Today, 214,098 women serve in the U.S. military, representing 14.6 percent of total service members.

Although women have made large strides professionally over the last century, politics remains a man's world. Significant barriers stand in the way of more women assuming positions of political leadership -- not least women's own attitudes. If serious efforts are not made to break down these barriers, the world will miss out on the benefits that women can bring to policymaking.

More than six years since the Taliban’s ouster, violence against women seeking to broaden their rights continues. But some experts see reason for hope.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says the Facebook COO's new book Lean In encourages mothers with careers to opt out of the parent-or-careerwoman binary and firmly choose both.

The female veterans who filed the lawsuit say combat exclusion is unfair and outdated, based on stereotypes, inhibits recognition and promotion of servicewomen—and ignores the realities of the modern battlefield, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that just as Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen-year-old Pakistani girl who was gunned down by Taliban shooters, refused to silently abandon her right to education even at the risk of losing her life, courageous women and men fight daily against a worldview that considers girls' schools a call to action in their battle against modernity.

Micah Zenko examines the gender breakdowns of Washington's premier think tanks.

Reza Aslan discusses the connection between women's empowerment and economics, as part of the Council on Foreign Relations' roundtable series on religion and the Middle East.

This meeting was cosponsored by the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initative.

This session was a meeting of the Women and Foreign Policy Roundtable Series.

Several high-profile sexual assault cases in India have sparked a national debate over women's rights and the need for social reform in a rapidly modernizing country, explains this Backgrounder.

Seyran Ates, a practicing Muslim, charges that  Germany has been downplaying human rights--and women's rights in particular--in an effort to remain politically correct with respect to religious practices.

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, Malcolm Potts argues that Afghanistan will turn into a failed state if Afghan women remain "enslaved" in the nation's patriarchal society.

Strategic Studies Institute report on the empowerment of women in post-Saddam Iraq. It identifies security and economic obstacles to change, and says that women's rights depend heavily on local interpretations of personal status, penal, and other legal codes.

This report from Human Rights Watch is based on field research conducted in the West Bank and Gaza in November 2005 and early 2006 and documents dozens of cases of violence against Palestinian women and girls.

Child marriage is a global epidemic and a human rights violation that occurs across regions, cultures, and religions. According to Rachel Vogelstein, the success of U.S. efforts to foster economic growth, improve global health, and promote stability and security will grow if this persistent practice comes to an end.