On June 14, 2019, Jörg Baten, Professor of Economic History at the University of Tuebingen and Alexandra de Pleijt, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Economic History at the University of Oxford published an article on the World Economic Forum: “Gender equality isn’t just moral – it’s also good economics.”

They explain: “The empirical results suggest that economies with more female autonomy became (or remained) superstars in economic development. Institutions that excluded women from developing human capital, such as early marriage, prevented many economies from being successful in human history.”

In other words: Gender equity is often linked to rapid economic growth. For example, Botswana had the highest GDP growth rates in recent decades after reaching its highest rates of women’s equity.

Click “more” to read the beginning of their article, and click here to read the entire piece. (more…)

By Yifat Susskind

We will remember 2019 as a year of uprisings. In over a dozen countries on five continents, people have risen up to confront economic inequality and even the most repressive governments. These mobilizations are answering the question of how to tackle ascendant right-wing authoritarianism — and women have been at the heart of it all.

In part, that’s because women know well the consequences of living under these draconian governments. Far-right politicians and groups have repeatedly sought to win political support by promising to keep women in their place. In the lead-up to their elections, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro touted his opposition to a law imposing penalties for gender-motivated killings, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte crassly joked about possibly participating in a gang rape.

Right-wing forces promote a toxic brand of masculinity that defines manhood through violence and aggression, promising men a slice of patriarchal power in exchange for backing authoritarian rule. They relegate women to silence and submission and force LGBTIQ people into hiding. They have targeted female human rights activists who defy patriarchal norms with harassment, criminalization and even murder. (more…)

Oct. 8, 2024 — New report provides a comprehensive look into a decade of charitable giving to women’s and girls’ organizations

The Women’s Philanthropy Institute (WPI) at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy today released its sixth annual Women & Girls Index (WGI), the only systematically generated, comprehensive index that measures charitable giving to organizations dedicated to women and girls in the U.S., including the amount of philanthropic support they receive from individuals, foundations, and corporations. The 2024 WGI adds finalized IRS data from 2021(the last year for which financial data is available) across 54,588 organizations—providing an analysis on the decade 2012 to 2021 that highlights both gaps and growth in philanthropic support for women and girls.

For the first time, women’s and girls’ organizations surpassed $10 billion in giving as they received $10.2 billion in philanthropic support in 2021. This historic milestone is set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic’s ongoing disproportionate impact on women, particularly women of color and those in low-wage jobs, and ongoing discussions about the systemic barriers to gender equity. While awareness of gender-focused issues such as pay equity and reproductive rights has grown, overall charitable giving that supports women and girls remains relatively small at 1.9% of total giving. This statistic highlights the continued need for greater philanthropic support across the full spectrum of causes that improve the lives of women and girls. Read more!

Sept. 30, 2024 — In today’s issue of Philanthropy News Digest we learn, “It’s a well-known fact that philanthropy has long underfunded organizations that serve women and girls. The most recent figures show that less than 2% of all philanthropic dollars are earmarked to support women, girls and gender-expansive people, with women and girls of color receiving even less support at only 0.5%. What’s less discussed are geographic disparities in funding for women and girls.”

A 2020 report by the Ms. Foundation for Women found that the least-resourced region in the U.S., in terms of philanthropic funding for women and girls of color, is the South, which received only $2.36 for every woman and girl of color. But the Midwest didn’t fare much better — women and girls of color there only got $2.99.

Read the response to these findings from the Ms. Foundation, a longtime progressive, feminist touchstone in the philanthrosphere that counts Gloria Steinem as one of its founders: philanthropynewsdigest.org.

Annie and Tsitsi write: There has never been a more crucial time for envisioning a new philanthropy. Around the world, anti-rights movements are on the rise. In many places, this concerted effort to dismantle the hard-won gains global feminists have made is succeeding. We’re facing abortion bans in the U.S., dangerous anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Ghana and Uganda, and Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention in opposition to the treaty’s aim of preventing gender-based violence. The anti-rights movement is incredibly well-funded. In comparison, the percentage of global philanthropic giving that goes to organizations focused on women, girls or gender-nonconforming people is miniscule. It’s never risen higher than 2 percent—despite the fact that women constitute more than 50 percent of the population, that we face rising challenges around the world and that individual women donors give more, on average, than individual men.

Sept. 20, 2024 — Today, USAID is announcing two new partners, Reliance Foundation and The UPS Foundation, to the Women in the Digital Economy Fund (WiDEF), which works to close the gender digital divide, improving women’s livelihoods, economic security, and resilience. WiDEF was launched by Vice President Kamala Harris in March 2023.

Reliance Foundation will provide up to $10 million through three funding rounds for innovative initiatives to bridge the gender digital divide in India, doubling the available WiDEF funding in the country and supporting the 2023 G20 Leaders’ commitment to halve the digital gender gap by 2030. Additionally, Reliance Foundation will support learning by developing knowledge products, disseminating promising practices and other tools, and bolstering measurement and learning for all India grantees. The UPS Foundation provided $1 million to WiDEF to identify, directly fund, and accelerate evidence-based, proven solutions to close the gender digital divide.

WiDEF is a joint effort between USAID and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, managed by the GSMA Foundation, CARE, and the Global Digital Inclusion Partnership. Since the official launch of WiDEF in March 2024, the Fund has identified promising and effective approaches to closing the gender digital divide and recently announced the list of semifinalists for the first round of funding. In addition to the $50.5 million previously announced by USAID, WiDEF partners Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Government of the Republic of Korea, Microsoft, Reliance Foundation, and the UPS Foundation committed $32.6 million.

Building on the Fund’s success, Women in the Digital Economy Initiative partners from governments, private sector companies, foundations, civil society, and multilateral organizations have pledged more than $1.01 billion to accelerate gender digital equality.

Sept. 3, 2024 — Since Title IX’s enactment in 1972, female athletes, activists, and donors have steadily fueled a slow-burning revolution in women’s sports, culminating in today’s record-breaking participation, writes Sara Herschander in today’s issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy. She explains that even as the field celebrates its historic milestones, a new generation of athletes and their supporters are stepping up to tackle the remaining obstacles to equality.

Research shows that 94 percent of women executives in C-suite positions played sports, many having benefited from the passage of Title IX, the 1972 law mandating gender equality in federally funded education programs, including athletics. “When girls play, they lead, and leadership is critical for our women to be able to succeed on and off the court — on the field and in the boardroom,” said Danette Leighton, CEO of the Women’s Sports Foundation, founded by tennis legend Billie Jean King in 1974. “The more we develop that for both men and women, the better we all are.”

Aug. 27, 2024 — Divorcing gender justice from democracy is inconsistent, irrational and unnecessarily expensive. To separate them is to delay success and pay for it many times over.

In April, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether Idaho is allowed to enforce a near-total abortion ban—even for abortions performed in a medical emergency—in a challenge to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) which requires hospitals to treat patients with life-threatening conditions. The case Moyle v. U.S. marks the second time this term the Court heard a case to limit nationwide access to abortion care, having considered a challenge to the legality of the abortion medication mifepristone in late March.

The chaotic state of play for abortion rights in the United States illustrates the consequences of failing to integrate efforts to strengthen democracy into strategies for advancing gender equity, and vice versa. In states with strong abortion rights support, we’ve seen how anti-democratic tactics have been used to undermine the will of the people—from passing legislation to undermine bodily autonomy, to stacking the judiciary with judges hostile to reproductive rights, to engaging in voter suppression tactics. This backlash has exposed the playbook of an empowered movement, now dominated by white Christian nationalists. Gender and racial bias are weaponized not only to attain power, but to undermine the rights of women and degrade their participation in the body politic.

Read more about the EMTALA and Dismantling Democracy.

This essay is part of a Women & Democracy package focused on who’s funding the women and LGBTQ people on the frontlines of democracy. We’re manifesting a new era for philanthropy—one that centers on feminism. The need is real: Funding for women and girls amounts to less than 2 percent of all philanthropic giving; for women of color, it’s less than 1 percent. Explore the “Feminist Philanthropy Is Essential to Democracy” collection.

June 28, 2024 — Women’s rights organizations are essential in tackling gender-based violence and driving progress toward a more equitable and violence-free world for women and girls. Despite the critical role of feminist activism to end violence against women, there has been a surge in anti-rights movements and backlash against women human rights defenders globally.

Here are four reasons why funding women’s organizations is essential for ending violence against women and girls: Providing life-saving services to survivors, Driving policy change, Reducing gender-based violence, Critical role during health and humanitarian emergencies.

Click here to read all about it!

May 29, 2024 — In today’s article by THALIA BEATY, she writes: “Melinda French Gates ‘ has a long history of supporting the women’s movement, but it’s her new eye-popping funding commitments that could finally change women’s groups’ long-running lament that less than 2% of philanthropic giving in the United States directly benefits women and girls.”