The Women and Social Movements Library consists of the conference proceedings from more than 400 transnational conferences organized by and about women since 1840. Many themes include: the promotion of women’s legal and civil rights, access to jobs and education, provisions for women’s health, and building women’s networks and collective voices through conferences and journals.

1. Women and Social Movements,
International 1840 to Present
Conference Proceedings

2. Women and Social Movements, International 1840 to Present
Two-thirds of this database consists of the conference
proceedings from more than 400 transnational conferences
organized by and about women since 1840. Many themes recur:
the promotion of women’s legal and civil rights, access to jobs
and education, provisions for women’s health, and building
women’s networks and collective voices through conferences
and journals.
This digital archive includes 150,000 pages of conference
proceedings, reports of international women's organizations,
publications, diaries and memoirs of women active
internationally since the mid-nineteenth century, and selected
web pages of women's non-governmental organizations.
Here too are photographs and videos of major events and
activists in the history of women’s international social
movements. Also included are 30 essays that explore themes
illuminated by the documents in the archive, which we have
commissioned from leading scholars.
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3. Congres International Du Droit Des Femmes. Paris, August 1878
These conference proceedings give a detailed overview of
the themes and discussions of the International Congress on
Women’s Rights, held in Paris in 1878. This historic event
included delegates from France, Italy, Switzerland, Holland,
Russia, and the United States. The second session discussed
the history of feminist demands in France and elsewhere
and summarized women’s rights as part of the progress of
humanity. The third session focused on education,
particularly women’s access to work-related training as a
means of improving their social and political lives. Fourth
and fifth sessions discuss women’s labor, including women’s
domestic labor and strategies to overcome prejudice and
discrimination in the workplace. Sixth and seventh sessions
consider discriminatory concepts of morality that expect
men and women to behave differently. Final sessions
investigate women’s legal standing, including the regulation
of prostitution.
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4. All Asian Women's Conference, First Session, Lahore, India, Jan. 19-25,
1931
1.) To promote the consciousness of unity amongst the women of
Asia as members of a common Oriental culture.
2.) To take stock of the qualities of Oriental civilization so as to
preserve them for national and world service (simplicity,
philosophy, art, the cult of the family, veneration for
motherhood, spiritual consciousness).
3.) To review and seek remedies for the defects at present
apparent in Oriental civilization (ill-health, illiteracy, poverty and
underpayment of labor, infantile mortality, marriage customs).
4.) To sift what is appropriate for Asia from the Occidental
influences (education, dress, freedom of movement, cinemas,
machinery).
5.) To strengthen one another by exchange of data and
experiences concerning women's conditions in the respective
countries of Asia (economic, moral, political, and spiritual
status).
6.) To promote world peace.
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Objects of the conference:

5. Open Door International for the Economic Emancipation of the Woman
Worker. Cambridge, July 25th-29th, 1938
Object: “To secure that a woman shall be free to work and protected as a worker on the
same terms as a man, and that legislation and regulations dealing with conditions and
hours, payment, entry and training shall be based upon the nature of the work and not
upon the sex of the worker: and to secure for a woman, irrespective of marriage of
childbirth, the right at all times to decide whether or not she shall engage in paid work,
and to ensure that no legislation or regulations shall deprive her of this right.”
Conference Resolutions: Resolutions:
1.) The Modern Line of Attack on Women's Civil Rights
2.) Trade Unions and Restrictive Legislation
3.) Population Problems in Relation to Women's Right to Work
4.) Modern Problems of Maternal Health
5.) Nutrition Policies as they Affect the Woman Worker
6.) Equal Educational Opportunities
7.) Women and the Fight for a Shorter Working Week
8.) Equal Pay
9.) Industrial Hygiene and the Woman Worker
10.) The Work and Wages of Women in Industry-- Need for a Fresh Enquiry
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6. United Nations: Commission on the Status of Women, New York, 1947
"The function of the Commission shall be to prepare
recommendations and reports to the Economic and Social Council
on promoting women's rights in political, economic, civil, social,
and educational fields with the object of implementing the
principle that men and women shall have equal rights to such
recommendations. The Commission shall also make
recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring
immediate attention in defense of women's rights."
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7. XIII Conference of Socialist International Women. Lima, June 16-17
1986
This conference's theme was "Equality -- a
socialist decade for women." It covered the
following topics:
1.) Women in Power: Latin America, New
Zealand, France
2.) Women under Oppression: Political
Oppression
3.) Racial Oppression: South Africa and Latin
America
4.) Sexual Discrimination
5.) Women's Challenge to the Economic Crisis
6.) The Third World Point of View
7.) The Impact of New Technology
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8. Women's Press and Publications in the Arab World, 3rd International
Conference. Cairo, September 4-7, 1990
"Equality between women and men in rights and duties, as
well as in opportunity, is a crucial factor in the Arab nations'
struggles for democracy, development and independence."
The conference defined their objectives in the following way:
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1.) Sharing knowledge and information about women's
movements and women's press and publications in the Arab
countries.
2.) The existence of 'Noon' and similar magazines in the Arab
countries, the traditionalist magazines; feminist magazines--
the kind of magazines women need in the Arab countries;
how to publish them and help them stand on their own feet;
cooperation between feminist magazines (financial, technical
and otherwise). Could 'Noon' be a magazine for all educated
women in the Arab world and how?
3.) How can women express themselves and their needs in
the face of persistent opposition to women's rights? Where is
the role of feminist journalism? How to finance new
magazines?