What’s Gender Got to Do With It?

 In a world threatened by armed conflicts, climate collapse, widening inequality, and potentially ungovernable technologies, political leaders have plenty on their plates. At the same time, regressive and repressive gender policies are taking center stage in many places around the world. For instance, women’s rights are in continued crisis in Afghanistan; women’s health care is under assault in too many places, including the U.S.; and loudly anti-feminist presidents govern Argentina and El Salvador. 

Why have reductive, exclusionary, and even life-endangering reproductive and gender-based policies gained such traction globally? How do gender politics play into it all? Join Perry World House as former UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights and current chair of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Board, Kate Gilmore, considers the cause and consequences of gender toxicity on a global scale. 

SPEAKER

Kate Gilmore is a former United Nations (UN) deputy high commissioner for human rights, a professor-in-practice with the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and an honorary professor with the University of Essex Human Rights Centre. Chair of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Board, she is also vice chair of the Interpeace Board, co-chair of the World Health Organization (WHO) Gender and Human Rights Advisory Panel on Human Reproduction, and a member of the WHO Immunization Agenda 2030 Partnership Panel. Previously a fellow with Harvard University’s Carr Centre, Professor Gilmore was assistant secretary general with the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and earlier, Amnesty International’s executive deputy secretary general. Her career began in Australia, having received a BA from the University of New England and a BSW from the University of Melbourne. Her areas of interest include the international human rights system, political narratives on sexual and reproductive health and rights, youth exclusion from key political processes, and international leadership in tumultuous times.