Let’s Make Women’s Power Culturally Acceptable

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO THIS SEPTEMBER, delegates from 189 countries descended on Beijing to participate in the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women. This meeting was notable for many reasons, not least because it was, at the time, the largest gathering of women’s rights advocates in history: In addition to official government delegations, some 30,000 activists from around the world attended the conference. The rallying cry that emanated from Beijing, “Women’s rights are human rights”—famously proclaimed in a speech by the United States’ then-first lady, Hillary Clinton—still reverberates today.

At the conclusion of the summit, years of activism culminated in a historic inflection point, as governments meeting in Beijing agreed to the most ambitious Platform for Action on women’s rights in history, one that called for the “full and equal participation of women in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life.” Perhaps less well known, but just as