Women's rights in 2014
2014 was described as a watershed year for women's rights, by newspapers such as The Guardian. It was described as a year in which women's voices acquired greater legitimacy and authority.Time magazine said 2014 "may have been the best year for women since the dawn of time". However, The Huffington Post called it "a bad year for women, but a good year for feminism". San Francisco writer Rebecca Solnit argued that it was "a year of feminist insurrection against male violence" and a "lurch forward" in the history of feminism, and the The Guardian said the "globalisation of protest" at violence against women was "groundbreaking," and that social media had enabled a "new version of feminist solidarity."
Denise Balkissoon, writing in The Globe and Mail, disagreed with and criticized the view that 2014 marked a "watershed" moment and that "some collective 'we' has finally had enough", citing her ongoing concerns regarding a "broken system" with respect to violence against women.United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Rashida Manjoo, said that violence against women "is acknowledged as a pervasive and widespread human rights violation" and that as of 2014, "no single country can claim that there is progressive elimination occurring".