#gender

BY DANIELA PHILIPSON GARCIA   On August 3rd, yet another crime of gender-based violence made headlines in Mexico: ”Girl Kidnapped and Raped by Police”. Over the following days, feminist protests erupted across the country to demand women’s right to basic dignity—a life free of violence. However, these protests have been mistakenly and unfairly accused of […]

The USWNT doesn’t just deserve equal pay: they deserve higher pay, because they are the team we enjoy watching the most.

Women’s spaces are stronger when they include transgender voices. BY LAURA MERRYFIELD When I returned to my home city after college, I found community in the feminist collective. I attended radical craft nights, “ladies only” urban bike rides, and late-night discussions in garages where women led conversations on topics like rape culture, and men sat […]

In 2017, Latin America was described by the UN as the world’s most violent continent for women. The assassinations of women activists and community leaders have continued across the region in 2018. While the killing of Marielle Franco, a favela community leader, and the unraveling of government-private enterprise collusion in the 2016 killing of Berta […]

Abstract Gender gaps in the labor force take three main forms: participation, job type, and earnings. However, research has shown that increasing women’s participation in the labor force can have a net positive impact on gross domestic product (GDP). One research study estimated a net impact of 9% on Brazil’s GDP if female participation in […]

BY JENNIFER HELFRICH I am an environmentalist. Friends call me a “tree hugger.” Tree huggers are a rare breed here at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). My fellow students each have their public policy area of focus—and the environment is not one of them. I understand the dilemma; HKS students tend to exhaust themselves through […]

BY BRYNNA QUILLIN On Monday night, the world finally got to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off for the first presidential debate. Watching the two candidates on stage together was striking. Hillary Clinton is one of the most, if not the most, qualified presidential candidates in history, with an extensive resume: First Lady, […]

BY CAROLINE GIMMILLARO It’s engagement season. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds around the United States are exploding with engagement announcements and offers of congratulations. A deluge of engagement pictures, engagement party invites, and Pinterest wedding boards are sure to follow. For most American women in heterosexual relationships, this excitement will be accompanied by the question […]

BY MIA MITCHELL Today, four billion people, or two-thirds of the planet, are offline, but that is rapidly changing. Momentum is building among private, public, and non-profit actors to expand Internet access globally. From Facebook’s Internet.org to the Alliance for Affordable Internet to Oluvus, numerous projects have launched in recent years with the shared goal […]

BY ELIZABETH BENNETT Rwanda is the only country in the world where more women than men serve as elected officials. For a small, land-locked nation in the middle of sub-Saharan Africa, that’s an impressive distinction. But when you consider how far the country has come over two decades, it becomes downright astonishing. For Rwandans, the […]

BY ELIZABETH A. KISLIK In a lecture at Harvard University in mid-October, New York Times columnist Gail Collins discussed how fundamentally women’s roles in American society have changed over the past half-century. Her talk reflected the theme of her 2009 book, When Everything Changed. Collins recalled the days of “executive flights,” on which young, unmarried […]

BY MELISSA SANDGREN There is a scene in The Iron Lady film where the actress who plays Margaret Thatcher is walking defiantly down a marble hall; the camera zooms in on her solitary pair of high heels amidst a sea of squeaky parliamentarian loafers. Thatcher pushes open the door to the lady’s restroom only to find a […]