Parvin Ardalan spoke to Jane Gabriel at the UN CSW about the link between a conversation with her father and her work fighting for the rights and freedom of both men and women in Iran, and why it's time the international community changed the question: how can we help?
The bliss of an egalitarian and just relationship between spouses cannot be achieved through a sheet of paper. But Cassandra Balchin writes that in Muslim contexts efforts to take a fresh look at marriage contracts is certainly a step towards this goal
In an open letter to the United Nations Secretary General, the European Women's Lobby declares that "The 54th Session of the CSW...represents a step backwards by its failure to offer a new vision and mechanisms for implementation"
Last week the UN CSW54 was accused by the European Women's Lobby of being a 'step backwards' for women. As it grinds on into its second week Jane Esuantsiwa Goldsmith says the women’s movement needs a new twin strategy around equality of respect and quality of experience
Margaret Owen has been trying to get the CSW to address the poverty of widows for 12 years. This is her last attempt. She describes going from despair to growling with anger to hope - all in a day
As the 54th UN Commission on the Status of Women meets to review action on the promises made in Beijing’95, will the creation of a new women’s agency at the UN finally give the CSW the teeth it needs to advance women’s human rights?
The last decade has seen much more detailed attention to the many, sometimes contradictory, roles women play in conflict situations. But women remain a vital peace constituency
As French President Nicolas Sarkozy attempts to drive through a ban on the niqab and burqa, Laurie Penny describes how the Islamic veil has become yet another item of women’s clothing for men to fight over for their own ends
Rediscovering and reshaping a world in which husbands were house-bound and families were free, what are the skills and virtues needed for a life of radical voluntary domestic simplicity?
The picture said it all; an expanse of suits broken only by Hillary's blonde bob floating in their midst. The London Conference on Afghanistan gave birth to sweeping statements and soaring ambitions. But were they, in the end, as flat as those grey rows of suits?
While the only official woman delegate in the Afghan mission to the London Conference pleaded that women’s rights must not be sacrificed on the altar of security concerns, women’s rights activists who had also travelled to London brought their own message
CEDAW is not just a wish list from which politicians in the UK can ‘pick-n-mix’ when drawing up their shopping lists of “things to do about women”. Jane Esuantsiwa Goldsmith argues that in the run up to the general election it is an instrument we can use to call our politicians to account.
