Skip to main content

Inaugural Lecture

Inaugural Lecture

Book tickets
  • Date14 Oct 2024
  • Time 6.15pm
  • Category Lecture

The women’s rights era: 50 years of gender equality advocacy and reform across the globe

Professor Jennifer Piscopo
Department of Politics and International Relations

The year 2025 marks the 50-year anniversary of the First World Conference on Women in Mexico City. The conference energized a global women’s rights movement, which spent the ensuing decades fighting for gender equality. They won significant victories. Yet the women’s rights community is today less ebullient. Not all reforms materially improved women’s lives. And contemporary democratic backsliding imperils all gains, as autocrats worldwide cast women from power and unravel gender equality.

This lecture assesses 50 years of gender equality advocacy and reform, arguing for hope against despair. Women and their men allies changed policy and practice: they wrote laws and filed legal briefs; they marched and demonstrated; and they entered politics and government in record numbers. They understood their efforts as necessary but insufficient steps towards building more gender-equal polities. Advocacy and reform remain tools of transformation and resistance. The women’s rights era demonstrates what has been accomplished—and what remains to be done.

Inaugural Lecture

Admission is free but booking is essential.

Jen Piscopo

Related topics

Explore Royal Holloway

Arrivals Sept 2017 77 1.jpg

Get help paying for your studies at Royal Holloway through a range of scholarships and bursaries.

clubs-societies_REDUCED.jpg

There are lots of exciting ways to get involved at Royal Holloway. Discover new interests and enjoy existing ones.

Accommodation home hero

Heading to university is exciting. Finding the right place to live will get you off to a good start.

Support and wellbeing 2022 teaser.jpg

Whether you need support with your health or practical advice on budgeting or finding part-time work, we can help.

Founders, clock tower, sky, ornate

Discover more about our academic departments and schools.

REF_2021.png

Find out why Royal Holloway is in the top 25% of UK universities for research rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

Immersive Technology

Royal Holloway is a research intensive university and our academics collaborate across disciplines to achieve excellence.

volunteering 10th tenth Anniversary Sculpture - research.jpg

Discover world-class research at Royal Holloway.

First years Emily Wilding Davison Building front view

Discover more about who we are today, and our vision for the future.

RHC PH.100.1.3 Founders south east 1886.w

Royal Holloway began as two pioneering colleges for the education of women in the 19th century, and their spirit lives on today.

Notable alumni Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay

We’ve played a role in thousands of careers, some of them particularly remarkable.

Governance

Find about our decision-making processes and the people who lead and manage Royal Holloway today.