General Introduction to Essay Collection

I began exploring women’s contributions to society and their human rights because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision and a book about art. The Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision in 2022 denied girls and women in the United States the right to control their bodies by having an abortion when they need one. The book is Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art without Men. She showed that history has erased many women artists’ accomplishments, even when they were famous in their own lifetimes.

After thinking about the decision and reading the book, I realized I didn’t know enough about women’s abilities, accomplishments, and struggles for human rights. My education didn’t cover these topics, and I didn’t have time to explore them while working full-time outside my home and raising children.

I read relevant books but couldn’t find a general overview that could help me learn about these topics quickly. So, I decided to write one myself. As I began writing, I realized several things:

1. Society’s¹ sexist myths hurt everyone, so while the main focus of the overview is on how the myths hurt girls and women, I also address how the myths hurt boys and men.

1. I needed to re-evaluate my life, assumptions, and relationships, so the overview provides personal reflections that could help others think about their lives in new ways.

1. Learning and taking action is vital, so the overview offers some individual actions readers can take to work toward human rights for everyone.

My general overview is a collection of essays that cover:

1. Women’s abilities, leadership, and achievements.

1. Women’s health and mental health.

1. Sexuality and the violence women endure.

1. The evolution of women’s human rights and their current erosion.

1. Education and work issues.

These essays largely focus on the situation in the United States, where everyone’s human rights are eroding. Women and people of color are at the highest risk of losing their rights.

My qualifications for writing this general overview include my doctoral degree, which involved intense training in research methods, and my career focus on summarizing and analyzing research for policymakers. The essays’ sources are largely books that academics, philosophers, and well-regarded journalists have written. The data here come from these sources or recent academic articles.