Do Sheryl Sandberg \u00a0and Christine Lagarde represent women?<\/p>\n
Dawn Foster: Will\u00a0young women be convinced that the freedom they\u2019ve inherited is part of the natural state of affairs and not the temporary outcome of a long battle that is still being waged, and in which everything could suddenly be lost\u201d.<\/p>\n
Anyone familiar with abortion rights campaigns, for example, knows this to be true. Reproductive freedoms have been hard won in many countries, but millions of women worldwide are still denied the right to abortion, and religious groups are committed to chipping away at reproductive rights across the globe.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s rights are precarious. It\u2019s not simply a question of marching towards a more equal future: we have to keep an eye on the past too. For every battle won, there remain people who will happily reverse those decisions and cast women back decades in terms of social progress. This is the problem with using individual women\u2019s successes as bellwethers of feminist progress.\u00a0Sheryl Sandberg\u00a0(COO of Facebook),\u00a0Marissa Mayer\u00a0(CEO of Yahoo!) and\u00a0Christine Lagarde\u00a0(managing director of the International Monetary Fund) may talk about women\u2019s equality, and proffer their own positions as proof of progress \u2013 but post-crash, many women feel their lives are measurably worse.y.<\/p>\n