Women's Rights Are Human Rights

Date: February 20, 2025
Location: Don B. Huntley University Art Gallery

About the Exhibition Guest Currator Exhibited Works Installation Views

banner image for "Women's Rights Are Human Rights" exhibition

Women's Rights Are Human Rights is a fitting title for an exhibition of women's rights and advocacy posters. The phrase is a key slogan in the women's rights movement and was also the title of an important speech delivered by Hillary Rodham Clinton at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. In her speech, Clinton stated:

"If the term 'women's rights' were to be interchangeable with the term 'human rights,' the world community would be a better place because human rights affect the women who raise the world's children, care for the elderly, run companies, work in hospitals, and fight for better education and health care."

Yet, gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society. Women lack access to decent work, face occupational segregation, and experience gender wage disparities. Many women are denied access to basic education and healthcare, suffer from violence and discrimination, and remain underrepresented in political and economic decision-making processes.

In many cultures, women have limited control over their own bodies, as female sexuality is often controlled and defined by men in patriarchal societies. Sexual violence committed by men is frequently rooted in ideologies of male sexual entitlement, with many systems granting women few legitimate options to refuse sexual advances. This entitlement manifests in different ways depending on the culture. Human rights and women's rights are violated every day, as rape and brutality against women are often used as instruments of armed conflict. Women and children comprise the majority of the world’s refugees, and when women are excluded from political participation, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.

This exhibition features posters created by both men and women to celebrate and acknowledge the vital role all citizens must play in protecting and promoting human rights. These works challenge gender inequality and stereotypes, advocate for sexual and reproductive rights, and call for the protection of women and girls against violence. The posters promote women’s empowerment and full participation in society while questioning religious and cultural norms, as well as patriarchal attitudes that subordinate, stigmatize, or restrict women from reaching their full potential.

With a powerful collective visual voice, these posters are designed to awaken a sense of shared responsibility in challenging gender inequality and discrimination. They provoke both a necessary discomfort and an empathetic response in viewers, urging them to reflect on the pervasive injustices faced by women worldwide.

Guest Curator Biography

Elizabeth Resnick is a Professor Emerita, former chair of Graphic Design and current part-time faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, Massachusetts. She earned her B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees in Graphic Design from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.

Elizabeth Resnick Design, an independent Boston design studio was in operation from 1973–1996. Clients included: Ciba Corning Diagnostics Corporation, Store 24, Animal Rescue League of Boston, AIGA Boston, Massachusetts College of Art, and other area schools plus many local non-profit cultural organizations.

Professor Resnick is a passionate design curator who has organized seven comprehensive design exhibitions: Within/Without: The Art of Russell Mills with Teresa Flavin (1991); Dutch Graphic Design: 1918–1945 with Alston Purvis (1994); The Art of the Poster: Makoto Saito with Jan Kubasiewicz (1999); The Graphic Imperative: International Posters of Peace, Social Justice and The Environment 1965–2005 with Chaz Maviyane-Davies and Frank Baseman (2005); Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010 with Javier Cortés (2010); Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age: 2001–2012 (2012) and currently Women’s Rights Are Human Rights: International Posters on Gender-based Inequality, Violence and Discrimination (2016) which investigates gender-based inequalities deeply entrenched in every global society.

Her publications include catalogs for the most of the exhibitions mentioned above plus The Social Design Reader Bloomsbury Visual Arts (2019), Developing Citizen Designers, Bloomsbury Academic (2016), Design for Communication: Conceptual Graphic Design Basics, John Wiley & Sons Publishers (2003) and Graphic Design: A Problem-Solving Approach to Visual Communication, Prentice-Hall Publications”(1984).

She has led poster workshops and lectured throughout the United States, Mexico, Ireland, Great Britain, China, South Korea, Iceland, Taiwan, Bolivia, Krakow and Warsaw. Her posters have been accepted at the Warsaw Poster Biennial and Mexican Poster Biennial and she frequently participates in International poster invitational exhibitions.

Exhibited Artwork