What are women’s human rights?

Women’s rights are the fundamental human rights that were enshrined by the United Nations for every
human being on the planet nearly 70 years ago. These rights include the right to live free from violence,
slavery, and discrimination; to be educated; to own property; to vote; and to earn a fair and equal wage.

As the now-famous saying goes, “women’s rights are human rights.” That is to say, women are entitled
to all of these rights. Yet almost everywhere around the world, women and girls are still denied them,
often simply because of their gender.

Winning rights for women is about more than giving opportunities to any individual woman or girl; it is
also about changing how countries and communities work. It involves changing laws and policies,
winning hearts and minds, and investing in strong women’s organizations and movements.

Global Fund for Women exists to support the tireless and courageous efforts of women’s groups who
work every day to win rights for women and girls. These groups are working to ensure women can own
property, vote, run for office, get paid fair wages, and live free from violence – including domestic
violence, sexual assault, and harmful practices such as female genital mutilation.\

Gender equality is at the very heart of human rights and United Nations values. A fundamental principle
of the United Nations Charter adopted by world leaders in 1945 is "equal rights of men and women",
and protecting and promoting women's human rights is the responsibility of all States. The High
Commissioner for Human Rights recently pledged to be a Geneva Gender Champion committing to
advance gender equality in OHCHR and in international fora.

Yet millions of women around the world continue to experience discrimination:

 Laws and policies prohibit women from equal access to land, property, and housing
 Economic and social discrimination results in fewer and poorer life choices for women,
rendering them vulnerable to trafficking
 Gender-based violence affects at least 30% of women globally
 Women are denied their sexual and reproductive health rights
 Women human rights defenders are ostracized by their communities and seen as a threat
to religion, honour or culture
 Women’s crucial role in peace and security is often overlooked, as are the particular risks
they face in conflict situations

The term women's rights refers to freedoms and entitlements of women and girls of all ages.

These rights may or may not be institutionalized, ignored or suppressed by law, local custom, and
behavior in a particular society. These liberties are grouped together and differentiated from broader
notions of human rights because they often differ from the freedoms inherently possessed by or
recognized for men and boys, and because activists for this issue claim an inherent historical and
traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls.

• Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to,
the right: to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote (suffrage); to hold public office; to work; to
fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to education; to serve in the military or be
conscripted; to enter into legal contracts and to have marital, parental and religious
rights.Women and their supporters have campaigned and in some places continue to campaign
for the same rights as men.
• According to English Common Law, which developed from the 12th Century onward all property
which a wife held at the time of a marriage became a possession of her husband. Eventually
English courts forbid a husband's transferring property without the consent of his wife, but he
still retained the right to manage it and to receive the money which it produced. "French
married women suffered from restrictions on their legal capacity which were removed only in
1965." In the 16th century, the Reformation in Europe allowed more women to add their voices,
including the English writers Jane Anger, Aemilia Lanyer, and the prophetess Anna Trapnell.
Despite relatively greater freedom for Anglo-Saxon women, until the mid-nineteenth century,
writers largely assumed that a patriarchal order was a natural order that had existed. This
perception was not seriously challenged until the eighteenth century when Jesuit missionaries
found matrilineality in native North American peoples

• In the late 18th Century the question of women's rights became central to political debates in
both France and Britain.

• During the 19th Century women began to agitate for the right to vote and participate in
government and law making. The ideals of women's suffrage developed alongside that of
universal suffrage and today women's suffrage is considered a right (under the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women).

• During the 19th Century the right to vote was gradually extended in many countries and women
started to campaign for their right to vote. In 1893 New Zealand became the first country to give
women the right to vote on a national level. Australia gave women the right to vote in 1902,
while the USA, Britain and Canada gave women the vote after the First World War.Sweden
would also be a contestant as the first independent nation to grant women the right to vote.
Conditional female suffrage was granted in Sweden during the age of liberty (1718–1771)

• In the subsequent decades women's rights again became an important issue in the English
speaking world. By the 1960s the movement was called "feminism" or "women's liberation."
Reformers wanted the same pay as men, equal rights in law, and the freedom to plan their
families or not have children at all. Their efforts were met with mixed results.

• In the UK, a public groundswell of opinion in favour of legal equality had gained pace, partly
through the extensive employment of women in what were traditional male roles during both
world wars.

• Over the course of the 20th century women took on greater roles in society such as serving in
government. In the United States some served as U.S. Senators and others as members of the
U.S. Cabinet. Many women took advantage of opportunities in higher education. In the United
States at the beginning of the 20th century less than 20% of all college degrees were earned by
women. By the end of the century this figure had risen to about 50%.

• Progress was made in professional opportunities. Fields such as medicine, law, and science
opened to include more women. At the beginning of the 20th century about 5% of the doctors
in the United States were women. As of 2006, over 38% of all doctors in the United States were
women, and today, women make almost 50% of the medical student population. While the
numbers of women in these fields increased, many women still continued to hold clerical,
factory, retail, or service jobs. For example, they worked as office assistants, on assembly lines,
or as cooks

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948, enshrines "the equal rights of men
and women", and addressed both the equality and equity issues. In 1979 the United Nations
General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW )