's rights in autocracy
A01=Jennifer Piscopo
abortion policy
Author_Jennifer Piscopo
care work
Category=JBSF1
Category=JP
democratic decline
ending violence against women
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equality between women and men
family law
feminism and care
First World Conference on Women
forthcoming
gender policy
how do we enshrine women's autonomy in institutions
how do we envisage a feminist future
institutional frameworks for feminism
political representation
progress in women's rights
reproductive freedom
reproductive rights
Roe v. Wade
women and electoral politics
women's paid labour
women's participation in constitutional processes
women's rights advocacy
women's rights reform
women's rights today
women's unwaged labour
world politics and women
Product details
- ISBN 9781509566754
- Publication Date: 16 Oct 2026
- Publisher: Polity Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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In 1975, delegates from 133 countries and over 6,000 activists travelled to Mexico City for the United Nations' First World Conference on Women. The Mexico City conference inaugurated the women's rights era: five decades of significant and consequential transnational organizing for women's rights. At the international level, women activists forged agreements across geography and difference. They crafted policy documents like the 1995 Platform for Action, adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. These documents became the era's feminist blueprints, shaping women activists’ demands for gender equality.
Across the globe, remarkable changes followed. Discriminatory statutes fell, laws defined and sanctioned violence against women, and millions of women gained access to income, credit, and land ownership. Women entered parliament in record numbers and became presidents and prime ministers. By 2025, women in most countries enjoyed more on-paper rights and freedoms than they did fifty years before.
This book narrates an era characterized by two intertwined stories. First, the work of women activists, especially Global South women, to create international normative frameworks that enumerate women's rights. Second, how women activists then leveraged these blueprints to win national policy reforms. The book charts women's protagonism in the global arena and within their home countries, focusing on six policy areas: government, elections, labour force participation, family and care work, reproductive rights, and violence against women. While the road to gender equality is not linear, the achievements during the women's rights era recall the enduring link between advocacy and reform.
Across the globe, remarkable changes followed. Discriminatory statutes fell, laws defined and sanctioned violence against women, and millions of women gained access to income, credit, and land ownership. Women entered parliament in record numbers and became presidents and prime ministers. By 2025, women in most countries enjoyed more on-paper rights and freedoms than they did fifty years before.
This book narrates an era characterized by two intertwined stories. First, the work of women activists, especially Global South women, to create international normative frameworks that enumerate women's rights. Second, how women activists then leveraged these blueprints to win national policy reforms. The book charts women's protagonism in the global arena and within their home countries, focusing on six policy areas: government, elections, labour force participation, family and care work, reproductive rights, and violence against women. While the road to gender equality is not linear, the achievements during the women's rights era recall the enduring link between advocacy and reform.
Jennifer M. Piscopo is Professor of Gender and Politics at Royal Holloway University of London.
