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At the dawn of the 21st century's second decade, the issues women face are just as daunting and complex as ever before, from suffrage and equal representations in government, to educational rights, reproductive rights, and religious leadership roles. Even with recent gains by women in the United States and abroad, women still frequently face discrimination and unequal access to the same rights as men. As such, the fight for complete equality continues.Women's Rights, Second Edition provides a history of women's rights, as well as the movements and people that sought to strengthen them. Case st

This paper explores current contestations of women's rights and the implications thereof for international legislation. While contestation over women's rights is a far from new phenomenon, over the past two decades opposition to gender equality has become better organized at the transnational level, mobilizing a dispersed set of state and non-state actors, and is becoming more successful in halting the progress of women's rights. I argue that the position of oppositional actors vis-à-vis women rights activism appears to be strengthened by two recent political developments: democratic backsliding and the closure of civic space. Some preliminary findings show how these interrelated developments lead to an erosion of women's rights at the national level. Governments use low key tactics to dismantle institutional and implementation arrangements and sideline women's organisations. Next, I explore the implications of these developments for gender equality norms at the national and international level. The active strategy of counter norming adopted by conservative and religious state and non-state actors, designed to circumvent and also undermine Western norms, is increasingly successful. In addition to this, the threatened position of domestic actors monitoring compliance of international treaties, makes the chances of backsliding on international commitments much higher.

The convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has been one of the most broadly supported international treaties since its adoption by the United Nations 30 years ago. Since its inception, 186 UN member states have ratified the convention, showing their commitment to achieving gender equality worldwide. It remains a mystery to many, therefore, that, to date, the United States remains one of a small minority of countries that have not ratified this treaty designed to ensure equality between women and men and advance women's rights across the world. What we have chosen to address in this article are arguments against the ratification of CEDAW from the right, which are grounded more in fear than in reality. Adapted from the source document.