Women’s movement is an organized effort to improve women’s lives. Probably the best-known women’s movements are those that involve political efforts to change the roles and status of women in society. Such political movements often are called feminist movements (see Feminism). Women’s groups also work to help others, especially through religious and charitable activities. Whether political, religious, or charitable, women’s movements have sought to achieve greater social, economic, and political involvement for women.
Throughout history, women have usually had fewer rights and a lower social status than men. A woman’s traditional role was that of wife and mother, and most women’s lives centered around their households. Women’s movements first developed during the 1800’s in the United States and Europe. They later spread to other parts of the world. The first women’s movements began mainly in response to the relocation of people from rural areas to cities and towns, and to the industrialization of society. The industrial age brought about great economic and political changes. Those changes altered women’s traditional roles and caused women to question their status. The first wave of women’s movements concentrated on gaining voting rights for women.
A second wave of women’s movements emerged during the 1960’s, another period of great political and social change in many areas of the world. These women’s movements sought greater equality for women in the family, in the workplace, and in political life.
A third wave of women’s movements began in the early 1990’s. Members of these movements believe that, though women share the same sex, they are not necessarily united as a group. The third wave of women’s movements focuses on individual rights. Women and men in this movement organize into groups around specific issues and concerns.
Women’s movements have helped large groups of women to question and determine their rights and responsibilities. The specific goals and methods of these movements have varied from one time and place to another. They also have differed based on local customs regarding the treatment of women, on national political values, and on economic conditions. But in almost every case, women’s movements have won greater freedom for women to act as self-sufficient individuals, rather than as dependent wives or daughters.
Women’s status before 1800
Origins of women’s traditional roles.
Throughout much of history, women in most societies were treated as though they were inferior to men. This situation was often justified as being the natural result of biological differences between the sexes. From earliest times, the fact that only women bear children and nurse infants helped establish a division of tasks between men and women. Women have traditionally assumed most of the responsibility for child care. Men, by contrast, have been free to work at greater distances from their families. In early societies, this division of labor did not necessarily suggest inequality. But in more developed societies, a division of labor between women who worked mainly in the home and men who worked outside the home generally gave men economic superiority. A woman who stayed home came to depend on someone else—usually a man—to earn money for the necessities of life.
Other physical differences also helped define different roles for men and women. For example, women are, on average, smaller and less powerfully muscled than men. Consequently, certain physically demanding or dangerous jobs were considered “men’s work.” Eventually, the division of tasks that had been determined by physical differences became a matter of tradition. Over time, however, machinery largely canceled out the advantage of male strength, and birth control allowed women to regulate their childbearing. Nevertheless, women continued to face barriers to entering many occupations.
The remainder of this section traces the status of women through history. It focuses largely on Western societies, because it is in these societies that women’s movements first arose and had their greatest impact.
In ancient societies,
the lives of most women centered around their households. For example, in the Greek city-state of Athens from about 500 to 300 B.C., women raised children and managed the spinning, weaving, and cooking in the household. Wealthy women supervised slaves in these tasks, but they also did some of the work themselves. Respectable Athenian women seldom left their homes. Only men could purchase goods or engage in soldiering, lawmaking, and public speaking. The societies of ancient Egypt and of the Greek city-state of Sparta provided a rare contrast. Both Egyptian and Spartan women could own property and engage in business.
In ancient Rome, as in Athens, women’s primary role was to manage household affairs. Women could not hold public office. Men dominated as head of the household. But the Romans developed a system of government based on the authority and leadership of a noble class. That class included not only statesmen and military leaders, but also the matrons (married women) of leading Roman families. For example, the Roman matron Cornelia, who lived during the 100’s B.C., achieved fame and respect for her managerial skill, patriotism, and good works. In time, such upper-class women gained greater control over their property and over marriage decisions. However, even these women could not vote or hold public office.
During the Middle Ages,
which lasted from about the A.D. 400’s through the 1400’s, women’s lives continued much as before. Like the Roman matrons, medieval noblewomen managed large households. They supervised servants, oversaw gardens, attended to clothing and furnishings, and entertained guests. Many other women worked as cooks and servants or labored in the pastures and fields of large estates.
However, two new roles for women appeared during the Middle Ages—the nun and the tradeswoman. Convents flourished during the early Middle Ages. They offered primarily upper-class women an alternative to marriage. Convents also provided education, spiritual development, and control over extensive land. Beginning in the 1200’s, women found increasing opportunities for independence as artisans and merchants in the medieval cities of England, France, Germany, and other western European lands.
From the Renaissance to the 1800’s,
fundamental changes in religious and political outlook began to take root. The Renaissance was a period of great cultural and intellectual activity that spread throughout Europe from the 1300’s to about 1600. Leading thinkers began to emphasize the rights of the individual. Humanism, which was the most significant intellectual movement of the Renaissance, stressed the importance of human beings and their nature and place in the universe. Some humanists questioned certain traditional ideas about women. They also favored better education and a more responsible family role for women.
The Reformation, the religious movement of the 1500’s that gave rise to Protestantism, also encouraged a reevaluation of women’s roles. Protestant leaders permitted ministers to marry and began to consider marriage as a relationship of spiritually equal partners. Husbands had less control over the lives of their wives. Protestants also began to view marriage and divorce as matters of individual choice rather than as obligations to such authorities as parents and the church.
The Enlightenment—another period of great intellectual activity—swept Europe in the 1600’s and 1700’s. During this era, educated women participated in intellectual and political debates. In Paris, gatherings called salons promoted conversation and discussion among learned men and women. The salons widened these women’s view of society and their possible roles in it.
Women’s roles as workers also expanded during the Enlightenment. In western Europe and the American Colonies, women worked as innkeepers, midwives, printers, servants, teachers, and textile workers. But rural occupations continued to employ the largest group of female, and male, workers. Rural women toiled as laborers on large farms and in their own small gardens and cottages. Both urban and rural women engaged in knitting, sewing, and other cottage (home) industries that made vital contributions to household income.
The rise of women’s movements
Forces of change.
Several developments during the late 1700’s and early 1800’s set the stage for the rise of women’s movements. The thinkers of the Enlightenment questioned established political and religious authority and stressed the importance of reason, equality, and liberty. The new intellectual atmosphere helped justify women’s rights to full citizenship. On the eve of the French Revolution (1789-1799), the Marquis de Condorcet, a French philosopher, spoke in favor of women’s right to vote. The British author Mary Wollstonecraft argued for women’s rationality and equality with men in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
In the American Colonies, the American Revolution (1775-1783), fought in the name of liberty and equality, raised the hopes of some women. Women supported the war with their sewing and farming, and by boycotting British goods and engaging in other forms of protest. Although neither the American nor the French revolutions increased women’s rights, these conflicts helped raise the idea of equality.
The spread of industrialization during the 1800’s also affected women. The Industrial Revolution moved men’s, women’s, and children’s work out of the home and into factories (see Industrial Revolution). Factory jobs offered working-class women an opportunity to earn wages. But if a woman was married, her husband legally controlled her earnings.
Industrialization had a different effect on middle-class women in small towns and cities. With the separation of work and home, these women lost a sense of useful involvement in productive work. They became regarded as “ladies” whose place was in the home, while their husbands provided the family income. Many of these women turned to needlework and craftwork, as well as to religious and charitable activities, to occupy their time. 
The beginnings of women’s movements.
Before women’s movements emerged, women began to form many kinds of groups based on common interests. After the French Revolution, for example, various women’s political clubs appeared in both France and the United Kingdom. In the United States, women formed temperance societies, which campaigned to abolish alcoholic beverages. They also formed missionary societies, which supported the spread of Christianity.
In the United States and the United Kingdom, two major types of women’s movements gradually developed: (1) “social,” or “domestic,” women’s movements and (2) “equal rights” feminist groups. Women’s social movements carried out religious, charitable, and social activities. Equal rights feminists primarily worked to remove educational and political barriers to women, and to change women’s roles.
Before the American Civil War (1861-1865), many American women’s movements were of the social type. These included societies to promote temperance, to aid poor women and orphans, and to send missionaries to Indian reservations or to foreign lands. Women formed similar religious and charitable associations in the United Kingdom before 1860 and in other Western countries during the late 1800’s.
Fewer groups were centered on gaining equal rights for women. But such groups had a clear goal of improving the situation of women. They worked for such reforms as better education for girls, support for women’s property rights, and voting rights for women.
Women’s educational opportunities gradually expanded throughout the 1800’s. In 1821, an American teacher named Emma Willard founded the Troy Female Seminary (now the Emma Willard School) in Troy, New York. Willard’s school was one of the first institutions to offer girls a high-school education. In 1833, the Oberlin Collegiate Institute (now Oberlin College) opened as the first coeducational college in the United States. In 1881, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) was founded to promote women’s educational rights. By 1900, some major European and American universities were accepting women for advanced study and professional training. 
Women’s efforts to secure legal rights, particularly property rights, also brought reform. In the United States, many states enacted property laws during the 1840’s and 1850’s. Such laws allowed married women to make contracts, to own property, to control their own earnings, and to have joint custody of their children. For example, in 1848 a New York law gave married women the right to retain control of their own real estate and personal property. The new laws especially aided widowed, deserted, and mistreated wives. Similar legislation passed in the United Kingdom and other Western countries during the middle and late 1800’s. 
In 1848, the social reformers Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first women’s rights convention in the United States in Seneca Falls, New York. The convention adopted a Declaration of Sentiments, which called for women to receive “all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.” National women’s rights conventions met almost every year from 1850 until the Civil War began in 1861. The delegates discussed the rights of women regarding divorce, guardianship of children, property control, voting, and other concerns. Many of the equal rights feminists were also leaders in the movement to abolish slavery.
The right to vote.
The issue of suffrage (the right to vote) became increasingly important to women during the 1800’s. In the United States, the cause of woman suffrage was championed by two key organizations: the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Stanton and the women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony led the NWSA, founded in 1869. The more radical organization of the two, the NWSA demanded equal education, equal employment opportunities, and voting rights for women immediately. The women’s rights leader Lucy Stone, her husband, Henry Blackwell, and other reformers formed the AWSA, also in 1869. The more moderate AWSA supported gradual advances, such as limited suffrage for women in local elections. 
In 1890, the two organizations joined to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Suffragists (supporters of suffrage for women) held conventions, waged state-by-state campaigns, and distributed literature to win support for their cause. They also employed new methods of campaigning used by British women suffragists—especially parades and outdoor speeches. 
Support from both social and equal rights women’s movements proved necessary to the final suffrage victory. Women’s social movements—temperance organizations, women’s clubs, and progressive reformers—realized that they needed the vote to reach their goals. Equal rights feminists appealed to women laborers and to professional and college-educated women, all of whom had an interest in securing political power and more responsible and better-paying jobs. In 1920, the United States adopted the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting American women the right to vote.
Suffrage movements also arose in other Western countries during the 1800’s and early 1900’s. In 1893, New Zealand became the first nation to grant women full voting rights. Australia gave women the right to vote in federal elections in 1902. Swedish women with property could vote in city elections in 1862. Sweden granted women full suffrage in 1921. In the United Kingdom, the suffrage movement began in the 1860’s, though women did not win full voting rights until 1928. See Woman suffrage. Loading the player...
Christabel Pankhurst's speech
Birth control
also emerged as an important issue for women during the early 1900’s. At that time, the distribution of birth control information was illegal in the United States. A number of social reformers supported birth control as a way to relieve poverty. Margaret Sanger, a trained nurse, led the birth control movement in the United States. By the 1920’s, her work had helped make it possible for doctors to legally give out birth control information. 
Decline after 1920.
By 1920, the first wave of women’s movements had peaked in the United States. With suffrage finally granted, many women assumed that the need for women’s movements had disappeared. A period of relative inactivity followed. The NAWSA became the League of Women Voters, and the group’s mission changed to educating women about political issues.
In some countries, including Belgium, France, and Italy, the struggle for woman suffrage continued into the 1940’s. But in those nations, too, feminist activity declined after women gained the right to vote.
During World War II (1939-1945), several million American women took factory production jobs to aid the war effort. However, after the war ended, these women were urged to leave the work force to make room for the returning servicemen. Devotion to home and family and the rejection of a career emerged as the ideal image for women. This view of womanhood, examined by the American author Betty Friedan in her book The Feminine Mystique (1963), all but replaced any organized struggle for women’s rights until the 1960’s. 
A second wave of women’s movements
In the United States,
a new wave of women’s movements emerged during the 1960’s. Civil rights protests throughout the country, student protests around the world, and women’s rebellion against the middle-class housewife’s role contributed to this second wave. It began with women’s examination of their personal lives and developed into a program for social and political change. Women’s groups discovered discrimination in the workplace, where women received lower pay and fewer promotions than men. They also uncovered barriers to women seeking political office and to female students striving for high academic achievement. 
Women’s organizations.
Two types of women’s groups appeared in the United States during the 1960’s. One type consisted of small, informal women’s liberation groups, which were first formed by female students active in the civil rights movement and in radical political organizations. These groups tended to be leaderless. They focused on self-awareness and on open discussion to combat discrimination and to establish greater equality between men and women in marriage, child-rearing, education, and employment. See Sex discrimination.
Large, formal organizations developed alongside the small women’s liberation groups. These organizations, known as women’s rights groups, campaigned for the passage and strict enforcement of equal rights laws. President John F. Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women, founded in 1961, discovered a number of legal barriers to women’s equality. It reported on laws that barred women from jury service, excluded women from certain occupations, and, in general, kept women from enjoying their full rights as citizens. In 1966, feminist leaders, including Friedan, formed the National Organization for Women (NOW) to fight sexual discrimination. See National Organization for Women.
Other women’s rights organizations also appeared. The Women’s Equity Action League, founded in 1968, monitored educational programs to detect inequalities in faculty pay and promotion. The organization also drew attention to what was called the “chilly classroom climate,” an environment that discouraged discussion and participation by female students. The National Women’s Political Caucus, formed in 1971, focused on finding and supporting women candidates for political office. 
Other groups worked to combat such problems as violence against women. They established crisis and self-help centers. In 1975, women in Philadelphia held a rally and walk called Take Back the Night, to call attention to sexual and domestic violence against women. Since then, women across the United States and throughout the world have held their own Take Back the Night events. The event is sometimes observed under the name Reclaim the Night.
U.S. women’s groups also worked with the government, educational institutions, and the media to empower women and raise awareness of women’s accomplishments. In 1987, the National Women’s History Project, an educational nonprofit organization, successfully petitioned the U.S. Congress to designate March as Women’s History Month. The event is an observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. It coincides with International Women’s Day (March 8), which was first celebrated in Europe in the early 1900’s.
Legal gains.
The second wave of women’s movements brought about many important legal gains for American women. Several laws passed during the 1960’s and 1970’s aimed at providing equal rights for women. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 requires equal pay for men and women doing the same work. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits job discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as on the basis of color, race, national origin, and religion. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bans discrimination on the basis of sex by schools and colleges receiving federal funds. This law applies to discrimination in all areas of school activity, including admissions, athletics, and educational programs. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act took effect in 1975. It prohibits banks, stores, and other organizations from discriminating on the basis of sex or marital status in making loans or granting credit. 
Court rulings also expanded women’s legal rights in the United States. In 1986, for example, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that sexual harassment is a form of discrimination prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sexual harassment consists of unwelcome sexual requests or comments from an employer, teacher, or other person in a position of power. See Sexual harassment.
One of the most controversial rulings to affect women was the 1973 Supreme Court decision in the case Roe v. Wade. The ruling established women’s unrestricted right to abortion during the first three months of pregnancy. In 2022, however, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade in another controversial case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Dobbs ruling permitted states to ban abortion. NOW and a number of other women’s groups have consistently opposed measures to limit women’s legal access to abortion. Other women, however, favor tighter restrictions on the availability of abortion, including a total ban on abortions. See Abortion; Roe v. Wade.
Not all efforts to broaden women’s rights were successful. In 1972, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The proposed amendment read: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” Supporters of the ERA argued that the amendment would provide specific constitutional guarantees of equal treatment under the law, regardless of sex. Opponents, who included the political activist Phyllis Schlafly and many other women, argued that passage of the ERA would require women to serve in the military and would deprive them of the right to financial support from their husbands. The amendment failed to pass because only 35 of the necessary 38 states had approved it by the 1982 deadline. See Equal Rights Amendment.
In Canada.
Women’s movements in Canada experienced a revival in the 1960’s and 1970’s with the formation of a number of women’s liberation groups and women’s rights organizations. The groups focused on raising consciousness about women’s issues and establishing such local institutions as rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters.
The groups also mounted a campaign urging the government to look into the problems of women in Canada. In 1967, the government appointed a Royal Commission on the Status of Women. The commission investigated a variety of issues in women’s lives, including employment and family law, and issued a lengthy report. In response to the report, the Canadian government created a ministry, now known as Status of Women Canada, to address such issues.
Women’s groups worked, too, for employment and pay equity and to stop violence against women. The Native Women’s Association of Canada, established in 1974, works to advance the rights and status of First Nations and Métis women and their families through policy analysis and advocacy. In 1985, Canada’s Indian Act was revised so that Indian women who married non-Indian men did not lose their Indian status. See Canada (People).
In Europe.
During the second half of the 1900’s, attitudes toward women’s rights and the development of women’s movements differed in Western and Eastern Europe.
Western Europe.
Much of Western Europe experienced a new wave of women’s movements beginning in the 1960’s, just as the United States and Canada did. France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and other Western European countries instituted a variety of social welfare programs, including child care; before- and after-school programs for children; and parental leave from work for pregnancy, childbirth, or the care of sick family members.
In the United Kingdom, such women’s groups as the Fawcett Society, whose roots date back to 1866, joined striking women workers to help enact the Equal Pay Act of 1970. The United Kingdom’s first national women’s liberation conference was held in Oxford, England, that same year. In 1975, the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in the United Kingdom. The law established the Equal Opportunities Commission, which focused on gender equality. Also in the 1970’s, a number of women’s rights groups were established, including Women’s Aid, which works to fight domestic violence. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, a number of laws about sexual discrimination in work and education were passed and amended. 
Eastern Europe.
Many countries in which Communists had taken over the government in the first half of the 1900’s had granted women equal rights and benefits. These policy changes often occurred long before women in Western societies obtained such rights. In 1918, for example, the Soviet Union instituted maternity leave, government-funded child care, equal pay for equal work, equal education, and the right to hold any political office. Women gained similar rights in East Germany (now part of Germany) in 1949. See Communism.
Beginning in the late 1980’s, Communists lost control of the governments of the Soviet Union and many Eastern European nations. In 1991, most of the Soviet republics declared their independence, and the Soviet Union was dissolved. Economic reforms by the new Eastern European governments often included cuts in such programs as government-funded child care. In addition, unemployment caused by the economic reforms affected more women than men in these countries.
In Australia and New Zealand.
In Australia, the feminist writer Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch, published in 1970, helped shape the women’s movement. The book called upon women to liberate themselves from traditional social roles and from control by men.
During the 1970’s, the Australian government passed a number of laws affecting women, including a child care act, an equal pay act, mothers’ benefits and maternity legislation, and a law that made marital rape (forcing a spouse to have sexual intercourse) illegal. Australia’s International Women’s Day march in Melbourne in 1972 brought attention to women’s demands for the right to work, equal pay and child care, and for contraceptive and abortion rights. In the same decade, women activists successfully lobbied the government to fund the country’s first rape crisis and battered women’s centers. Australia’s first national conference on domestic violence was held in 1985.
Women in both Australia and New Zealand established a Women’s Electoral Lobby in the 1970’s to work on issues of concern to women. Such issues included increasing employment opportunities and increasing the participation of women in politics.
In developing countries.
In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, few organized women’s movements emerged before the 1990’s. In some areas of the Middle East and northern Africa, men’s and women’s activities had long been segregated because of long-standing traditions or religious beliefs. In some developing countries, religious, political, and economic differences within and between regions discouraged women from forming groups. 
A new wave of women’s movements
The distinction between “social rights groups” and “equal rights groups” diminished over time. As a new wave of women’s movements began in the 1990’s, many groups came to include men. These groups work both on securing equal rights and on helping others. Such goals as peace and nonviolence, economic security, and community empowerment became an additional focus of many women’s movements.
By 2015, women in every country except Vatican City had the right to vote. Roman Catholic cardinals, all men, elect the pope as absolute ruler of Vatican City. More than half of all countries had equal pay laws, and a majority of national constitutions guaranteed gender equality. However, the gap between law and practice continues to exist in some countries. Also, women continue to be under-represented in political bodies.
In the United States and Canada.
Many women’s groups in the United States in the 1990’s began to work for the enactment of social welfare laws that provide benefits through family and community programs. Such programs as child care and before- and after-school care for children enable women to take advantage of equal employment opportunities. Policies regarding leave from work for pregnancy, childbirth, or the care of sick family members benefit men and women alike. In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed a law that requires companies with 50 or more employees to offer at least 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees with a sick family member, a newborn infant, or a recently adopted child.
Similarly, the AAUW redefined equal pay for women as a family issue rather than solely a women’s issue. The organization’s efforts contributed to the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act of 2009. The act gives employees affected by pay discrimination 180 days after any discriminatory paycheck to file a claim—not just after the first discriminatory paycheck.
In Canada, women’s activism and advocacy led to revisions in the country’s family laws to provide for greater equality between spouses. Canadian men and women now share the cost of marriage and divorce, have equal access to social assistance, and are equally subject to the enforcement of child and spousal support rulings.
Women’s groups in the United States and Canada also continued their efforts to empower and recognize women with special cultural programs. In 1992, Canada began celebrating Women’s History Month each October.
In other countries.
In various European nations, women’s groups have continued to focus on women’s issues. In the United Kingdom, for example, women’s groups worked to ensure passage of the Equality Act of 2010. The law forbids discrimination based on sex, as well as on age, disability, sex reassignment (sex change), sexual orientation, same-sex marriage and civil partnership, race, and religion or belief.
The French Coordination for the European Women’s Lobby, established in 1991, worked for the passage of a law in France that requires an equal number of men and women candidates on political party slates. The Swedish Women’s Lobby, established in 1997, unites women’s groups to combat all forms of discrimination against women and girls. Women’s rights activists in Sweden also focused in the 2000’s on a form of violence against women called honor killings. An honor killing is a tradition among some cultures in which a family member kills a female relative because he or she believes the woman has damaged the family’s reputation.
Eastern European women now face many of the same concerns as women in Western Europe, and they have formed their own groups. Serbia’s Women in Black, established in 1991, works for peace with justice by organizing nonviolent vigils. It was modeled after the first such group, founded in Israel in 1988. The Feminist League of Kazakhstan, formed in 1993, works to promote women’s equality in legal rights and other areas. In addition, the Network of East-West Women, organized by women from 30 countries in 1991, supports the formation of independent women’s movements to promote women’s rights in the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Central Europe.
Women’s groups throughout Europe have also banded together to work for common goals. Groups from many European nations belong to the European Women’s Lobby, the largest umbrella organization of women’s associations in the European Union. Among other projects, the group works to increase the representation of women in the European Parliament. Other umbrella organizations include the European Feminist Initiative, established in France in 2003.
In Australia, women’s groups helped establish March as Women’s History Month. The observance has been an annual event since 2000. In 2010, the Australian government began funding six national women’s alliances. These organizations aim to reduce violence against women, increase women’s economic security, and ensure women’s equal place in society.
Women from the developing world began banding together in the 1990’s. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, despite regional differences that had long kept them apart, these women realized that they share some common concerns. Women’s groups in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America formed over such concerns as food shortages, the poverty of women and children, inadequate housing, unsanitary conditions, lack of access to quality health care, and women’s property rights and inheritance laws.
The Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR), a coalition of more than 35 civil society organizations across the continent, was established in 2004. SOAWR works to ensure that the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa remains on the agenda of policymakers. The protocol, adopted by the African Union in 2003, asserts women’s legal, political, and reproductive rights.
In a number of South Asian countries, a common form of violence against women had long been acid attacks. Such attacks generally stem from family and property disputes. In 1999, the Acid Survivors Foundation was established in Bangladesh to help victims.
Asian women have also been attacked for seeking education or going out in public. In Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old schoolgirl and campaigner for girls’ education, brought worldwide attention to the issue of discrimination and violence against women in 2012. That year, she survived a murder attempt by the Taliban, a militant Islamic group that had banned girls in her district from attending school. In 2014, Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work. Women have also died as a result of honor killings and stoning in places where local cultures permit the practices, or where laws are poorly enforced.
In some countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, women are still subjected to a traditional practice called genital mutilation or female circumcision. The practice involves intentional injury to a girl’s external sex organs. A worldwide effort has attempted to abolish the practice.
From the early 1990’s to the early 2000’s, many countries in Latin America passed laws with sanctions against domestic violence. In 1994, the Organization of American States, which includes Latin America, adopted a convention on the prevention, punishment, and eradication of violence against women.
Impact of women’s movements
Women’s movements have had an impact on all levels of society and in many areas of the world. Women’s groups have changed people’s views about male and female roles. These changes have affected the workplace, the family, and the way women live their lives. Through the vote, women’s groups have influenced election results, legislation, and government. 
On the fight for human rights.
International human rights organizations have long worked to improve the lives of women, in response to women’s movements. For example, the United Nations declared 1975 International Women’s Year and held the first World Conference on Women in Mexico City. Since then, a number of World Conferences on Women have been held. Conference participants have discussed such issues as gender equality, women’s property and inheritance rights, violence against women, economic development and security, and global peace.
In 1979, the UN adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a document that has been described as an international bill of rights for women. In 2010, the UN created the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to accelerate progress in achieving those goals. See United Nations. The UN also adopted a resolution in 2011 declaring October 11 the International Day of the Girl Child. The annual observation was established to recognize girls’ rights and to elevate the status of girls throughout the world.
During the 1980’s and 1990’s, a number of international women’s organizations were established to help empower women. The Global Fund for Women invests in women-led organizations. Equality Now works with the Women’s Action Network to document violence and discrimination against women. Women for Women International operates in war-torn countries to empower women survivors of war and civil conflicts by providing direct aid and skills training.
On women’s lives.
The greatest single change in women’s lives as a result of women’s movements may be the growing participation of women in the paid labor force. In the United States, the percentage of women in the work force rose from about one-third in the mid-1900’s to about three-fifths in the early 2010’s. Women’s movements have contributed to an increasing acceptance of careers for all women. The change in policy from maternity leave to parental leave in such progressive nations as Sweden has encouraged both women and men to participate in paid work, as well as in family care responsibilities.
Women’s movements have also brought about better access to health care for women throughout the world. Such services as family planning programs are now more widely available and are provided in ways that are sensitive to local culture and that protect privacy.
Still, long-standing differences between the sexes in job opportunities and earnings continue. In most nations, a low percentage of women hold high-level corporate positions. The majority of women’s work opportunities still fall within a narrow range of such occupations as nursing, teaching, retail sales, and clerical work.
Largely because of lower pay in these “women’s” jobs, women working full-time continue to earn less than men. According to the AAUW, in the United States in the early 2010’s, the average full-time female worker earned about 80 percent of the amount male workers earned. In southern and western Asia and in northern Africa, only 20 to 25 percent of non-agricultural workers were women. Furthermore, women throughout the world continue to face the “double burden” of being the primary homemaker while working outside the home.
On attitudes and values.
Women’s movements have brought about broad cultural changes that reflect new attitudes toward the roles of men and women. They also point to a growing equality between the sexes. For example, in some developing countries, where expectations for children’s education are still biased in favor of boys, such norms are being challenged by urbanization and greater access to information. More women and girls today can read and write.
In the United States in 2013, the Defense Department lifted its ban on women serving in direct combat roles. There had long been opposition to such a role for women. Detractors questioned whether women have the necessary strength and stamina for certain jobs and whether their presence might hurt unit cohesion. The new policy opened up hundreds of thousands of jobs—many in Army and Marine infantry units—to U.S. women.
Since the mid-1900’s, women have served as heads of government and heads of state in dozens of countries, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman in the United States to be nominated for president by a major political party. In many countries, the number of women in law and medicine has risen dramatically. In the 2010’s, women made up more than half of all university graduates in Europe and in the United States. 
Women’s movement activism has led to changing attitudes toward domestic violence as well. More people now understand that violence and the threat of violence affect women’s freedom, health, and rights.
Changing attitudes about the roles of women and men have also affected the way people conduct their everyday lives. For example, many men now take a more active role in parenting. More husbands now join their wives in natural childbirth classes. Some men take parental leave from work or choose to work part-time when they become new fathers. The involvement of men in supporting and working for gender equality has increased. So, too, has the awareness that gender bias can also harm men and boys.
All of these changes have had an impact on language as well. During the middle to late 1900’s, various media sources—from textbook publishers to newspaper editors—began replacing language that uses male forms to represent everyone with more neutral language. For example, fireman became firefighter, and policeman, police officer.
In the early 2000’s, the MeToo social movement focused attention worldwide on the issue of sexual harassment and violence against women. Beginning in 2017, numerous women used the social networking website Twitter (now called X) to share their personal experiences of sexual harassment and violence. The movement encouraged and supported survivors of such crimes. It also resulted in professional and legal actions against individuals accused of such crimes in a variety of fields, including education, entertainment, government, and publishing.
