Why the UK must take a bold stance against global attacks on women’s rights

Gender and Development NetworkAid, Gender, Rights

Amid a worldwide backlash against women’s rights, and after its own aid cuts that further threaten those rights, it has never been more urgent for the UK government to speak up loudly for global gender equality, says the Gender and Development Network.

The era of anti-rights: what can you do about it?

Kelly MundyActive citizenship, Gender, Rights

With movements to roll back gender rights on the rise around the world, Kelly Mundy and Rachel Noble explain why the fight to protect them is more important than ever and set out three things we can do to support them.

From Personal to Powerful: in the face of growing attacks on rights, states must hold the line for gender justice  

Lata NarayanaswamyGender, In the news, Rights

Three decades after the landmark Beijing declaration to advance women’s rights, right-wing, religious, and conservative actors are reversing and obstructing hard-won progress. This International Women’s Day, our new Oxfam campaign calls on governments across the globe to reassert their commitment to gender justice, bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive health and rights, say Lata Narayanaswamy and Amina Hersi.

Whose streets are these? Exploring gender and public spaces

Anandita GhoshGender, Gender & Development Journal, Research

Anandita Ghosh and Shivani Satija on Gender and Development journal’s special issue on public space, which explores the many ways in which women and other marginalised groups inhabit and experience physical and digital spaces – reclaiming spaces and resisting even as they face erasure and exclusion.

Care work is real work: how can we make people and policy makers see that?

Daniela OliveiraGender, Inequality, Women's Economic Empowerment

Daniela Oliveira pays tribute to the caring work of her own mother, “the minister for home affairs”, and sets out three ways to shift how the public and governments recognise and value the labour of care.

Global South feminists know how our fixation with GDP hurts people and planet: it’s time to listen to them

Halima BegumGender, Power Shifts, Research

The world needs to stop relying on a metric that ignores two thirds of the work done by women and which promotes harmful policies, says Oxfam GB CEO Halima Begum. A new collection of feminist think pieces offers a compelling and inspirational tour of the arguments and pathways for moving Beyond GDP.

Want an economy that works for women? Keep care services public – and fund them properly

Myrah Nerine ButtGender, Private sector, Women's Economic Empowerment

Deep cuts to public spending or abandoning provision to profit-making providers will not deliver the decent services millions of women so urgently need, say Myrah Nerine and Rachel Noble.

When conflict destroys services, who fills the gaps in care? We need to make sure it’s not always women

Hadeel QazzazConflict, Gender, Humanitarian

In Gaza and Lebanon, thousands of women are now first responders when it comes to feeding, caring and comforting, all while dealing with their own trauma from deaths, injury, starvation and displacement. Yet too often the way humanitarian agencies operate actually adds to their workload, says Hadeel Rizq-Qazzaz.

Why are care workers missing from the conversation about the gig economy in the UK?

Veronica DeutschGender, Research, Women's Economic Empowerment

Debates about workers on digital platforms too often focus on male-dominated sectors such as deliveries and ride-hailing. In a blog for the International Day Of Care, Veronica Deutsch explains how care workers, overwhelmingly women, are now central to the precarious UK gig economy – and sets out what campaigners, researchers, employers and policy makers can do to support them.

Is your business reinforcing gender injustice? Here are four ways to spot the risks and challenge discrimination 

Jiselle SteeleGender, Private sector, Women's Economic Empowerment

Firms are under growing pressure to identify and respond to adverse impacts and show how they apply a “gender lens” to the way they do business. Jiselle Steele of the Oxfam Business Advisory Service explores what that means — and how to reduce negative impacts in supply chains on women and marginalised groups. And you can get expert guidance live at our webinar on 17 September.