Reaching Consensus Is the Foundation of Promoting Women’s Rights

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women. To commemorate this, China will soon host the Global Leaders' Meeting on Women in Beijing, where the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted—still the global benchmark for gender equality.

Thirty years on, the key question is not only how far we have come, but also how, in a fragmented world, consensus can still serve as the foundation for progress.

“Women are a situation.”

French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s words still resonate: society clips women’s wings, thenwonders why they cannot fly. For centuries, women’s identities were externally defined, their value measured in relation to others rather than themselves.

Modern economies have sharpened this paradox. Market forces separated workplace from household, yet women remained disproportionately confined to unpaid domestic labor — essential but invisible. At the same time, they entered workplaces that continue to harbor hidden discrimination, forcing them to shoulder the double burden of career and family.

The imbalance is especially stark in science and technology. A 2023 UN report found women make up only 35% of global graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and less than 30% of researchers. This is not only a loss of talent but also proof of structural barriers that limit ambition.

And globally, the challenges remain severe: more than 600 million women and girls live in conflict zones, 2 billion lack social protection, and nearly one in ten endure extreme poverty. Gains, though real, remain fragile. Each advance for women must be recognized as an advance for humanity.

Gender equality is not a zero-sum game

Public debates too often frame gender issues as battles between men and women. History and economics suggest the opposite: the rise of women’s education and labor participation has been a universal driver of national development. To portray these shifts as competition misses the point.

Research from the IMF underscores the benefits. Closing gender gaps could boost GDP in lagging countries by an average of 35% — with 80% of the gain from higher participation and 20% from productivity gains through diversity. Equality is not ideology; it is efficiency. Men and women are not substitutes but complements in production. Societies that embrace inclusiveness perform better.

Crucially, gender equality benefits men too. Breaking rigid roles frees men from narrow expectations of strength or sole breadwinning. Women’s empowerment and men’s redefinition of identity are not conflicting forces but parallel transformations — strengthening both families and societies.

The enduring value of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action

Defending women’s rights is about affirming universal human rights. Gender equality remains one of the clearest indicators of social progress.

The Beijing Platform for Action, endorsed by 189 governments in 1995, identified 12 “critical areas of concern” — from jobs and political participation to peace, environment, and ending violence against women. With this framework, countries had both a plan and a yardstick for action. Regular reviews have kept governmentsaccountable, ensured momentum, and made the urgency of gender equality visible.

The results are tangible. Since 1995, nearly all countries have passed laws addressing violence against women. National plans linking women to peace-building have risen from 19 to 112. Workplace protections against discrimination have expanded. Maternal mortality has fallen 40% since 2000, while girls’ school completion rates have risen at every level.

Yet progress is uneven. Conflict, poverty, and lack of social protection still endanger millions of women. The lesson is clear: every step forward must be defended, and every setback resisted, because the trajectory of women’s rights mirrors the trajectory of civilization itself.

Beyond gender: the broader fight against inequality

Finally, the struggle for women’s rights must be seen within the larger battle against entrenched inequality. Oppression does not weigh on women alone; it burdens all those without power. Men too suffer from rigid expectations of invulnerability and responsibility. Women’s emancipation, therefore, can also be men’s emancipation — a chance to build lives that are more balanced and humane.

The aim is not to replace one hierarchy with another, but to create a society where even the weakest are respected precisely in their vulnerability. Gender equality, then, is more than a women’s issue. It is a civilizational choice: to reject domination in any form, and to build a future anchored in dignity, respect, and shared humanity.

By: Jiang Tao, reporter

CGTN Radio

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