Women’s Rights Chronology 319ence: “we hear her voice and trace her infl uence even now
among the living.”
1945 World War II ends. There is a postwar rise of women’s enfran-
chisement around the globe, as there was after World War I.
1946 The United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women
is founded to establish international standards for women’s
rights.
1948 The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights
recognizes “the equal rights of men and women.”
1963 Smith College graduate Betty Friedan cites Wollstonecraft
in her infl uential second-wave American feminist text The
Feminine Mystique.
1966 In her “Statement of Purpose for the National Organization
for Women,” Betty Friedan calls for a renewed attention “to
the proposition that women, fi rst and foremost, are human
beings, who, like all other people in our society, must have the
chance to develop their fullest human potential.”
1975 First United Nations’ World Conference on Women in Mexico
City.
1977 Italian and Spanish editions of the Rights of Woman.
1979 Adoption of the only international treaty on women’s hu-
man rights — Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) —by the General
Assembly of the United Nations.
1980 Japanese edition of the Rights of Woman.
1989 Collected works of Wollstonecraft edited and published by
Marilyn Butler and Janet Todd.
The United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child
includes universal primary education and physical education
among the rights equally belonging to girls and boys.
gabriela women’s coalition in Philippines uses slogan
“women’s rights are human rights,” inspiring American
Charlotte Bunch to follow suit in her United Nations – oriented
human rights activism for women.
1992 The Rights of Woman printed in several English-language
editions, including a new Indian edition published in Bombay,
for its bicentennial.
1993 Slovenian edition of the Rights of Woman published during
the ongoing Yugoslav Wars and two years after Slovenian
independence.