Women’s Rights Have Achieved Overlooked Global Victories Despite Right-Wing Trends

You’ve seen the headlines: genocide. famine. war. Climate disaster. Economic inflation. The rising far-right. democracy is in decline. For women in particular, things look particularly bleak: abortion rights have been revoked, and contraception is in the crosshairs; The workforce is bleeding black women; Women are still lagging behind in political leadership; Social media influencers are encouraging young women to throw in the towel and don an apron in commerce style.

This is not limited to the United States only. Even in the most progressive countries, the status of women is at risk. Sweden has recently abandoned its distinctive feminist foreign policy. In Argentina, President Javier Miley came to power riding a chainsaw, which he used for the first time to cut down the country’s Ministry of Gender Equality, taking with him 100% of the country’s support for the fight against domestic violence and sexual assault. In the Netherlands, traditionally one of the world’s most generous supporters of women’s rights, a new right-wing government pledged last year to eliminate billions of euros in development funding, including everything earmarked for gender equality programmes.

You’ve seen the headlines: genocide. famine. war. Climate disaster. Economic inflation. The rising far-right. Democracy is in decline. For women in particular, things look particularly bleak: abortion rights have been revoked, and contraception is in the crosshairs; The workforce is bleeding black women; Women are still lagging behind in political leadership; Social media influencers are encouraging young women to throw in the towel and don an apron in commerce style.

This is not limited to the United States only. Even in the most progressive countries, the status of women is at risk. Sweden has recently abandoned its distinctive feminist foreign policy. In Argentina, President Javier Miley came to power riding a chainsaw, which he used for the first time to cut down the country’s Ministry of Gender Equality, taking with him 100% of the country’s support for the fight against domestic violence and sexual assault. In the Netherlands, traditionally one of the world’s most generous supporters of women’s rights, a new right-wing government pledged last year to eliminate billions of euros in development funding, including everything earmarked for gender equality programmes.

However, despite all this, I have some unexpected good news: globally, the tide is turning in favor of women.

In a recent report, my colleagues at the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative and I completed a comprehensive global review of policy trends related to the status of women in more than two dozen countries around the world. To be sure, we found that the rightward swing of the election affected the political landscape even in the most developed countries. However, we also found that despite these declines, the tide appears to be beginning to turn, as activists collaborate with women in leadership to reclaim their rights and imagine bold new norms of equality and inclusion.

In Sweden, the government’s rejection of its feminist foreign policy in 2022 was met with nationwide outrage. People from all over the country – from mayors to former ministers – came together to demand his reinstatement. Now, ahead of next year’s elections, opposition parties have pledged to bring back a feminist foreign policy if they return to power, which they are currently expected to do. In the Netherlands, activists and parliamentarians worked to successfully restore €40 million in gender equality funding that was cut.

In Argentina, activists and former government officials are demonstrating in the streets to demand the restoration of women’s rights and supportive programs. They are pursuing innovative political strategies, such as petitioning for protection in regional bodies. They recently won a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which declared a universal right to give and receive care as well as practice self-care.

In some cases, setbacks in one country stimulate progress in others. After witnessing the US Supreme Court’s overturn Roe v. WadeThe French government adopted a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the national right to abortion. After Sweden reversed its feminist foreign policy, the Spanish Parliament voted to include the Spanish version in the Development Cooperation law.

On the other hand, countries such as Mexico, Chile, Spain, Liberia, and Mongolia are taking concrete steps to expand women’s leadership, and these steps are beginning to bear fruit.

Mexico recently elected the first female head of state in North America and achieved gender equality in its legislature. To speed up progress in the executive branch, the Mexican Foreign Ministry will now consider female nominees at a 2-to-1 ratio in the new affirmative action policy.

Spain and Chile have achieved gender equality in their governments. Liberia launched a gender equality and social inclusion policy with a goal of 50 percent representation of women in electoral processes. Last year, Mongolia broke records for the Asia-Pacific region, with 25.4% of the country’s parliament now made up of women and implementing a gender quota with the aim of reaching 40% by 2028.

I learn two lessons from this. First, although we often receive defeat as final and complete, it rarely is. As the pendulum swings in Sweden, Argentina, and the Netherlands show us, yesterday’s defeat sows the seeds of today’s active resistance and tomorrow’s victory on another front. Gender politics are an arena of contestation, conquest and change, and any moment represents not an outcome, but an isolated moment on a time scale that moves forward and backward. Progressive leaders and advocates are shaking off these defeats and slowly but deliberately regaining lost ground.

The second lesson is more troubling. I find that the women’s rights movement does a poor job of telling the story of our victories (and learning from them). Because our victories are often less impactful or dramatic than some high-profile setbacks, they are less likely to receive media coverage. This is a tragedy, because it means that our narrative of social change is incomplete: we believe that defeat is the end, when in fact resistance is alive and well. effective. It is our job to tell those stories and learn from them as well.

That’s why the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative is launching a global repository of the world’s progressive victories for women’s rights. We’ve collected groundbreaking policies on everything from abortion to feminist foreign policy, including archived texts that conservative governments have tried to suppress. We’ve crowdsourced policy briefs, advocacy resources, and analyzes of progressive victories in dozens of countries and collected more than 600 sources in 16 languages. Now, our repository is open for policymakers, advocates, academics and individuals from around the world to continue uploading their resources and helping us tell the successful story of the global feminist movement.

On October 22, I will join more than sixty world leaders at a summit in France aimed at learning from women’s global victories for women’s rights and creating a new coalition of countries committed to defending and expanding these victories. For the first time, more than a dozen foreign ministers and activists from nearly 100 countries will declare their commitment to the fight against countries like the United States and Russia that are trying to undermine the established consensus on gender equality. It’s a great international group. There are new champions moving forward, such as the United Kingdom and Morocco, along with old champions such as Spain and South Africa.

This is a major milestone for women’s rights at a time when good news is sorely needed. It probably won’t get the headlines it deserves. But it is important evidence that the women’s rights movement did not die last year, or the year before that, or the year before that. It is all around us, in a million small victories and a billion opposing voices.