massive protests against compulsory hijab rules. Amini's Kurdish ethnicity played a role, as the Kurdish community turned her funeral into widespread protests. Despite Amini not being the first to die in the custody of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, her ordinary life made her a tangible symbol for countless families who have faced harassment or violence by the morality police.

Map showing the number of Amini protest-related deaths and one such protest as Amirkabir University in Tehran

What started as a protest against the mistreatment of women by the regime has evolved into a larger movement. This protest challenges an entrenched regime that legally treats women as second-class citizens, with discriminatory laws established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Amini's death has become a symbol for freedom globally, with her name transformed into a hashtag used millions of times. However, the protestors in Iran faced a brutal crackdown, with hundreds reported dead and widespread human rights violations. The international community, including the United Nations Human Rights Council, initiated investigations into these alleged abuses, and the hope remains that the support from the global community will push for genuine reform in Iran. However, concerns persist that the regime might resort to superficial changes without addressing deeper issues. Despite challenges, Iranian women continue their fight for reform, fueled by the sacrifice of individuals like Mahsa Amini. 

Berlin protest in solidarity with Iranian women

Conclusion

The lives of women today continue to be diverse and measured by the long history of feminist struggles and liberation movements. Their efforts to drive change through hardship, violence, and loss are shared by women around the world, and across infinite spans of time. Each emerging issue, movement, or uprising is a new footstep on a well-beaten path, forged by women across millenia who believed the world could be a better, more equitable place. 

Perhaps historian Barbara Tischler said it best,

What can we conclude from a discussion of 20th and 21st century feminism? We began with the question, ‘Where are the women’? The answer, ‘Everywhere’. is both inspiring and unsatisfying. We see today that women can serve as Senators, Vice Presidents, and prime ministers. They can represent liberal perspectives or rabid right-wing conservatism based on hatred and fear. Women today can be doctors and attorneys, but there is still considerable hand-wringing over the absence of women in STEM and STEAM professions, which nevertheless pales in comparison to the crisis in countries where girls are not permitted to attend school at all. We know that women are as smart as men, as rational as men, as capable as men, as creative as men, yet we do not see them represented among the world’s leaders, executives, scholars, and performers in numbers consistent with the Chinese saying that ‘Women hold up half the sky’. To understand the way forward, we need to remember that Chairman Mao followed that statement with a reminder of equal importance: ‘But men rule the Party’. Until women are able to fulfill their promise as intelligent, rational, capable, and creative human beings who are also capable of sharing the responsibility for maintaining a household and raising children, the world will have access to only a small portion of their talents.

Thus, we must remember that women’s rights are the greatest humanitarian issue of the modern era. What challenges drive the modern women’s movements? What role will women leaders play in this work? And how will the next generation work together to improve the rights and recognition of women around the world?

A young girl performs an old Indian art form, walking on a tightrope barefoot