How do we advance NeoHumanism and Humanist values in this century? The Institute for Science and Human Values, in answer, declares that Humanists must accept responsibility for the wellbeing of society and guarantee human rights to all people, including women. Humanists firmly defend the separation of religion and the state, and consider freedom of conscience and the right of dissent vital.

We deplore any demand for the subservience of women to men, the repression of sexuality, the defense of theocracy, and the denial, often in the name of religion, of democratic human rights. NeoHumanism focuses on the principles of personal integrity, individual freedom and responsibility. It includes a commitment to social justice, planetary ethics, and the development of shared values for the human family. This involves sexual fulfillment and compatibility, for women as well as for men, and willingness to end repression of women. NeoHumanism also advocates acceptance of same-sex relationships and marriage.

It is paramount to provide for the safety of women and to protect them from a culture of predatory male violence. Women's needs as well as rights must be recognized as equal to men's. NeoHumanists recognize the urgent need to strengthen women's autonomy, especially in matters of pregnancy, both for their welfare and for the good of the family and the health of the planet.

Feminism is women's quest for equal rights and is philosophically linked with modern Humanism. Feminism aims to define, establish, and defend equal political, economic, and social rights for women around the world. In addition, Feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. This includes a serious ongoing examination of the essential sameness of women and men – of our shared humanity. A feminist, as well as a Humanist, is a woman or a man whose beliefs and behavior are based on embracing the fundamental human equality of all people. Feminists are also realists who recognize that inequality exists and is defended primarily today because it confers advantages on one class of humans at the expense of the other.

Because human inequality is pervasive, feminist activists campaign in all areas of civil rights. For women especially they promote bodily integrity, autonomy, and reproductive justice. This justice includes access to safe, affordable contraception and abortion without interference from the state, from any church, or from other people, including parents, marital partners, or guardians. It also includes freedom from forced sterilization. Feminists work to protect women and girls from violence in their homes, from sexual harassment in the workplace and on campuses at all educational levels, and from all forms of sexual assault, including rape in the military and during wartime as a barbaric military tactic. We advocate strong penalties for all forms of rape and for those who promote sexual slavery for girls and women worldwide.

Feminist campaigns have already made major cultural changes, particularly in the West, by achieving women's rights to run for and hold elective office and to enter into contracts and own property. Progress has also been made toward more gender neutrality in language. These campaigns continue to work for equal pay for women and pay equity in careers, though the continuing discrepancy demonstrates the absurdity of some of the arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would make the inequality more difficult to maintain. Feminists argue for workplace rights, including family leave for women and men, and actively oppose discrimination against women in the workplace, including defining of pregnancy as a disability. Discrimination against women is still not explicitly prohibited in the constitutions of many countries, including the United States.

While Feminism is usually thought of as focusing on women's rights alone, in reality it is a fight for human values and family values. Men's liberation from macho, paternalistic culture is a necessary feature of a humanistic society. Recognition that men are also harmed by sexist gender roles, even when they are privileged, can move humanity and civilization forward in this new century. How many men today realize that their intimate personal relationships with a woman would be greatly enhanced if they accorded a woman the equal rights and respect they are likely to grant another man? Feminism works for human rights and the betterment of all people.

Unfortunately, men worldwide have been conditioned by patriarchy and histories written by men to believe that males are intrinsically superior. Written accounts glorifying the accomplishments of men, but largely ignoring the herstoric achievements of women, support the idea that men are naturally entitled to exclusive rights and privileges. Many of these beliefs are instilled and actively promoted by anachronistic religious fundamentalism, but often also by governments and laws, and sometimes even by the academy. Thus, as a group and individually, many men think they deserve these rights over women. To maintain these rights they demand women's subservience.

In fairness, it must be noted it is not just men who support the subordination and subjugation of women. To a lesser extent, and in a more subtle way, it is also supported by women who grew up with secrets of being terrorized or brutalized, or who at the other extreme were groomed and trained to please successful men, in order to secure a special place in a social order ruled by those men. These latter women may not know of or may not care about others, even in their own neighborhoods, who have suffered serious abuse. Enjoying a good life themselves, they may think "this is just the way it is." If a woman accepts that "it’s a man's world," even when this is clearly unjust, she becomes indirectly complicit with a culture that condones violence and the abuse of women.

Education is an important point where Humanism and Feminism intersect. They both emphasize the urgent need for educating both men and women, as equal human beings, on these topics. To this end, women and men, as equal human beings who espouse Humanist and feminist values, are taking action around the world to oppose arbitrary male privilege and male violence. Even enlightened men are coming to realize that their own lives, including their personal lives with women, will improve when the brutal side of patriarchy has ended.

Today we call on all of you to be brave, to stand up for and with Humanists and feminists to demand an end to female subordination and male violence. Only then will women and men begin to heal together, live in peace, and realize the goals of worldwide NeoHumanism, the new Humanism.

This article was originally presented as a speech at the UNESCO conference 21st Century: Towards the New Humanism held January 23-24, 2012 in Paris.