Women’s Rights in the 21st Century

Women and girls make up half the world’s population and have untapped potential to drive economic growth, build peaceful societies and lead in their own communities. But they face discrimination and inequality at home, work and in society, including sexual violence, harmful traditional practices, limited access to education and lack of financial independence.

Gender equality is not only an essential human right, but is also crucial to sustainable development, peaceful societies and prosperity for everyone. The sex-based inequalities of women and girls have been shown to contribute to poverty and to global inequalities, but they can be changed with collective action and a strong commitment from all stakeholders.

The fight for women rights began with the first wave of feminism that pushed for social change in the nineteenth century. The movement’s organizers such as Susan B. Anthony, who brought her organizational skills from the temperance movement, developed a network of local activists to promote women’s rights legislation. These included laws giving women control of their earnings, mothers’ guardianship over children after divorce and suffrage for women.

As the movement grew, it broadened its scope. Early twentieth-century feminists, influenced by European sex theorists such as Havelock Ellis, sought to enlarge a woman’s sexual liberation and self-determination. They fought for birth control, both as an economic tool to help working women and a means of combating the population growth fears of neo-Malthusians.

In the 21st century, the fight for women’s rights has moved into a new phase. It has expanded to address reproductive rights, economic rights and the need for more empowering leadership. This is reflected in Goal 5, to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” of the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Reproductive rights are central to women’s empowerment and to broader efforts to advance women’s economic and social progress. They include the ability to decide how many, when and whether to have children, and to have equitable property ownership. The most basic aspect of this is the right to control one’s own fertility, but it also includes the right to access affordable family planning and safe abortion services.

Economic rights are essential for women to fully participate in society and pursue their own goals. This can be achieved through removing discriminatory labour laws that limit women’s opportunities to find work, or by creating laws that guarantee equal pay for men and women. It is also necessary to eliminate laws that prevent women from accessing land ownership, or that impose different inheritance rules for sons and daughters.

The goal of ending the worst forms of gender injustice – such as child marriage, female genital mutilation and preventable maternal deaths – will require a massive investment in women’s rights by governments, donors and companies. But the return on investment in tackling gender injustice will be enormous: the world economy could add $264 billion to its GDP each year, according to Oxfam. This is money well spent, as we can’t achieve a prosperous future without the full participation of women and girls.