Women’s rights in Asia and elsewhere – a fact or an illusion?

Abstract

More than one-third of the world’s population resides in Asia. China and India have the largest population densities and the focus of this article is on these two countries. In the seventeenth century, women were globally treated as inferior and subordinate to men. Women had to listen to their fathers, husbands, and sons, and they could not inherit business or wealth. Starting in the eighteenth century and continuing in the nineteenth century, women’s rights became central to political debates in Europe which demanded human rights, leading to the Women’s Rights Movement. The Feminist movement began in the twentieth century, which focused on the reproductive rights of women. In the twentieth century, various Declarations have been signed by the United Nations to offer both gender equity and equality to women in the world, but unfortunately many of them have not been put into practice in Asia. In the twenty-first century, the feminist movement is focusing more on women having the power to decide the course of their lives. We still have to overcome challenges of unequal economic opportunity, political empowerment, gender violence, and human trafficking to achieve gender equality in Asia.

摘要：

世界上超过三分之一的人口居住在亚洲。中国和印度则是人口密度最大的两个国家, 而本文的重点就是这两个国家。在17世纪, 全世界的男女地位是：男尊女卑。女性必须听从父亲、丈夫和儿子的意见, 她们不能继承企业或财产。从18世纪开始, 一直持续到19世纪, 在欧洲, 女性权利成为要求人权的政治辩论的核心, 从而导致了女权运动。女权运动始于二十世纪, 其焦点是女性的生育权利。在二十世纪, 联合国签署了各种宣言, 为全世界女性提供性别平等的权利, 但不幸的是, 在亚洲许多宣言并没有得到实施。在二十一世纪, 女权运动更加注重：女性有权力决定她们自己的命运。我们必须战胜很多困难来实现亚洲的性别平等, 如不平等的就业机会、政治权利、性别暴力和人口贩卖等等。

Keywords:

• Women’s rights in Asia
• reproductive rights
• gender equality
• gender violence against women

Conflict of interest

The author reports no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

Nil.