The Global Women’s Funding Movement Emerges: Beginnings

Chapter 1: Beginnings

We live in an era of inspiring women’s movements. Today, women, girls, and gender-expansive people are uniting in unprecedented numbers, forming diverse coalitions that are dynamic, agile, and highly effective in addressing humanity’s most pressing and deeply rooted problems. Today’s women’s movements, some well-established and others newly forming, amount to the greatest force ever summoned against gender inequity, patriarchy, racial injustice, economic injustice, autocracy, violence, and climate collapse. Crucially, women’s movements are modeling through their practices and building a vision for an equitable and just world through their impact. The emergence of so many women’s movements today and their rapid spread across the globe is in response to the rising rates of catastrophe, growing inequality, especially gender inequality, and escalating threats to democracy. It also reflects a growing desire for female autonomy and voice and a growing sense of self-worth across the planet.

Throughout millennia, women have united out of necessity and become the primary forces committed to undoing patriarchy’s self-serving systems and forging a vision for a reimagined world. This was true of the first known women’s movement, the Female Fury at the Forum, in 195 bc, when single Roman women united to demand financial freedom. It was true of the Women’s March on Versailles in 1789 when women united to fight famine and ignited the French Revolution, triggering a global wave of democracy that continues today. It is true of the Nigerian women’s movement against British colonial rule, which, under the leadership of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, challenged taxation and mobilized over 20,000 women as a formidable resistance that helped bring an end to British rule. It is true of the fierce modern-day women-led movements, including #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, #NiaUnaMenos, the Kandakas, and #MahsaAmini, that tackle oppressive social norms, making society more understanding of women’s needs and rights.