The Unfinished Revolution: Voices from the Global Fight for Women's Rights

by Minky Worden (Editor), Christiane Amanpour (Introduction)

“It’s a time of change in the world, with dictators toppling and new opportunities rising, but any revolution that doesn’t create equality for women will be incomplete. The time has come to realize the full potential of half the world’s population.” —Christiane Amanpour, from the foreword
 
The Unfinished Revolution tells the story of the global struggle to secure basic rights for women and girls, including in the Middle East where the Arab Spring raised high hopes, but the political revolutions are so far insufficient to guarantee progress. Around the world, women and girls are trafficked into forced labor and sex slavery, trapped in conflict zones where rape is a weapon of war, prevented from attending school, and kept from making deeply personal choices in their private lives, such as whom and when to marry. In many countries, women are second-class citizens by law. In others, religion and traditions block freedoms such as the right to work, study or access health care. Even in the United States, women who are victims of sexual violence often do not see their attackers brought to justice.
 
More than 30 writers—Nobel Prize laureates, leading activists, top policymakers, and former victims—have contributed to this anthology. Drawing from their rich personal experiences, they tackle some of the toughest questions and offer bold new approaches to problems affecting hundreds of millions of women. This volume is indispensable reading, providing thoughtful analysis from a never-before assembled group of advocates. It shows that the fight for women’s equality is far from over. As Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate says, “Women are not free anywhere in this world until all women in the world are free.”

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, Gender, Womens, Social Justice

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Minky Worden is an American human rights advocate and author who is Director of Global Initiatives for Human Rights Watch.

Worden joined Human Rights Watch in 1998. Before that, she lived and worked in Hong Kong as an adviser to Democratic Party chairman Martin Lee and worked at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. as a speechwriter for the U.S. Attorney General and in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys.

Worden is editor of China's Great Leap: The Beijing Games and Olympian Human Rights Challenges (Seven Stories Press, 2008) and Unfinished Revolution; Voices from the Global Fight for Women's Rights (Seven Stories Press, 2012) and co-editor with Kenneth Roth and Amy Bernstein of Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever OK?: A Human Rights Perspective (New Press, 2005).

A native of Tennessee, Worden is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an elected member of the Overseas Press Club's Board of Governors. She speaks Cantonese and German.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really valuable overview of the global state of women’s rights – a series of important and insightful essays that cover many of the varied issues that make up the topic of gender equality. Each of these essays is vitally important; together they weave an unflinching view of the state of women’s rights in the world today, which managed to enrage, inspire, and inform me. Far-reaching and powerful!

From Dorothy Q. Thomas’ afterword, “The Revolution Continues”:
“Yes, enormous progress has been made, and, yes, we have cause to celebrate. But one thing remains unchanged: the palpable rage, evident the world over, to put women back in our place, to reverse our gains, and to resort to violence and discrimination against us – and against other specific groups – as ways to maintain or restore outmoded means of social and political control. These forces are behind the total lack of domestic violence laws in approximately 100 countries, behind the highly restrictive laws on basic reproductive health services in almost all countries and behind the policies that deny women their right to act as autonomous adults….”

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written for someone who a) does not keep up on current events; b) needs convincing that women's issues are important; and c) does not mind repetition. There are 30+ essays written by different authors, and they almost all take the same format of introducing you to a specific tragic story, then explaining the larger problem/context, and then offering some solutions. The essays are politically correct, and the authors take pains to avoid implicating religion (exception Chapter 5), and then argue their case as though they expect the readers to be skeptical. Case in point, in an article about child marriage: "We are not against tradition. We know that tradition and culture are essential for social cohesion... But traditions that are misused to perpetuate harmful discriminatory practices are not acceptable." A liberal western reader like myself does not seem like the target audience.

Since most essays tend to skirt around religion or culture, the solutions are all based on UN involvement and laws to protect women, rather than anything deeper. I kept thinking this would be a useful book if I was a high school student in Model UN.

Not to say I didn't learn many things. There are some standout essays including "A Civil Society-Led Revolution? Promoting Civil Society and Women's Rights in the Middle East" and "Cleaning House: The Growing Movement for Domestic Workers' Rights." The afterword is also excellent.

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Educational. Moving, inspiring, depressing. It is literally a compilation of voices from around the globe addressing women's rights issues.
I've seen many reviews condemning it for being redundant, but I don't see how since each essay is from a different woman's perspective, and each section contains only 3(ish) essays on a topic, and these are most often from an entirely different point on the globe.
One common theme is how there is systematic oppression and violence against women (and children) that ranges only in severity and tactic by culture or society.
I'm very surprised at the civility maintained by the authors, and while it's obviously a book with a theme, it is academic and non biased.
It stands strongly on facts.

[Haneen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Found it was a beautiful combination of facts, history, personal stories, and in-depth solutions to each problem. Though some chapters appeared redundant, I think the importance of such topics warrants repetition. Learned a lot and enjoyed the intersectionality of gender highlighted by various authors.
The only downside for me was the fact it was published in 2011, I would have loved to see an updated version with current issues facing women in 2020.

[Mira · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that this book honestly dragged a bit in some places and some of the information was repetitive, but it's absolutely worthy of a place on any feminist's shelf. Some of the issues facing women around the world 10-20 years ago are still depressingly relevant, and in fact many of the topics recorded in this book have only gotten worse recently. But the book does also provide some hope, in terms of both how things have improved and can improve in the future.

I will say, I was not a fan of the chapter on hijabs later in the book. While I am against burqa bans and agree that they place Muslim women in extremely unfair situations without providing them any help if they are being coerced to wear it, they are not at all equivalent to the forced burqas in countries with such laws, where women are raped, beaten, mutilated, and killed for refusing to wear them. In addition, as far as I know there are no countries where women are not allowed to wear a simple hijab - in some cases they are not allowed to wear them in academic settings where religious items are not allowed by any staff. In this case it's more of a gray area; Muslim women should not be forced to go without, but at least the rule is applied equally and not intended to single them out, which this chapter did not point out, probably to make their "both sides are bad" argument look more legitimate.

[Ange · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by multiple collaborators around the world, this book gave a good insight about the ongoing fight for Womens right. Tackling important issues that the mainstream feminist often ignore like fistulas, the impact of rape as a weapon of war, human trafficking, domestic workers, child marriage, Islamic laws and so much more struggles that women around the world face.

I think this book is a good starting point to learn about the global fight for womens right.

The only downside is that the book was published in 2011, therefore some information needs to be updated.

[Christina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving this book 4 stars because of the subject matter and the nature of it. There were some essays that felt redundant for me because I keep up with current events. Additionally, there were some essays for which I felt like I was not the target audience, like one in particular about women driving and why it is necessary. I live in the United States. I clearly don't need convincing that women should drive. However, overall, this book was very informative and full of insight, courage, and important ideas and thoughts.

[Scout Langley · Rating 3 out of 5]

We Can Do IT!!

We can be equals, but can be ever achieve equality. This book was really informative about women's struggles all around the world, and when I finished the book, I felt like I had a deeper knowledge of what it meant to be a women.

However, I wish that the essays had more diversity in the topics that they discussed and the area that they encompassed. It was really informative, but the essays got a bit repetitive

[Newtown Review of Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection, edited by Minky Worden, director of global initiatives for Human Rights Watch, documents the history, achievements and challenges still facing the global struggle for women’s human rights.

To read full review: http://newtownreviewofbooks.com/2012/...

[Hailee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it was a good book, it certainly did this job. I went into this book wanting to know what were the major women's rights concerns on our agenda in the 21st century, and that's exactly what I got out of it. Did it blow my mind and expand my horizons? No, but I feel better informed than before, and that in itself is valuable.

[Rachel]

This book gives a good overview of global, intersectional feminism and women's issues. It probably isnt mind blowing, world changing information for feminists who work at being intersectional, but it is a great tool to keep around for people who do need their perspective changed.

[Paulina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of essays on non-First World feminism and struggle for equality and respect.

I would recommend it to most but mostly to the man who told me last week that women in 3rd world don't have problems with obtaining anticonception and family planning.