From the Texas abortion law to free period products - losses and gains in women's rights

According to Global Citizen, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused gender equality to stall significantly over the past two years. In fact, according to the website, it will take an additional 36 years now to close the gender gap.

Apart from the pandemic slowing down progress, political events such as the Taliban overtaking Afghanistan in 2021 have drastically changed lives and reduced women's rights in the country.

Another example is seen in the United States, in Texas, where on September 1, 2021, abortion became illegal in the state once a fetal heartbeat could be detected. In most cases, a fetal heartbeat can be found at just six weeks of gestation, when many women do not yet even know they are pregnant.

While this all might seem like a whole lot of bad news, there is hope. Activists and lawmakers have continued to preserve and defend the rights of women and girls, some critical gains in gender equality over the past year.

It seems incredible that child marriage is not yet banned throughout the United States of America. For example, in Massachusetts, the minimum age for marriage for girls is just 12 years.

However, 2021 led to progress in this area in two states, with Rhode Island and New York both raising the legal age for marriage to 18 years of age.

The President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, took a significant step forward in protecting girls' rights in his country in 2021. On January 18, 2021, President Abinader signed a bill that made the marriage of children younger than 18 illegal. 

According to a report by UNICEF and the World Bank in 2017, this can potentially decrease the poverty rate in the country by 10%.

In September of 2021, the French government decided that all women under the age of 25 would have access to free contraception starting on January 1, 2022.

The initiative covers everything from IUDs to the pill and all necessary procedures and tests needed in relation to birth control.

Starting in September 2021, French universities were required to provide free period products to students.

Per the French mandate, universities must install free pad and tampon dispensers in all dormitories and campus health centres.

In January 2021, the UK ditched the 5% tampon tax on all menstruation products. An excellent victory for activists in the UK who had been calling for an end to the discriminatory tax for several decades.

In March 2021, Nambia got rid of the 15% tax on period products; however, the motion will not be in effect until 2022 or 2023.

According to the United Nations, 2021 was a remarkable year for women in politics. Eight countries saw their first female Head of State or Government elected in.

Pictured: the first woman Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas.

Barbados, Estonia, Moldova, Tanzania, Samoa, Uganda, Tunisia, and Sweden all had female leaders in for at least part of 2021. In Tunisia, Najla Bouden Ramadhane (pictured) was named the country's Prime Minister and became the first woman to lead a country in the Arab region.

Photo credit: Palestinian Presidential handout

In January 2021, the German cabinet approved legislation requiring all publicly listed companies to have at least one woman on their management boards. In the case of government-run companies, at least two board members must be women. 

According to the German family and justice ministries, this law impacted roughly 70 companies, of which 30 did not have any women on their boards. 

Thanks to several steps the Internation Olympics Committee (IOC) took, the Tokyo Olympic Games in July were the most gender-equal Olympics in history. There were 4% more female athletes participating than the 2016 Games in Rio.

In addition, new competition categories for women were added and double the number of mixed-gender events were held. However, there is still plenty of improvement to be made, particularly in the funding and coverage of female Olympic athletes.

In March 2021, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam announced for the first time in 200 years of history that three paintings by female artists would be put on display permanently.

All three works are from the 17th century: The Serenade by Judith Leyster, the Memorial Portrait of Moses ter Borch by Gesina ter Borch (pictured), and Still Life with Flowers in a Glass Vase by Rachel Ruysch.

Air India made history in 2021 when four female pilots successfully completed the longest non-stop commercial flight ever operated by an Indian national airline.

The group flew a Boeing 777 from South India to the US in January 2021, and it was also the first time a group of exclusively female pilots flew over the North Pole.