on women to be independent to fight for themselves.”^94 Yousafzai’s eloquence and passion captured the
world’s attention, and she brought much-needed focus to the issue of gender discrimination in education,
which according to the UN is a widespread problem leading to epidemic rates of female illiteracy
throughout the world.
While American feminists will undoubtedly continue to play an important role in the global movement
for gender justice and equality, there are many signs that the United States has been decentered from the
world stage and that it is neither the preeminent model for women’s equality nor the site of women’s most
urgent struggles. It has become increasingly clear that the United States has fallen behind its international
peers and no longer serves as a world leader when it comes to gender equality. The United States is one
of only five countries—along with Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland—that does not
mandate paid parental leave. Most countries require at least three months of paid leave, and many of the
United States’ peer countries offer far more than that. (Recall Sweden’s policy of almost two years of
paid leave per child.) When it comes to the number of women in elected office, the United States is also
lagging. According to a 2013 study, the United States ranks eightieth out of 142 countries based on the
percentage of elected federal positions held by women.^95 While women now make up 20 percent of such
positions in the United States, the top ten countries in this study have at least 40 percent of comparable
positions held by women. Many countries—including Chile, Germany, Indonesia, Liberia, and South
Korea—have elected women to their highest political office, but so far the United States has yet to have a
female president or even vice president. The United States also lags behind in changing cultural norms
and attitudes about gender, which too often seem stuck in retrograde ideas about dominant masculinity and
subservient femininity that only exacerbate the structural conditions that keep women and girls from
achieving full equality. Even when we examine the elite class of women who rise to the top of the
corporate workplace—the Sheryl Sandbergs of the world—one sees how behind the United States is:
according to a 2013 report, only 20 percent of senior corporate leaders in the United States are women.^96
But the challenges facing U.S. feminists, struggling to equal the gains made by women elsewhere,
nonetheless pale in comparison to the obstacles confronting women in many other parts of the world.
Women who live in nations lacking basic human rights, where human needs are unfulfilled, and where the
oppression of women and girls is a daily reality are a reminder of how privileged and comfortable most
U.S. women are. In their urgent fight for women’s rights—including access to education, economic
opportunities, sexual freedom, reproductive healthcare, political participation, and an end to violence—
activists in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America have inspired and reenergized U.S. feminists. As
women’s rights activists around the world focus on both local and global issues, it is important to
remember the conclusion reached by a 2012 report by the U.K.-based organization Womankind: “In no
country in the world do women enjoy the same rights, access to resources or opportunities as men.
Everywhere women and girls face discrimination, poverty and violence just because they are female.”^97
Feminism Unfinished, Feminism Ongoing
Sandra Fluke was a third-year law student at Georgetown University when she was invited by Democrats
in the House of Representatives to speak on a congressional panel discussing contraception insurance in
President Barack Obama’s healthcare bill and how the bill would affect the health insurance provided by
nonprofit religious organizations, such as Catholic universities like Georgetown. House Republicans
successfully blocked Fluke from addressing the panel, one with not a single woman on it. Born in 1981,