8: What About Women?
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Global Issues are Women’s Issues - Why half the world deserves more than footnotes, in a globally connected system
Globalization magnifies, reshapes, and sometimes masks the gendered fault lines embedded in our world systems. From digital divides to global supply chains, from cross-border education gaps to environmental injustice, this section calls out the global currents driving inequality—and how women are responding everywhere. Here are a few big ideas to keep in mind as we examine the book Global Women's Issues - Women in the World Today.
Women & Health: From Survival to Solidarity
Women’s health is impacted by global pharmaceutical systems, Western aid priorities, and cross-border public health policy. Maternal health isn’t just a local crisis—it’s a global failure when unequal funding and colonial-era health systems ignore reproductive justice.
Programs like Mothers2Mothers thrive because they work within global health networks—but center local voices. COVID-19 exposed the global gaps again: women bore the brunt of care work, had less vaccine access in low-income nations, and lost reproductive autonomy during lockdowns.
Global supply chains, medical tourism, and international aid models often fail to reflect women’s real needs—while global movements like #SheDecides try to re-center their voices.
Women & Education: Beyond the Blackboard
Globalization has expanded educational access digitally—but also reproduced old power hierarchies. Western education systems dominate curriculums, global tests like PISA ignore indigenous knowledge, and “girl empowerment” campaigns often erase local context.
Still, globalization has also sparked transnational coalitions for girls’ education, tech-enabled mobile learning, and cross-cultural exchange programs that challenge old norms. TikTok feminism meets remote Afghan classrooms.
Education is both global currency and global battleground—especially when girls are taught to code but not question, or to speak English but not lead.
Women & the Economy: Double Shift, Half the Pay
The gender pay gap is global—and globalization often worsens it. Women make up the lowest-paid, most insecure links in supply chains from Bangladesh to Mexico. Platforms like Uber or Amazon may claim to “empower” women workers, but often gig work means instability, not freedom.
Trade liberalization, structural adjustment policies, and offshoring policies disproportionately hurt women in agriculture, manufacturing, and domestic labor—while benefiting transnational corporations.
Globalization angle: Free trade and flexible labor may boost GDPs—but often at the cost of feminized poverty. Feminist economists are calling for global care economies, not just profit pipelines.
Women in Power & Decision-Making: Still Behind the Scenes
Globalization has opened spaces for some women in politics—but often the access is cosmetic. You might see more women at the World Economic Forum, but how many hold actual power?
Quotas have worked in countries like Rwanda or India, but global financial institutions (like the IMF or World Bank) still set priorities that override women’s democratic choices. Global feminist networks, however, are reshaping this terrain—from UN Women to activist coalitions linking Nairobi to Berlin.
Political visibility is not the same as political voice—especially when supranational powers trump grassroots democracy.
Violence Against Women: From Private Harm to Public Crisis
Gender-based violence crosses borders: think online harassment, migrant trafficking, and conflict-related sexual violence. The internet globalized misogyny—but also resistance. Movements like #MeToo, #NiUnaMenos, and #BringBackOurGirls gained global traction, reshaping norms.
Human trafficking, often tied to labor migration, is a booming industry under globalization. Peacekeeping operations have sometimes facilitated, not prevented, abuse. Meanwhile, local shelters struggle for funding as international donors shift focus.
Violence against women has gone digital, transnational, and economic—demanding intersectional feminist foreign policy, not just charity or outrage.
Women & the Environment: Taking the Lead
Climate change is global—but it isn’t gender-neutral. Women—especially Indigenous and rural—are more exposed to environmental shocks and resource scarcity. Global trade deals drive deforestation, while land grabs and mining projects displace entire communities of women.
Still, women are leading resistance—organizing global climate strikes, creating eco-feminist farms, and advocating for climate finance that includes gender justice. From Bolivia to Borneo, globalization has created both risk and platform.
Women are on the front lines of climate fallout—and the global climate movement is learning to center their voices.
Bigger Patterns: Intersection & Context
Globalization is a power tool—and who holds the handle matters. It connects us across borders but often concentrates privilege. Race, class, gender, migration status, and digital access all collide. For women, especially in the Global South, this means globalization often feels more like extraction than opportunity.
But it also enables resistance: diasporic feminists, online organizing, transnational strikes, and the rise of decolonial gender studies are reclaiming the global stage.
Women are not just reacting to globalization—they’re redefining it, from the grassroots up.
Reference List
LibreTexts Content
LibreTexts. (n.d.). Global Women’s Issues – Women in the World Today. Retrieved from https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Gender_Studies/Global_Women%27s_Issues_-_Women_in_the_World_Today
Chapter 3: Women and Health. (n.d.). In Global Women’s Issues – Women in the World Today. LibreTexts. Retrieved from https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Gender_Studies/...
Chapter 1.02: Women and Education. (n.d.). In Global Women’s Issues – Women in the World Today. LibreTexts.
Chapter 1.06: Women in the Economy. (n.d.). In Global Women’s Issues – Women in the World Today. LibreTexts.
Chapter 1.07: Women in Power and Decisionmaking. (n.d.). In Global Women’s Issues – Women in the World Today. LibreTexts.
Chapter 1.11: Women and the Environment. (n.d.). In Global Women’s Issues – Women in the World Today. LibreTexts.
Chapter 8: Gender-Based Violence Worldwide. (n.d.). In Global Women’s Issues – Women in the World Today. LibreTexts.
Supplementary Academic & Global Context
True, J. (2012). The political economy of violence against women. Oxford University Press.
Ghosh, J. (2022). Women and work in the 21st century: Global trends and challenges. UN Women Working Paper Series.
Benería, L., Berik, G., & Floro, M. (2015). Gender, development and globalization: Economics as if all people mattered (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Wikipedia contributors. (2025, June). Double burden. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_burden
Wikipedia contributors. (2025). Colonial roots of gender inequality in Africa. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_roots_of_gender_inequality_in_Africa
Wikipedia contributors. (2025, August). Climate change and gender. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_and_gender
- 8.1: Global Women's Issues - Women in the World Today
- We cannot solve global challenges unless women participate fully in efforts to find solutions. Female participation in the private sector is a crucial economic driver for societies worldwide. Economic security benefits every facet of a woman’s life, with positive effects on the health, education and vitality of families. Learn about women who are changing their societies for the better.