Why I believe the mistreatment of women is the number one human rights abuse

In the pantheon of American political figures who have devoted their post-presidential years to humanitarian causes, Jimmy Carter stands as a singular voice for human rights. His 2015 TED talk represents not just another speech about women’s rights, but a profound moral reckoning from a man who has witnessed the arc of injustice across continents and decades. What makes Carter’s address particularly compelling is not merely his stature as a former president, but his willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about religion, culture, and power that many leaders carefully avoid.

Carter begins his discourse with a stark declaration that frames the entire conversation: the abuse of women and girls represents “the number one human rights abuse” in the world today. This is not hyperbole from a politician seeking attention, but a considered judgment from someone who has negotiated with warlords, mediated conflicts, and observed elections in over 80 countries. The weight of this assessment comes from Carter’s unique vantage pointhe has seen how the subjugation of women underlies and exacerbates virtually every other form of human suffering, from poverty to war to disease.

The former president’s analysis cuts through cultural relativism with surgical precision. He presents a litany of abuses that span the globe: the trafficking of women into sexual slavery, with Atlanta serving as a major hub in the United States; the selective abortion and infanticide of female babies, resulting in a demographic catastrophe where 160 million girls are “missing” from the world’s population; the epidemic of sexual assault on university campuses and in the military; and the persistent economic inequality that sees women paid a fraction of what men earn for the same work. Each statistic Carter cites is not just a number but a testament to systematic devaluation of female life.

What distinguishes Carter’s approach is his willingness to implicate religious institutions, including his own Southern Baptist tradition, in perpetuating these injustices. His decision to leave the Southern Baptist Convention after six decades of membership was not a casual political gesture but a profound crisis of conscience. He describes how religious texts are selectively interpreted by male religious leaders to justify the subordination of women, creating a theological framework that sanctifies discrimination. This manipulation of scripture, Carter argues, provides moral cover for everything from domestic violence to the exclusion of women from positions of religious and political leadership.

The intersection of religious authority and patriarchal power forms a central theme in Carter’s critique. He observes how in many societies, religious doctrine becomes the primary justification for denying women basic rights from education to property ownership to freedom of movement. Yet Carter, himself a devout Christian, demonstrates that faith and feminism are not incompatible. Instead, he argues that true religious devotion demands the recognition of women’s equal dignity and worth. His personal journey from unquestioning acceptance of traditional gender hierarchies to active advocacy for women’s rights offers a model for how religious communities might evolve without abandoning their core spiritual commitments.

Carter’s discussion of violence against women moves beyond abstract policy considerations to visceral human reality. He recounts conversations with women who have escaped sexual slavery, describing brothels in Atlanta where women are kept in literal chains, their passports confiscated, their bodies commodified in a trade that generates billions of dollars annually. The proximity of such horrors to America’s centers of power and prosperity shatters any illusion that sex trafficking is a problem confined to distant, impoverished nations. Carter’s mention that the Super Bowl and major political conventions drive spikes in sex trafficking demand reveals how mainstream cultural events are complicit in this exploitation.

The economic dimensions of gender inequality receive careful attention in Carter’s analysis. He notes that women in the United States earn 23% less than men for comparable work, a gap that has remained stubbornly persistent despite decades of legislation aimed at ensuring equal pay. In academia, where one might expect enlightened attitudes to prevail, the disparity is even more pronounced. Carter connects these economic inequalities to deeper patterns of devaluation, showing how the underpayment of women’s labor both reflects and reinforces their second-class status in society.

Perhaps most powerfully, Carter addresses the complicity of privileged women in maintaining systems of oppression. He observes that women in positions of power often fail to advocate for their less fortunate sisters, choosing instead to protect their own advantages within patriarchal structures. This criticism extends to university administrators who minimize campus sexual assault to protect their institutions’ reputations, female military officers who remain silent about abuse to advance their careers, and wealthy women who benefit from the cheap labor of trafficked domestic workers. Carter’s point is not to blame women for their own oppression but to highlight how patriarchy co-opts even its victims into maintaining its power.

The global scope of Carter’s vision encompasses practices that many in the West prefer to regard as foreign barbarism: honor killings, female genital cutting, child marriage. Yet he consistently draws connections between these extreme forms of violence and the more subtle but pervasive discrimination found in ostensibly progressive societies. The common thread is the belief that women are inherently inferior to men, a belief that manifests differently across cultures but produces suffering universally. Carter’s refusal to draw comfortable distinctions between “their” problems and “our” problems challenges listeners to recognize their own participation in global structures of oppression.

The speech culminates in a call for transformation that goes beyond policy reform to demand fundamental changes in consciousness. Carter invokes the precedent of slavery’s abolition, noting that practices once considered economically essential and divinely ordained can be recognized as abominations and eliminated through sustained moral pressure. He challenges men in particular to examine their privilege and become active allies in the struggle for gender equality, recognizing that the liberation of women is not a zero-sum game but a prerequisite for humanity’s collective flourishing.

What resonates throughout Carter’s address is his integration of personal testimony with systematic analysis. His decision to speak out on women’s rights in his 89th year of life carries the weight of accumulated wisdom and the urgency of limited time. There is no political calculation in his words, no careful triangulation to avoid offense. Instead, there is the moral clarity of someone who has seen too much suffering to remain silent and who understands that his privilege obligates him to speak for those who cannot.

The response to Carter’s talk reveals both the hunger for prominent male voices in the feminist movement and the resistance that greets any serious challenge to patriarchal power. His willingness to use his platform to elevate women’s rights validates the experiences of countless women whose testimonies have been dismissed or ignored. At the same time, the fact that a man’s voice is necessary to make these issues “legitimate” in public discourse underscores the very inequality Carter describes.

As we reflect on Carter’s message years after its delivery, its relevance has only intensified. The #MeToo movement has exposed the prevalence of sexual abuse across industries and nations, validating Carter’s assessment of violence against women as a global emergency. The rollback of reproductive rights in various countries, including the United States, demonstrates how fragile women’s gains remain. The persistence of human trafficking, despite increased awareness and law enforcement efforts, confirms Carter’s warning that economic incentives and cultural attitudes must change simultaneously for real progress to occur.

Carter’s talk stands as both a diagnosis and a prescription. The diagnosis is clear: the systematic abuse of women and girls represents humanity’s greatest moral failure, a failure that implicates religious institutions, political systems, and economic structures in a web of oppression that spans the globe. The prescription is equally clear, if more difficult to implement: a fundamental transformation in how we understand gender, power, and human dignity. This transformation requires not just changing laws but changing hearts, not just reforming institutions but reimagining relationships, not just protecting women from violence but recognizing their full humanity.

In the end, Carter’s message transcends the typical boundaries of political discourse to become a moral testament. His words carry the authority not of office but of conscience, not of power but of principle. He demonstrates that the struggle for women’s rights is not a specialized concern for feminists but a fundamental test of our commitment to human dignity. His example challenges all of us, regardless of gender, to examine our own complicity in systems of oppression and to join what he correctly identifies as the defining human rights struggle of our time.