Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of acronyms
- Foreword: A Historic Moment for Women’s Rights
- Introduction: Revolutions and Rights
- Part 1 A Revolution In Thinking: Women’S Rights Are Human Rights
- Part 2 Revolutions And Transitions
- Part 3 Conflict Zones
- Part 4 The Economies Of Rights: Education, Work, And Property
- Part 5 Violence Against Women
- Part 6 Women And Health
- Part 7 Political Constraints And Harmful Traditions
- Part 8 The Next Frontier: A Road Map To Rights
- Afterword The Revolution Continues
- Notes
- Suggestions For Further Reading
- Acknowledgments
- Index
Foreword: A Historic Moment for Women’s Rights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of acronyms
- Foreword: A Historic Moment for Women’s Rights
- Introduction: Revolutions and Rights
- Part 1 A Revolution In Thinking: Women’S Rights Are Human Rights
- Part 2 Revolutions And Transitions
- Part 3 Conflict Zones
- Part 4 The Economies Of Rights: Education, Work, And Property
- Part 5 Violence Against Women
- Part 6 Women And Health
- Part 7 Political Constraints And Harmful Traditions
- Part 8 The Next Frontier: A Road Map To Rights
- Afterword The Revolution Continues
- Notes
- Suggestions For Further Reading
- Acknowledgments
- Index
Summary
To the one who makes the lonely feel they are not alone, who satisfies those who hunger and thirst for justice, who makes the oppressor feel as bad as the oppressed… . may her example multiply,
May she still have difficult days ahead, so that she can do whatever she needs to do, so that the next generation will not have to strive for what has already been accomplished.
—Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, from his poem “To Shirin Ebadi,” read at the Nobel Peace Prize concert in 2003
In October 2011, the Norwegian Nobel Committee named three women winners of the Nobel Peace Prize—an award won by only a dozen women since 1901. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, her compatriot Leymah Gbowee, and Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman were honored “for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights,” in a declaration that was clearly intended to send the message that the moment for women and girls to achieve basic rights had arrived.
The Peace Prize citation proclaimed, “We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.” As the Nobel Committee emphasized, this moment is as dramatic as any in recent decades for women and girls.
I have been a foreign correspondent for almost three decades in just about every war zone there is. I have made my living in an overwhelmingly male profession, bearing witness to some of the most horrific events of the end of the last century. In this time, we have seen enormous changes in law and practice, with measurable progress in women’s ability to get an education, to work, and to make decisions about their own bodies.
Yet as this book seeks to explain, in much of the world, basic rights such as control over their lives and access to health care remain far out of reach for millions of women and girls.
In India, some state governments can’t be bothered to count the number of women dying from preventable causes in pregnancy and childbirth. In the United States, rape victims are denied justice through bureaucratic inertia. In Somalia, warlords and famine—yet again—threaten women’s lives and families.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Unfinished RevolutionVoices from the Global Fight for Women's Rights, pp. xv - xviiiPublisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2012