World Conference on Women, 1980

The World Conference on Women, 1980 or the Second World Conference on Women took place between 14 and 30 July 1980 in Copenhagen, Denmark as the mid-decade assessment of progress and failure in implementing the goals established by the World Plan of Action at the 1975 inaugural conference on women. The most significant event to come out of the conference was that the formal signing of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women took place during the opening ceremony of the conference. Marred by conflict and politicization of international and national events which had little to do with women's issues, the conference was viewed by some participants as a failure. They were able to secure passage of a modified World Programme of Action to expand on previous targets to improve women's status, and established a follow-up conference for the end of the decade.

The 1980 Conference held from 14 and 30 July in Copenhagen, Denmark was the direct result of the First World Conference on Women, which had been held in Mexico City in 1975, establishing the World Plan of Action and Declaration of Mexico on the Equality of Women and Their Contribution to Development and Peace. These documents took the United Nations themes—Development, Equality, and Peace—of their path for women and created guidelines for nations to reach long-term objectives to improve the lives of women. When they were adopted, the UN established 1975 to 1985 as the Decade for Women and put in motion a plan for subsequent conferences to evaluate progress being made. The format of the conference was the same, with the official session made up of delegates representing their governments and the Tribune, representing NGOs.

As with the previous conference, the Copenhagen conference was beset by the geopolitical divides of the Cold War and whether economics, racism, or sexism was the more important factor in the subordination of women. Initially planned to occur in Tehran, the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the Iran hostage crisis, escalated the political backdrop as did the continuing tensions of conflict in the Middle East. Palestinian women, refugees, and Apartheid became topics that were added to the agenda and ensured that the event would be politicized by the various participants, rather than remaining focused on women's issues. To that end, the United States Congress issued instructions to its delegates that they would not approve any resolution which attempted to make what should be an apolitical conference into an indictment of government policy or any resolution which mentioned the word "Zionism".Saudi Arabia and South Africa boycotted the convention altogether. Having to hastily relocate the conference to Denmark, also impacted the accommodations available, in that there was no space large enough to accommodate the entire Tribune, which meant that rather than the entire group participating in exchange to create unity, the group was splintered into small venues.

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