Research & Academic Scholarship

The story of the global struggle for women's rights since 1945 is just beginning to be told. For a proper understanding of the continuities and changes in the struggle for women's rights during this period, we need to go back to the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations. In addition, we need to consider more fully the important role of what are now often called traditional women's organizations in advancing women's rights on the international level, at least until 1975.

This paper divides the move for women's rights in the U.S. into three historical phases: (1) the early women's rights movement (1848-1875); (2) the suffrage movement (1890-1920); and, (3) the two ...

Last week, Women’s March announced the fifth action of their Ten Actions in 100 Days campaign — a direct response to the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, which began with the march in Washington D.C. (and marches all over the world) on…

Here's my list, what books are on yours? Send us your favorite, your top five or top 10. Let’s build the nonfiction canon of women’s history! Take a break over the holidays and email us at editors@womensenews.org.

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment by reading some of these 20 books about women's suffrage. Books for all ages are included.

The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (“FOSTA”) rescinded legal immunity for websites that intentionally host user-generated advertisements for sex trafficking. However, Congress’s mechanism of choice to protect sex-trafficking victims has faced critique and backlash from advocates for those involved in commercial sex, who argue that FOSTA’s broad legislative language does far more to harm sex workers—a group distinct from sex-trafficking victims—than it does to end sex trafficking, chilling significant protected speech in the process.

Since 1917, when Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman to serve in Congress, a total of #WIC#Total# women have served as U.S. Representatives, Delegates, Resident Commissioners, or Senators. This website, based on the publication Women in Congress, contains biographical profiles of former women Members of Congress, links to information about current women Members, essays on the institutional and national events that shaped successive generations of Congresswomen, and images of each woman Member, including rare photos.

Nancy Gertner (Harvard Law School)

This guide will mainly focus on the traditional “women’s rights” areas, and discuss the variety of opportunities, issue areas, and practice settings to advocate for women’s rights. However, there are an infinite number of women’s issues to fight for, and an equally large number of avenues in which to advocate for equal justice. Be creative in your thinking, spread wide your research, and find the issue and practice area in which you can most effectively achieve your goals.

The UCLA Journal of Gender and Law is an academic legal journal that uses the power of language to educate people and make women's voices heard.

Rolando T. Acosta, Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division, First Department, discusses the Equal Rights Amendment, which has yet to be incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. New York was one of the first states to ratify the proposed federal ERA in 1972, but has yet to pass a state ERA. He writes: Given the uncertain future of the ERA as an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, women’s rights need to be protected under the New York Constitution.

This bibliography references a selection of English language books and journal articles which link, explicitly or implicitly, women's health and human rights. The works selected articulate a connection between these concepts, as highlighted by the annotations.

The ABA Journal is read by half of the nation's 1 million lawyers every month. It covers the trends, people and finances of the legal profession from Wall Street to Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Timeline of Legal History of Women in the United States 1701 The first sexually integrated jury hears cases in Albany, New York. 1769 American colonies based their laws on the English common law, which was summarized in the Blackstone Commentaries. It said, “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in the law? The […]

"Frequently when women's issues are discussed researched and/or analyzed they do not always take into account additional and separate issues that may be faced by women of color. When it was learned that then-ABA president Hilarie Bass would have as one of her primary initiatives a study and research based on the long-term careers of women in law it occurred to us that the experiences of women of color could be different. After all we could within minutes identify approximately 90 percent of the women of color practicing in firms more than 30 years. This is not a good thing."