During a segment on women’s evolving roles in the workplace on Meet the Press Sunday morning, GOP political operative and former McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt made a compelling case for equal opportunity in American businesses and the country at large, asserting that organizations that do not afford women a place at the table are on the wrong side of history and will, eventually, lose out.

Schmidt also extended the criticism as far as his own party, pointing out that Republicans face an institutional disadvantage due to their lack of female leaders and poor outreach to women:

SCHMIDT: I think in any organization where women are not at the table, where it is skewed male in today’s day and age, that’s an organization that’s deficient. That’s an organization that’s going to have problems. It’s one of the problems we have structurally in the Republican Party. We don’t have enough women at the table. But any company, any organization in today’s day and age that doesn’t give equal opportunity to women, that doesn’t advance women to the table, is going to be an organization that has difficulty competing.

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While women have indeed made enormous strides in the last several decades, they remain hamstrung by the legacies of institutional sexism. And Schmidt is certainly correct to point out the contemporary GOP’s woes with women — out of the record 20 women currently in the Senate, only four are Republicans. President Obama handily carried women voters in the 2012 election, thanks in large part to horrific comments about rape and the Republican Party’s overall decidedly anti-women policies.

Early next week, the European Union Parliament is planning to vote on a resolution calling for a sweeping ban on pornography in the name of gender equality. If it passed, the resolution could be the first step towards a continent-wide ban on pornography on a wide swath of media. But, good intentions aside, that would actually be a bad move for both Europe’s women and the EU’s commitment to free speech.

The Parliament vote scheduled for next week would recommend this resolution on gender equality (which includes the porn ban) to the EU Commission, which would then turn it into legislation which would then, finally, be enacted into binding law by the Parliament. As Wired UK notes, the Commission would have the discretion to simply leave out the provision calling for “a ban on all forms of pornography in the media” — which could well cover all online pornography — in the final law.

But if the ban were to make it into the final law, it would likely do more harm than good. Though a few studies have found that, under laboratory conditions, porn makes men more sexually aggressive, there’s no real-world evidence bearing out the claim that this translates into sexist attitudes or sexual violence. According to Professor Milton Diamond, director of the Pacific Center for Sex and Society at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, “[t]here’s absolutely no evidence that pornography does anything negative.”

There is, however, empirical evidence that it reduces the incidence of sexual violence. One 2007 study by Todd Kendall compared the rates of crime between U.S. states with greater and lesser access to the internet. After controlling for other crime-inducing variables (like rates of urbanization and alcoholism), Kendall found that more internet access led to lower rates of two crimes only — rape and prostitution:

I find that internet access appears to be a substitute for rape; in particular, the results suggest that a 10 percentage point increase in internet access is associated with a decline in reported rape victimization of around 7.3%…internet has no apparent substitution effect on any of 25 other measured crimes, with the exception of the only other well-defined sex crime, prostitution. Moreover, I show that the effect on rape is concentrated among states with the highest male-to-female ratios, and that by age, the effect on rape is concentrated among teenage men, who are the prime consumers of pornography, and for whom the internet induced the largest change in availability.

Two other studies support Kendall’s finding — one correlating the international spread of the internet with a concomitantly international decline in sexual violence, the other presenting survey evidence that, as Scientific American puts it, “patients requesting treatment in clinics for sex offenders commonly say that pornography helps them keep their abnormal sexuality within the confines of their imagination.”

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Although we’ve made significant steps forward over the last 100 years, this year’s International Women’s Day is a reminder that women around the world still have significant barriers to overcome. Fortunately, there are some concrete steps the global community could take to advance women’s health and women’s rights. Here are four policies we need to start prioritizing:

1. Reliable access to affordable family planning resources.

Women report that they rely on birth control to help them achieve their economic goals, like finishing their education, keeping a job, and maintaining a family size they can support. But at least 200 million women in developing nations aren’t able to use the contraceptive methods of their choice because they lack the necessary information, resources, or support from their families. The international community agrees that reproductive choice is a human right, but that right is not being realized for women around the world — partly because family planning resources are less of an international development priority than they used to be. President Obama’s repeal of the “global gag rule” — a Reagan-era policy that restricted USAID funding for any women’s health organization that included information about abortion in their comprehensive sexual health resources — was a good start, but without continuing to invest in family planning programs in developing nations, women around the world won’t be able to determine their own reproductive futures.

2. Safe and legal access to abortion.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that complications from unsafe abortion procedures contribute to 47,000 preventable deaths around the world each year. It’s particularly imperative to ensure global access to safe abortion since, unlike access to contraception, the legality of abortion has nothing to do with actual abortion rates and women seek out this type of reproductive care regardless of the law. Low-income women are particularly likely to be forced to resort to unsafe abortions because they can’t leverage their economic privilege to access the health care they need. And even in some countries in the developing world with more progressive abortion laws, unsafe abortions are still the leading cause of maternal death and injury — partly because women are unaware of the reproductive resources available to them, and partly because a pervasive stigma surrounding abortion prevents women from discussing their options with family and friends.

3. Better maternity care.

Giving birth remains a risky medical procedure around the world. An estimated 800 women die in childbirth every single day, often from preventable medical complications like bleeding, infections, and obstructed labor — or simply from the lack of basic resources, like electricity. In Nigeria, women are dying in the dark because power outages prevent doctors from being able to provide adequate maternity care. Preventing maternal deaths helps keep children thriving, since infants whose mothers die are more likely to die before reaching their second birthday. But maternal care isn’t just about about ensuring women’s access to safe medical procedures — it’s also about promoting policies that help support mothers throughout pregnancy, birth, and caring for a newborn. The U.S., one of just a handful of countries that do not provide paid maternity leave, lags behind in this category.

4. More resources to prevent gender-based violence.

Sexual violence against women remains a tool of war and oppression around the world. Globally, as many as one in three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some other way. Aside from robbing women of their bodily autonomy, this type of violence also directly impacts women’s reproductive health — leading to unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, preventable gynecological issues, and increased STD transmission. In fact, earlier this week, UN delegates pointed out that the link between gender-based violence and the HIV pandemic needs to be made explicit. In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute 60 percent of the people infected with HIV — and since gender inequality and violence put women at a higher risk for the virus, international efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic should also be engaging with issues of domestic violence and sexual assault. “Once you empower [women], issues of HIV and gender-based violence will be a thing of the past,” Zimbabwe’s deputy prime minister, Thokozani Khupe, pointed out.

As people around the world recognize International Women’s Day, few would claim that women have achieved true parity. There’s still a long way to go before women see anything near equity, even as countries have made slow but steady progress on closing the gender gap in education, economics, health, and politics.

But the facts are there: If we can help women get on equal footing with men, they will help us all, globally, to succeed. Here are just some of the ways women could change the world, if we let them:

If they had equal employment, women could raise every country’s GDP.

If women’s participation in the workforce increased, it would transform the global economy for the better. One study projects that if the female employment in the U.S. matched the male rates, our overall GDP would rise by 5 percent. In Japan, the GDP would jump by 9 percent. Addressing the education gap would be a good way to start to achieve these figures. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that each country’s GDP grows by 3 percent for every additional 10 percent of girls going to school.

If companies put women in leadership positions, they’d both benefit.

A persistent global gap in economic participation and opportunity means that not enough women are making it into the workforce — and even when they are, they’re not ascending to top positions. In fact, 36 percent of U.S. companies currently don’t have a single woman on their boards of directors. A study of our neighbors to the north found that Canadian women hold only 5.7 percent of CEO positions at top companies there. In Latin America, there are a total of only nine female CEOs in the top 500 companies. But evidence suggests that gender-mixed leadership actually translates into better profits. According to one study that compared similarly-sized businesses, those with women on their boards outperformed those with all-male boards by 26 percent.

If women were more politically involved, we’d have better policies for our poor.

When women aren’t outnumbered by men, they tend to speak up more for the needs of the vulnerable and advocate for the social safety net. In one experiment that asked groups to set the threshold for public assistance, the groups with fewer women decided on a minimum income of about $21,600 per year for a family of four — close to the United States’ current federal poverty level — but in the groups where women made up 60 to 80 percent of the members, women elevated the safety net to as much as $31,000. In female-dominated groups, women spoke up as much as men, encountered less hostility from their peers, and ultimately influenced their male counterparts to make more generous economic policy choices.

If women were paid more, families would thrive.

The average pay disparity between a man and a woman in the United States is .77 cents on the dollar. That means an American woman could feed a family of four for 37 years with the earnings she loses thanks to pay disparity. If that sounds bad, compare it to the pay gap in Korea, the largest in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. There, women’s paychecks were 39 percent lower than their male peers. Women are increasingly becoming the primary or co-breadwinners for their families, and as they do their pay becomes more vital to the wellbeing of their families. It’s important for the nation, too; economists believe that closing the gender pay gap would be the equivalent of “huge” economic stimulus, and that, in the United States alone, it could grow the economy by three or four percentage points.

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A prominent Egyptian Salafi preacher justified sexual assaults again female protesters, claiming women “are going to Tahrir Square because they want to be raped” in a video posted online Wednesday. The preacher, Ahmad Mahmoud Abdullah (also known as “Abu Islam”) is the owner of a private television channel called “al-Ummah” and has previously been accused of defaming Christianity for comments made to the press and destroying bibles in front of the U.S. embassy.

The same day as his comments were posted, women protested against sexual assault in Egypt and Amnesty International released a briefing highlighting sexual violence against female protesters in Egypt, noting:

“Several women’s rights activists and others believe that the sexual assaults on women are organized and co-ordinated — possibly by state actors — with the aim of silencing them, excluding them from public spaces and the political events shaping Egypt’s future, and breaking the resistance of the opposition. They point to the fact that perpetrators use similar tactics in their attacks, which seem designed to degrade and intimidate women. The activists also emphasize the perpetrators’ calm demeanor, relatively well-off appearance, and ability to carry out such attacks in public without fear of punishment[...]

Given the stigmatization attached to harassment and sexual assaults against women, most cases go unreported. In the small minority of cases where women and girls do file complaints, they face numerous obstacles in their fight for justice. A lawyer involved in sexual harassment cases told Amnesty International that frequently police officers registering the complaints, as well as prosecutors investigating the cases, encourage plaintiffs to drop the complaints and “forgive” the perpetrators.”

The briefing also reports twenty-five sexual assaults on January 25th alone, including “at least two cases blades were used, including on survivors’ genital areas.”

Of course, Egypt isn’t the only place where rape is goes under reported and unpunished: According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network only 54 percent of rapes in the U.S. are reported, and only nine out of a hundred cases are prosecuted.

During the height of last year’s outcry over the GOP’s “War on Women,” transvaginal probes became one of the most recognizable symbols of the Republican Party’s overreaching anti-abortion policies. Particularly when Virginia pushed forward with a controversial measure to require all women seeking abortions to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound, women’s health advocates decried the practice as “state-sponsored rape.”

Virginia legislators ultimately changed the language of their ultrasound bill to remove the mention of transvaginal probes. But stringent abortion restrictions don’t necessarily need specific “transvaginal” language to force women to undergo invasive, unnecessary medical procedures against their will. These are just a few examples of carefully-worded abortion bills that would ultimately require transvaginal probes — even though it’s not explicitly stated in the legislation:

– MICHIGAN: Talking Points Memo first reported that Michigan’s proposed ultrasound bill, HB-4187, is a bit more nefarious than it appears to be on the surface. The legislation doesn’t mention trasvaginal probes, but it does stipulate that the mandatory ultrasounds need to use the most modern equipment available, and provide “the most visibly clear image of the gross anatomical development of the fetus and the most audible fetal heartbeat.” Donna Crane, the policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, explained that language will require doctors to use transvaginal probes — which provide clearer images than the non-invasive ultrasound procedure.

– KENTUCKY: Women seeking abortions in Kentucky already have to undergo a state-mandated waiting period and a mandatory counseling session intended to talk them out of their decision. But SB-5, which just cleared a Senate committee on Thursday, would also require women to have an ultrasound before terminating a pregnancy. During Thursday’s committee hearing, state Sen. Paul Hornback (R) admitted something that the proponents of similar ultrasound bills in other states haven’t been as forthright about: the legislation would also require a transvaginal ultrasound for early pregnancies, since abdominal ultrasounds don’t work well before 12 weeks of pregnancy. Because the vast majority of abortions are performed during the first trimester, the vast majority of women will be subjected to a transvaginal probe.

– ARKANSAS: Last week, State Sen. Jason Rapert (R) introduced a “fetal heartbeat bill” to outlaw all abortion procedures after a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which can occur as early as six weeks of pregnancy. Women’s health advocates pointed out that, since a transvaginal ultrasound is the only way to detect the fetal heartbeat that early into a pregnancy, Rapert’s bill would also mandate invasive probes for all women seeking abortions. The growing controversy over the unintended consequences of the stringent abortion ban led Rapert to amend his bill earlier this week — updating the legislation’s language to specify it would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected by using an abdominal ultrasound, at around 10 weeks of pregnancy.

– NORTH DAKOTA: If Rapert’s heartbeat ban initially had the unintended consequence of mandating transvaginal ultrasounds, then the same holds true for the extreme fetal heartbeat bills that have been proposed in other states. For example, North Dakota’s HB-1456 states that “an individual may not perform an abortion on a pregnant woman before determining, in accordance with standard medical practice, if the unborn child the pregnant woman is carrying has a detectable heartbeat” — and transvaginal ultrasounds are the standard medical practice for determining a fetal heartbeat in early pregnancies.

Even though ultrasounds are not considered medically necessary procedures for first-trimester abortions, 12 states currently require women to undergo one anyway. And according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, 13 new forced ultrasound bills have been introduced in 8 states since the beginning of 2013, a number the group says is all too common for the beginning of a new legislative session.

Donna Crane, NARAL’s policy director, explained to ThinkProgress that Republicans are playing “games of hide and seek” with this type of legislation. But the issue of invasive probes — as well as the fundamental issue at stake, the fact that women are forced to have an unwanted, unnecessary medical procedure simply because a legislator decided they should — has never gone away. “These bills are horrific, but they’re commonplace,” Crane said. “All they’re doing is changing the language. Virginia made a PR error in actually using a searchable word, ‘transvaginal,’ and they’re not likely to do that again. But the bills are still as severe as they ever were.”

Abortion opponents in Arkansas are hailing this week as important progress toward their goal of restricting women’s reproductive rights after several anti-choice measures advanced in the legislature. An unconstitutional “fetal heartbeat” ban to outlaw abortion as early as six weeks passed the Senate by a 26-8 vote, and two other restrictions — one to block health insurance coverage for abortion services, and one to ban late-term abortions without even the narrowest exceptions in the cases of rape and incest — also passed a House health committee.

The fetal heartbeat bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jason Rapert (R), says he feels it’s his “moral obligation” to ban abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected — even though the only way to detect a heartbeat at such an early stage of pregnancy is to use a vaginal probe. “Can you imagine what kind of feeling that would cause when inserted into a woman?” State Sen. Stephanie Flowers (D), an opponent of the measure, asked Rapert on the Senate floor. Rapert admitted that he did not.

If Arkansas’ heartbeat ban passes, it will represent the most stringent abortion restriction in the nation. It will also stand in direct opposition to women’s constitutional right to abortion under Roe v. Wade. An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union has already informed Arkansas’ senators that the group will sue if the state enacts such a restriction.

Now that Republicans control Arkansas’ General Assembly, anti-abortion groups believe these new measures actually have a chance of becoming law — especially because, since the Democratic governor has signed several abortion restrictions before, there’s no guarantee that Beebe will veto these bills. In fact, the governor has indicated that he’s at least considering the merits of the proposed fetal heartbeat ban. Beebe told reporters on Thursday that he will look into the constitutionality of measure. “I’m waiting on lawyers. I think that’s the big concern right now — does it run afoul of the Supreme Court or constitutional restrictions?” Beebe said. “That’s the first thing we’re looking at.”

And despite what Beebe ends up deciding, anti-abortion groups are already celebrating a victory in Arkansas, since the votes on Thursday represent their biggest gains in years. “I think a lot of people are beginning to understand that the people of Arkansas by and large are pro-life and you’re seeing that reflected in how people vote here,” said Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Family Council, told the Associated Press.