page_title: Women's rights in 2014
section_title: World Economic Forum, United Nations
hierarchical_section_title: Women's rights in 2014 / World Economic Forum, United Nations
caption_attribution_description: English: HeForShe campaign logo badge with tagline
context_page_description: 2014 was described as a watershed year for women's rights, by newspapers such as The Guardian. It was described as a year in which women's voices acquired greater legitimacy and authority. Time magazine said 2014 "may have been the best year for women since the dawn of time". However, The Huffington Post called it "a bad year for women, but a good year for feminism". San Francisco writer Rebecca Solnit argued that it was "a year of feminist insurrection against male violence" and a "lurch forward" in the history of feminism, and The Guardian said the "globalisation of protest" at violence against women was "groundbreaking", and that social media had enabled a "new version of feminist solidarity".
  Denise Balkissoon, writing in The Globe and Mail, disagreed with and criticized the view that 2014 marked a "watershed" moment and that "some collective 'we' has finally had enough", citing her ongoing concerns regarding a "broken system" with respect to violence against women.
context_section_description: The World Economic Forum's 2014 Global Gender Gap Report, measuring the allocation of resources between women and men in health, education, economy and politics, ranked Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark highest on their Global Gender Gap Index, while Yemen, Pakistan, Chad, Syria and Mali were among those ranked the lowest.  Globally, the health and survival gap was 96% and the educational attainment gap was 94%, with some countries closing the gap entirely.  However, the gap related to improvement for women in the workplace was found to be 60%, having closed by only 4% since 2006.  Although it showed the most improvement, the political empowerment gap remained at just 21%.
  During a visit to the UK in April, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Rashida Manjoo, criticized the country's "boys' club sexist culture". She argued that sexism in the UK was more "pervasive" and "in your face" than other countries she had visited, which included Algeria, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Azerbaijan, India and Croatia. She cited issues such the sexist portrayal of women in public, including the female nudity on Page Three of the Sun newspaper, bullying of girls in schools, and harassment in public spaces. Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, commented on Manjoo's criticisms calling them "a wake-up call to recognise the depth and severity of the problem. We still have gender inequality in the UK [yet] we are so quick to point the finger at other countries and suggest women [here] are equal."
  In a July meeting with activists and journalists at the end of an investigatory visit, Manjoo heard complaints and criticized the Mexican government's record on gender inequality in public agencies, describing verbal harassment and sexual harassment as forms of violence against women. She said that violence against women "is acknowledged as a pervasive and widespread human rights violation" and that "no single country can claim that there is progressive elimination occurring". She said that two UN reports on the US in 2014 highlighted a disproportionate level of violence experienced by women from ethnic and racial minorities, mirroring findings in her own report of 2011 and similarly urging that the government do more to address the issue.
  In June, UN special envoy Angelina Jolie and William Hague chaired the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict in London, and the following month UNICEF and the UK government hosted the first Girl Summit, aimed at ending female genital mutilation and child marriage. UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson launched the HeForShe campaign in September at the United Nations in New York, inviting men to sign up as advocates for women's rights.
  The BBC reported that the role of women within the UN was increasing. As of November 2014, there were 31 female permanent representatives, and six seats (Argentina, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nigeria and the United States) out of fifteen on the Security Council were held by women. Most of the senior positions remained with men, including the current and all previous secretaries-general.
caption: Emma Watson launched the UN's HeForShe campaign.
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