Women's Leadership

Marlène Schiappa, Minister of State for Gender Equality and the Fight against Discrimination in France, attended the 25th year Regional Review Meeting of the Beijing Platform for Action for the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Region. She highlighted why this meeting is key for advancing the gender equality agenda and the priorities for the Generation Equality Forum in 2020, a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico.

Men still dominate the most senior roles in public life and the UK is “generations away” from achieving gender equality, according to a report published on Monday. The 2020 Sex and Power Index compiled by the Fawcett Society, a charity campaigning for gender equality, showed that women are missing from the top ranks of business, politics and law. The index also highlighted an “alarming lack of women of colour” in senior positions and what it lamented as a “dismally slow” pace of change.

The first woman elected to the United States Senate is not a household name. That woman, Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas, kept a very low profile. She is not considered a political trailblazer. Indeed, she voted with the rest of the Southern delegation against the Anti-Lynching Bill of 1934, intended to make lynching a federal crime.

Institutional weaknesses undermine the prevention of and response to sexual violence during electoral periods in Kenya, according to a new report published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), and UN Women.

Austria swore in its new conservative-Green coalition Cabinet on Tuesday. For the first time, women ministers will outnumber men.

Nine of the 17 members of the new Cabinet are women, although both the roles of chancellor and vice-chancellor are held by men.

A majority of women believe male candidates have an advantage when it comes to running for public office, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.

Michelle Williams used her Golden Globes acceptance speech to encourage women to hit the polls this November. (…)

Croatia's presidential election has been won by centre-left challenger Zoran Milanovic, who defeated the nationalist incumbent.

The social democratic ex-prime minister vowed to heal divisions, and said his victory had brought "hope and faith".

Mr Milanovic beat Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic - a conservative who won the presidency in 2015 - by 53% to 47%.