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Over the past fifty years, women’s movements have transformed women’s rights worldwide—overturning discriminatory laws, expanding political representation, and pressing governments to confront violence against women. Yet winning reform is only the beginning.
Centering India within this global arc, this panel examines both how women’s rights reforms are secured and what happens when they are implemented. Jennifer Piscopo, drawing on The Women’s Rights Era, traces how women’s movements, especially in the Global South, made landmark reforms possible. Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner examines gender and policing reforms in India, showing how institutions shape whether rights become meaningful in practice. Moderator Tanushree Goyal, author of Representation from Below, brings research on India’s gender quotas and their mixed effects, including expanded political power alongside resistance and backlash.