Significant national legislation relating to rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence, early or forced marriage, discrimination in inheritance, marriage and property rights, among others, have been enacted to protect women’s rights, empower them in society and enhance their mental health and well-being.

Women's rights exist because women are born female, not because they identify with femininity, because they wear dresses, because they wear make-up.
There is an understanding in law that women face oppression and discrimination because they are born female.
I think we do need to protect everyone from being discriminated against, but we don't need to say that trans-identifying males are literally female to protect them from discrimination.

Has woman the same rights in the state which man has? This question may appear ridiculous to many. For if the only ground of all legal rights is reason and freedom, how can a distinction exist between two sexes which possess both the same reason and the same freedom. Nevertheless, it seems that, so long as men have lived, this has been differently held, and the female sex seems not to have been placed on a par with the male sex in the exercise of its rights. Such a universal sentiment must have a ground, to discover which was never a more urgent problem than in our days.

What rights have women? …(they are) punished for breaking laws which they have no voice in making. All avenues to enterprise and honors are closed against them. If poor, they must drudge for a mere pittance— if of the wealthy classes, they must be dressed dolls of fashion — parlor puppets…

It is a well-known fact that women in most parts of the world face a multitude of injustices, disparities and discrimination, unlike their male counterparts. Women workers, for example, face many barriers on their way to equal participation and leadership because entry to that world is based on credentials– which many women have never obtained.

if we look to the great majority of cases, the effect of women’s legal inferiority, on the character both of women and of men, must be painted in far darker colours. We do not speak here of the grosser brutalities, nor of the man’s power to seize on the woman’s earnings, or compel her to live with him against her will. We do not address ourselves to any one who requires to have it proved that these things should be remedied. We suppose average cases, in which there is neither complete union nor complete disunion of feelings and character; and we affirm, that, in such cases, the influence of the dependence on the woman’s side is demoralising to the character of both.

I know that these inequalities are reproduced in the family, the community and they are also reproduced in the workplace where we find ourselves as lawyers. Women lawyers can bring about substantive changes not only in the practice of the law, but in the law itself

Men and women are different, it’s a fact. [...] Yet this is not allowed to be a reason to prevent equality in the fields where men are better on the whole – for example, when it comes to jobs that require great strength. Ah no, that would be sexist. A woman must have equality and do whatever she wants, except, when it comes to wearing a prison uniform, obviously.

Unfortunately, in many places, girls and women are held back by legally sanctioned sexism and laws that prevent women from traveling outside the home or obtaining secular work without male consent.

The Canadian Human Rights Act protects women because as a society, we understand that women face discrimination based on their biological sex. But our ability to organize on behalf of women's liberation and to maintain women-only space is threatened by legislation that protects people based on "gender identity" and "gender expression." How can we argue for women's rights, based on the understanding that women are oppressed specifically due to their biological sex, if we simultaneously say that sex doesn't matter, but that "gender identity" and "gender expression" do?

"Inherent differences" between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual's opportunity. Sex classifications may be used to compensate women "for particular economic disabilities [they have] suffered," Califano v. Webster, 430 U. S. 313, 320 (1977) (per curiam), to "promot[e] equal employment opportunity," see California Fed. Sav. & Loan Assn. v. Guerra, 479 U. S. 272, 289 (1987), to advance full development of the talent and capacities of our Nation's people. But such classifications may not be used, as they once were, see Goesaert, 335 U. S., at 467, to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of women.

The question is often asked, "What does woman want, more than she enjoys? What is she seeking to obtain? Of what rights is she deprived? What privileges are withheld from her?" I answer, she asks nothing as favor, but as right; she wants to be acknowledged a moral, responsible being. She is seeking not to be governed by laws in the making of which she has no voice. She is deprived of almost every right in civil society, and is a cipher in the nation, except in the right of presenting a petition. In religious society her disabilities have greatly retarded her progress. Her exclusion from the pulpit or ministry, her duties marked out for her by her equal brother man, subject to creeds, rules, and disciplines made for her by him, is unworthy her true dignity.

It is essential to woman’s equality with man that she be the decisionmaker, that her choice be controlling. If you impose restraints that impede her choice, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex.

The consequences of the law’s focus on individuals rather than groups are anything but academic. Suppose an employer fires a woman for refusing his sexual advances. It’s no defense for the employer to note that, while he treated that individual woman worse than he would have treated a man, he gives preferential treatment to female employees overall. The employer is liable for treating this woman worse in part because of her sex. Nor is it a defense for an employer to say it discriminates against both men and women because of sex. This statute works to protect individuals of both sexes from discrimination, and does so equally. So an employer who fires a woman, Hannah, because she is insufficiently feminine and also fires a man, Bob, for being insufficiently masculine may treat men and women as groups more or less equally. But in both cases the employer fires an individual in part because of sex. Instead of avoiding Title VII exposure, this employer doubles it.