Human Rights

Reading time: 6 minutes

Introduction

It is somewhat obvious to conclude that in only a century, women´s power and role in society has suffered a complete revolution in most countries worldwide. A century ago, most European countries still didn´t allow women the full rights, the freedom to open a bank account, travel, and sign a contract without a man´s permission. Today, women lead governments, win Nobel Prizes, and outnumber men in universities. So, it is tempting to conclude that, looking at the big picture, the fight for more equality is over. However, the data states that the road from legal exclusion to real equality in opportunities and social treatment is still long and arduous.

From Legal Exclusion to Formal Equality

The twentieth century rewrote women’s place in public life. Suffrage, access to education, the right to work and to own property, and control over their own bodies, through the spread of contraceptive methods, for instance, changed what women could expect from life. Progress is measurable. The World Economic Forum has tracked it for two decades, and its 2026 report finds that the global gender gap is now 69.2% closed, the narrowest since measurement began. Among the economies tracked by 2006, the parity score rose from 64.2% to 69.4%. However, not every gap has evolved the same way. Education (96.9%) , health and survival (96.2%) are nearly at parity. Women have won the classroom. What they have not won is the boardroom, the cabinet or the pay slip.

*Figure 1: Suffragettes carrying “Votes for Women” placards to announce a public meeting at Essex Hall, London, early twentieth century.*

Work and Money: the Invisible Ceiling

Even where the law guarantees equal treatment, the economy rarely delivers it. Economic participation and opportunity are only 61.7% of the way to parity. The reasons are well documented. Economist Claudia Goldin, who won the Nobel Prize for this research, shows how the pay gap persists because workplaces reward availability at all hours, a demand that falls hardest on those who also do the caring. Women are still the ones who do much of the housework, stay at home with their children when they get sick, dress them, and go with them to the doctor when they´re sick. In Portugal, females do the triple of house chores relatively to man. From the last generation to the newest one, the role of the father in their children’s daily lives has barely changed. Female caregivers are still the ones whose careers are most affected by parenthood. After maternity, women ´s salaries tend to stagnate, while men´s are independent of fatherhood. Furthermore, women still earn 16% less than men in Portugal and are a minority in positions of power and decision-making (only 6% worldwide).

*Figure 2: La Grande Odalisque, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres*, 1814.

Politics: Power Remains the Hardest Frontier

Political empowerment is the dimension furthest from parity. It stands at just 22.1%. The UN’s latest Gender Snapshot concluded that women hold 27.4% of national parliamentary seats, and local government representation has stalled at 35.6%. Women also preside over fewer than 20% of the highest courts. Besides, inside the United Nations, nearly eight in ten peace processes in 2025 lacked women negotiators or mediators. Curiously, the UN states that when women perform leading roles, gender-responsive policies are prioritized and progress follows across all development goals.

The same report finds that, globally, around one in three gender-equality institutions have been weakened, and one in four has faced budget cuts. Bilateral aid for gender equality fell 13% between 2023 and 2024, and funding for women’s rights organizations fell 28%. UN Women describes an organized backlash against women’s and girls’ rights. The WEF agrees that progress is fragile, with gains reversing in some areas.

Violence: the Most Extreme Expression

Frequently, machismo does not express itself in subtle ways. Physical and verbal violence is still more directed at women in romantic relationships. Nearly one in three women worldwide has experienced partner or sexual violence. Around 230 million women and girls alive today have survived female genital mutilation. The belief that women’s bodies and choices are open to male control still leads to domestic abuse, femicide, and street and online harassment.

Education and Sexual Roles

Sexuality remains deeply influenced by machismo and patriarchal norms. Men are often praised for having multiple sexual partners, while women risk being labelled promiscuous for the same behavior. Female masturbation and the use of sexual toys are still frequently taboo. These discrepancies might lead to girls repressing their sexuality and having less knowledge about their own bodies and pleasure. This might translate into numbers, since men reach orgasm in 95% of their heterosexual sexual relations and women in only 65% of them. However, this last number almost reaches 90% in lesbian sexual relations. Besides, women are still more pressured by society to conform to a certain body image. Female body hair, cellulite, and stretch marks still stir when they exist.

*Figure 3: “Woman in white dress”, by Eugene Seagull*.

Why Machismo Persists

WEF’s Saadia Zahidi notes that economies at every income level have made progress, so the barrier is not a lack of resources. Philosopher Kate Manne argues that misogyny works less as hatred than as enforcement: it polices women who step outside expected roles. That helps explain why powerful women often draw harsher judgement than men in the same positions, and why gains can be reversed when political winds change. Inequality also does not fall evenly. Race, class, migration status and disability change how sexism is lived, and the women furthest from power often face its sharpest edges.

Conclusion

Women today have rights, education and opportunities their great-grandmothers could not have imagined, and that deserves recognition. But, at the current pace, the UN estimates gender equality is 171 years away, and none of the targets of its gender-equality goal are on track for 2030. Machismo has not disappeared; it has changed form, moving from explicit laws into norms, budgets, boardrooms, algorithms and silences. Naming it, measuring it, and refusing to treat it as settled is the first step toward closing the gap

Sources: World Economic Forum, UN Women (Gender Snapshot 2026), WAM, The National, IISD SDG Knowledge Hub, Deccan Chronicle, NBER, Saatchi Art

Júlia Lobão

Writer

Over the course of history, the evolution of technology and methods of production has enabled humans to evolve from mere animals to creatures with the most complex societies and activities ever performed by living beings. We did not just find easier ways to collect what nature could give us; we started manipulating those resources for our own good. Nowadays, practically all the items we interact with every day, from food to buildings and clothes, have been touched by industrial processes or made from scratch. Humanity chose to live in a world constructed by its own kind.

Despite all the benefits that the industrial revolution brought, such as increasing productivity and reducing production costs, it has always carried a shadow: the exploitation of its workers. In western countries, the cradle of industrialization, a history of labor abuses like excessive working hours, negligible salaries, and nonexistent vacations has long been fought by unions and non-governmental organizations, and therefore has been reduced or annihilated. This is one of the reasons given to explain the relocation of factories of European and North American brands to the Global South. The crimes that are condemned in our pro-Human Rights societies have strategically migrated to other parts of the planet, like Asia, Africa, and South America.

In our daily lives, we see the result of workers’ suffering in those areas: our cheap, easily accessible clothing. Indeed, the garment and textile industries are among the most prone to exploiting their employees. They employ about 100 million people worldwide, of whom around 80% are women. Only 1% to 2% earn a salary that allows the coverage of the basic living costs like housing and food. This happens, in part, so that the profit margins of the companies are the highest possible, due to extremely low production costs. In countries like China, Vietnam, or Bangladesh, there is a hunt for those who are in such precarious living conditions that they accept some of the worst labor conditions seen today.

Asia is home to about 75% of the world’s garment and textile workforce, in which the majority produces for fast fashion brands like Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, H&M, and Mango. A recent report by International Amnesty has concluded that in countries like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan, anti-union movements take place to repress recent protests by those who ask for better living conditions. A strategic alliance between brand and industry leaders, as well as miserable laws and inefficient organizations to protect workers in those countries, leads to a trap in which employees are caught, destined for poverty. This way, it also becomes simpler for the Western companies to blame the national policies of the countries where they install their factories for poor labor rules and therefore exonerate themselves of human rights violations.

In Bangladesh, the garment sector represents 16% of GDP and 84% of exportations; however, 91% of the workers do not receive a salary good enough to buy the necessary food for their families. Besides, approximately 25% suffer abuse by their superiors, including sexual abuse, the majority of whom are, of course, female.

India is especially characterized by the vulnerability of women. Since many are home garment workers, they are not recognized as employees by law and therefore are not eligible to receive pensions and other benefits. Furthermore, both genders face highly discrimination due to their caste and social class. At the same time, increasing restrictions on workers’ ability to form and join independent trade unions have caused union numbers to decline significantly. In regions such as Delhi, complicated administrative procedures and the refusal to register unions have greatly weakened workplace union membership.

The Chinese workforce also faces severe difficulties. The north-western province of Xinjiang is the homeland of the Muslim minority Uyghur, who produces 80% of the Chinese cotton and 20% on a global level. The cotton of one in five products worldwide, including clothing, originates from their plantations and factories. However, these products are stained with crimes against humanity. The Chinese government has created forced labor camps to aggregate almost two million citizens of this and other religious minorities, with the justification to combat extremism. There, children are separated from their families and re-educated to lose all connections with their culture and become work machines. The employees sleep in cells, where sexual violence and female sterilization have been reported by the UN. Some of the almost uncountable brands that still take advantage of this mass forced labor are Polo Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, IKEA, Nike, Adidas, Zara, and Victoria´s Secret.

Additionally, more than leading to human rights violations, the garment industry, especially the fast fashion one, causes huge environmental damage. Consumers today buy 60% more clothes than they did in 2000, while keeping garments for only half as long. This culture of overconsumption generates enormous waste: a truckload of textiles is either burned or sent to landfills every second. Besides, the fashion industry produces more than 92 million tons of textile waste annually and consumes approximately 79 trillion liters of water every year. The production of a single cotton shirt requires around 2,700 liters of water, which is enough to satisfy one person’s drinking needs for two and a half years. Additionally, synthetic fibers such as polyester release microplastics into oceans and waterways, contributing to marine pollution.

All this production and waste largely contribute to climate change. Several reports estimate that fashion is responsible for around 10% of global carbon emissions, surpassing international aviation and maritime shipping combined. The production of one pair of jeans can emit as much carbon dioxide as driving a car for over 80 miles. Clothing production has nearly doubled in the last 15 years, driven by rapid fashion trend cycles and mass consumption.

More recently, non-governmental organizations started to spread more awareness about the catastrophic impacts of the fashion industry. Slow fashion and secondhand clothing have more marketing than a few years ago. However, an actual transaction to sustainable production and consumption cycles is still a utopian dream. Garments that weren´t made based on the exploitation of nature and workers are usually extremely rare and above the monetary costs that common citizens can afford daily. This is why only a complete revolution in the consumption patterns and impulses of the youngest generations in developed countries, allied with a transformation of the production methods themselves, can, indeed, make a difference for the better.

Sources