The Women's Rights Era: 50 Years of Gender Equality Advocacy and Reform across the Globe

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