from Women and Foreign Policy Program

Awakening

#MeToo and the Global Fight for Womens Rights

Rachel Vogelstein and Meighan Stone chronicle the remarkable global impact of the #MeToo movement.

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Foreign policy analyses written by CFR fellows and published by the trade presses, academic presses, or the Council on Foreign Relations Press.

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Since 2017, millions have joined the global movement known as #MeToo, catalyzing an unprecedented wave of women’s activism powered by technology that reaches across borders, races, religions, and economic divides. Today, women in more than one hundred countries are using the hashtag to fight the violence and discrimination they face—and winning. What started as an online campaign against sexual harassment has triggered the most widespread cultural reckoning on women’s rights in history, with global implications for women’s participation in the economy, politics, and across social and cultural life.

Stone and Vogelstein bring us closer to a new generation of women who are using digital activism to achieve change. —Malala Yousafzai

Awakening is the first book to capture the global impact of this breakthrough movement. Bringing together political analysis and inspiring personal stories from women in seven countries—Brazil, China, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sweden, and Tunisia—Awakening takes readers to the front lines of a networked movement that’s fundamentally shifting how women organize for their own equality.

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Reviews and Endorsements

Awakening goes where no book has gone before, taking readers on a journey around the world in a powerful exploration of the most widespread cultural reckoning around women’s rights in history. In chronicling the global impact of the #MeToo movement, Meighan Stone and Rachel Vogelstein capture the speed and scale of women-led organizing in the digital age, as well as the social, economic, and legal progress that’s possible when we come together to demand change. Inspiring, insightful, and profoundly moving, this book is a must-read for women and men alike.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Awakening champions the stories of women from Nigeria to Pakistan fighting for equality in schools, workplaces, courts, and government. Through their reporting and research, Meighan Stone and Rachel Vogelstein bring us closer to a new generation of women who are using digital activism to achieve change.

Malala Yousafzai, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Awakening is a must-read for anyone thinking about the social and political consequences of #MeToo. This book provides critical insight into the movement’s global impact and the future of equality for women around the world.

Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger

Dynamically told and sharply written, Awakening is the global #MeToo book we’ve been waiting for. This connective, powerful book widens the frame and pans away from the U.S., transporting readers over borders and across cultures so we can see what women fighting for freedom everywhere have long known: that stories are world-changing and sisterhood is powerful.

Jill Filipovic, journalist and author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk and The H-Spot

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