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

Populations throughout the developed world are aging and shrinking, with dire consequences. Yet decline is not inevitable. Even in the industrialized world, governments can encourage childbearing through policies that let women reconcile work and family.

It is time for multinational corporations to come to the same realization -- funding education and training female business leaders is good for business.

Efforts to provide the world's women with economic and political power are more than just a worthy moral crusade: they represent perhaps the best strategy for pursuing development and stability across the globe.

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.

This module features teaching notes by CFR Senior Fellow Isobel Coleman, author of Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East, along with other resources to supplement the text. Dr. Coleman demonstrates how influential Islamic feminist thinkers are driving social change in the Middle East to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women.

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.

Japan's recent denial of its historic role in the coercion of “comfort women” raises questions about official apologies.

As Islamabad attempts to reform laws related to women, the death of a female politician underscores advances and obstacles to women’s rights in Pakistan.

A recent rape charge in Iraq has ignited a storm of sectarianism and called into question the treatment of rape victims under Islamic law.

Half a million women die each year during pregnancy or childbirth. Reducing the maternal mortality rate is one of the UN's Millennium Development goals, but experts say not enough is being done to safeguard the lives of mothers.

Human trafficking is a growing problem, affecting virtually all countries, according to a recent UN report on the crime. But the problem has yet to be confronted in many countries and non-governmental groups are divided on what to do.

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.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon argues that with the help of the private and public sector, women entrepreneurs are helping to combat global poverty, but more work is needed to overcome the challenges of access to finance, access to markets, and access to skills-building and networks.

The Pentagon's decision to allow women in combat elates female veterans, who say all they are asking for is not guaranteed spots, but a chance to meet the same standards and have the same opportunities as men, says Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.

Gender inequality remains widespread in India. Women could combat it by asserting their rights, says Jagdish N. Bhagwati.

Despite the fact that Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen-year-old Pakistani women's rights activist, survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, similar attacks against women, like the one in India, are on the rise. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon says that these attacks are efforts to stamp out women's progress and the potential of women worldwide will not be realized if this type of violence is tolerated.

Women in the Arab world have certainly played a prominent role in their countries' transition, writes Isobel Coleman, but cannot take for granted that their activism will translate into political influence or legal gains in the emerging systems.