Gender
Essay,
May/June
2007
Although women have made large strides professionally over the last century, politics remains a man's world. Significant barriers stand in the way of more women assuming positions of political leadership -- not least women's own attitudes. If serious efforts are not made to break down these barriers, the world will miss out on the benefits that women can bring to policymaking.
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Essay,
Jan/Feb
2006
Although questions of implementation remain, the new Iraqi constitution makes Islam the law of the land. This need not mean trouble for Iraq's women, however. Sharia is open to a wide range of interpretations, some quite egalitarian. If Washington still hopes for a liberal order in Iraq, it should start working with progressive Muslim scholars to advance women's rights through religious channels.
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Essay,
May/Jun
2004
Backing women's rights in developing countries isn't just good ethics; it's also sound economics. Growth and living standards get a dramatic boost when women are given just a bit more education, political clout, and economic opportunity. So the United States should aggressively promote women's rights abroad. And by couching its case in economic terms, it might even overcome the resistance of conservative Muslim countries that have long balked at gender equality.
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Response,
Jan/Feb
1999
Francis Fukuyama has it all wrong. War comes not from any genetic male tendency toward violence -- there is none -- but from social and cultural pressures. It certainly has nothing to do with chimp behavior. Besides, who says women are not as competitive as men? A world run by women would not be as different as Fukuyama thinks.
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Essay,
Sep/Oct
1998
To some degree, biology is destiny. The feminist school of international relations has a point: a truly matriarchal world would be less prone to conflict and more cooperative than the one we now inhabit. And world politics has been gradually feminizing over the past century. But the broader scene will still be populated by states led by men like Mobutu, Milosevic, or Saddam. If tomorrow's troublemakers are armed with nuclear weapons, we might be better off being led by women like Margaret Thatcher than, say, Gro Harlem Brundtland. Masculine policies will still be essential even in a feminized world.
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Comment,
Jul/Aug
1997
Post-communism has been bad for women in Eastern Europe: their representation, employment, and safety have suffered. America must support women leaders and entrepreneurs for the transition to democracy and capitalism to be complete.
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Essay,
Oct
1975
Not since Adam and Eve ate the apple has this earth been faced with a social issue as complex as that which drew the delegates to the International Women's Year Conference in Mexico City last June. The delegates, who were mostly women, came as representatives of their governments, which were mostly men, to talk about profound alterations in the balance of everything between the two sexes.
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