Looking at global connections and issues through women’s eyes can help students develop an understanding of current world issues and how they relate to historical contests. It acknowledgs the historic precedents of women’s movements, particularly those related to human rights.
Suffrage Movements
Dynamic struggles for women’s basic democratic rights appeared in many countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Though these movements differed in their reasons and tactics, the fight for female suffrage, along with other women’s concerns, cut across many national boundaries.
1) Women’s Suffrage: A World Wide Movement Essays on alliances, obstacles to overcome, reasons for granting suffrage, when and where it occurred, and thoughts beyond suffrage.
2) Lesson on suffrage Cartoons, classroom thinking ideas with resources for discussion.
Women galvanizing across the global have had a vital impact on the efforts to improve women’s political, economic, and cultural status. Their historic links and contemporary actions can be explored in the following links.
3) “Women in Every Country” The First International Congress of Women’s Rights Paris, 1878 Resolutions, speeches, discussion questions and resource ideas.
4) Women’s Rights as Human Rights Essay and think about questions on new definitions of women’s rights, examples linking past to present including excerpts from England’s Caroline Norton and Japan’s Kishida Toshiko.
5) A History of International Women's Day in words and images Solid essay including some period photos.
6) YouTube on The Journey of Women’s Rights - 1911-2011
7) Women's Human Rights: An Introduction. Explanations of terms and history.
8) Internet Primary Sources for Teaching Women’s Rights from Past to Present Sites listed provide primary sources from history and contemporary world.
8) The Solidarity Quilt: Arts and Crafts Activity In 2004, in response to The World March of Women’s call for "equality, peace, freedom, solidarity and justice," women’s groups around the world created the women's solidarity quilt, a colorful patchwork of women's hopes and promises for a better world. The quilt grew as it was passed from country to country around the globe.
9) Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Wording of this important UN treaty plus selected definitions of terms used.
10) Current International women’s issues Annotated list of links to a variety of sites.
11) International Museum of Women An online social change museum that amplifies the voices of women worldwide through global online exhibitions, arts and cultural programs. See education section for lessons supporting the issue based exhibits.
