Women, Gender, and Sex History & Rights

The UN Women policy brief series synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on key policy areas around gender equality and women’s rights in an accessible format. The series aims to bridge the research and policy divide by identifying issues that require urgent policy attention and propose a set of suitable measures to address them. The series is a joint effort of UN Women’s Policy Division, coordinated by the Research and Data Section. To ensure the quality and relevance of the content, each brief undergoes a rigorous internal and external peer review process. These concise and relevant policy-oriented documents are useful resources for gender equality advocates, civil society and other policy actors working to achieve gender equality and women’s rights.

Browse the list of issues and latest articles from Women's History Review

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.

The Asian presence in North America predates the 13 colonies declaration of independence from Great Britain. However, since the beginning, Asian Americans have faced racism, exclusion, xenophobia or they have been upheld as a model minority. In either circumstance, prevailing racist and sexist stereotypes have created the perception of the Asian American as the other, and, as a result, their lives and issues are practically invisible to mainstream America.

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 ...

An analysis of nearly 1 million dissertations over a 40-year period reveals a bias against "feminine" research. The bias limits careers.

The women’s suffrage movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. It took activists and reformers nearly 100

These leaders — Black, Latina, Asian, Arab, Native American — in varied fields, broke both gender and racial barriers as they made … Continue reading Women’s History Month: Women of color whose names you should know →

From a plea to a founding father, to the suffragists to Title IX, to the first female political figures, women have blazed a steady trail towards equality in the United States.

“All across the West, women were voting by the millions before 1920," one historian says, adding a caveat: They typically had to be white, too.

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In commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment, with which women first won the right to vote, the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission came together with one simple but ambitious goal: To educate Americans about women’s often-ignored U.S. history.

Girl power.

In 1977, women told the U.S. government what they wanted. In 2017, they're making the exact same demands.

If you have no idea which wave of feminism we’re in right now, read this.

Racism and sexism were bound together in the fight to vote – and Black women made it clear they would never cede the question of their voting rights to others

With millions of people disenfranchised along racist lines, this is no time for uncomplicated commemoration.

A list of the top 100 women of history on the web, arranged in the sequence of their popularity in web searches.

Not every woman whose head scrapes the glass ceiling responds by burning her bra. These five feminist movements highlight proactive efforts to change gender stereotypes and claim equality for women in the boardroom, bedroom and voting booth.

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion endured stifling segregation while serving in World War II, but brought order to chaos by improving vital mail delivery for armed forces in Europe.

A timeline of women's rights from 1769 to the fall of Roe v. Wade

Explore the many ways in which Latina women have broken gender and cultural barriers.

Here are some of the names of Asian-American women that students in the United States may not learn about in school.

Women-led demonstrations have altered history, from the French Revolution to the present day