That a constitution should express the will of 'the people' is a long-standing principle, but the identity of 'the people' has historically been narrow. Women, in particular, were not included. A shift, however, has recently occurred. Women's participation in constitution-making is now recognised as a democratic right. Women's demands to have their voices heard in both the processes of constitution-making and the text of their country's constitution, are gaining recognition. Campaigning for inclusion in their country's constitution-making, women have adopted innovative strategies to express their constitutional aspirations. This collection offers, for the first time, comprehensive case studies of women's campaigns for constitutional equality in nine different countries that have undergone constitutional transformations in the 'participatory era'. Against a richly-contextualised historical and political background, each charts the actions and strategies of women participants, both formal and informal, and records their successes, failures and continuing hopes for constitutional equality.

Whether decentralization, and particularly devolution and federalism, is advantageous or disadvantageous for women is a long-debated issue. The effectiveness of decentralization in promoting gender equality depends on how the system is designed, the quality of implementation planning and the adequacy of resources. Decentralization processes, nevertheless, are particularly fertile ground for enhanced and systematic women’s engagement, with numerous avenues for mobilization and advocacy throughout the long period of interpretation, implementation and enforcement, which can be harnessed by women to shape what decentralization will look like in practical terms. The Fourth Women Constitution-Makers’ Dialogue focused on decentralization from a technical and empirical perspective to support women constitution-makers engaged in constitution-building processes and constitutional implementation through knowledge transfer and comparative experience sharing.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg believed that the equal rights of women belonged in the Constitution. She stood on the shoulders of brilliant women who persisted across generations to change the Constitution. We the Women tells their stories, showing what’s at stake in the current battle for the Equal Rights Amendment. The year 2020 marks the centennial the Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing women’s constitutional right to vote. But have we come far enough? After passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, revolutionary women demanded full equality beyond suffrage, by proposing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Congress took almost fifty years to adopt it in 1972, and the states took almost as long to ratify it. In January 2020, Virginia became the final state needed to ratify the amendment. Why did the ERA take so long? Is it too late to add it to the Constitution? And what could it do for women? A leading legal scholar tells the story of the ERA through the voices of the bold women lawmakers who created it. They faced opposition and subterfuge at every turn, but they kept the ERA alive. And, despite significant victories by women lawyers like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the achievements of gender equality have fallen short, especially for working mothers and women of color. Julie Suk excavates the ERA’s past to guide its future, explaining how the ERA can address hot-button issues such as pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, and unequal pay. The rise of movements like the Women’s March and #MeToo have ignited women across the country. Unstoppable women are winning elections, challenging male abuses of power, and changing the law to support working families. Can they add the ERA to the Constitution and improve American democracy? We the Women shows how the founding mothers of the ERA and the forgotten mothers of all our children have transformed our living Constitution for the better.

We live in an era of constitution-making. New constitutions are appearing in historically unprecedented numbers, following regime change in some countries, or a commitment to modernization in others. No democratic constitution today can fail to recognize or provide for gender equality. Constitution-makers need to understand the gendered character of all constitutions, and to recognize the differential impact on women of constitutional provisions, even where these appear gender-neutral. This book confronts what needs to be considered in writing a constitution when gender equity and agency are goals. It examines principles of constitutionalism, constitutional jurisprudence, and history. Its goal is to establish a framework for a 'gender audit' of both new and existing constitutions. It eschews a simple focus on rights and examines constitutional language, interpretation, structures and distribution of power, rules of citizenship, processes of representation, and the constitutional recognition of international and customary law. It discusses equality rights and reproductive rights as distinct issues for constitutional design.

Constitutions around the world have overwhelmingly been the creation of men, but this book asks how far constitutions have affirmed the equal citizenship status of women or failed to do so. Using a wealth of examples from around the world, Ruth Rubio-Marín considers constitutionalism from its inception to the present day and places current debates in their vital historical context. Rubio-Marín adopts an inclusive concept of gender and sexuality, and discusses the constitutional gender order as it has been shaped by debates such those around same-sex marriage and the rights of trans persons. Covering a wide range of themes, from reproductive rights to political gender quotas and violence against women, this book offers a comprehensive feminist account of constitutional law. Truly international in scope and ambitious in subject matter, this is an invaluable resource for students and scholars working on gender within multiple disciplines.

Constituting Equality addresses the question, how would you write a constitution if you really cared about gender equality? The book takes a design-oriented approach to the broad range of issues that arise in constitutional drafting concerning gender equality. Each section of the book examines a particular set of constitutional issues or doctrines across a range of different countries to explore what works, where, and why. Topics include: governmental structure (particularly electoral gender quotas); rights provisions; constitutional recognition of cultural or religious practices that discriminate against women; domestic incorporation of international law; and the role of women in the process of constitution making. Interdisciplinary in orientation and global in scope, the book provides a menu for constitutional designers and others interested in how the fundamental legal order might more effectively promote gender equality.

Constitutions and gender is a new and exciting field, attracting scholarly attention and influencing practice around the world. This timely handbook features contributions from leading pioneers and younger scholars, applying a gendered lens to constitution-making and design, constitutional practice and citizenship, and constitutional challenges to gender equality rights and values. It offers a gendered perspective on the constitutional text and record of multiple jurisdictions, from the long-established, to the world’s newly emerging democracies. Constitutions and Gender portrays a profound shift in our understanding of what constitutions stand for and what they do.