On the Front Lines: Women’s Mobilization for Democracy in an Era of Backsliding

Introduction

Saskia Brechenmacher, Erin Jones, and Özge Zihnioğlu

The world is beset by what analysts frequently call a democratic recession, marked by democratic erosion in old and new democracies in every region of the world. Yet against this troubling backdrop, people all over are pushing back against authoritarian practices. Their resistance often has taken the form of large-scale, sustained protests against stolen elections, repression by security forces, and moves by incumbent leaders to undermine democratic institutions—whether in Belarus, Brazil, Iran, Myanmar, Poland, or elsewhere. New civil society initiatives have formed to defeat autocratic leaders at the polls and prevent illiberal restrictions on citizens’ basic rights.

Women have been at the forefront of these prodemocratic movements in many countries. Millions of women mobilized against President Donald Trump in the United States in 2017 and against President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018, viewing these leaders as dual threats to both women’s rights and their countries’ democracy. In Poland, women took to the streets during the COVID-19 pandemic to protest the ruling Law and Justice Party, their activism catalyzed by the government’s aggressive rollback of reproductive rights. In Belarus and Myanmar, women have spearheaded nonviolent civil resistance movements against authoritarian power grabs, mobilizing at great risk to their safety. Women in India, Iran, and Sudan similarly have fronted mass protests against antidemocratic and exclusionary regimes.

This pattern is striking, particularly given women’s global underrepresentation in electoral politics and leadership. Yet so far, women’s prodemocratic movements have received limited analytic and policy attention. The bulk of existing analysis on democratic erosion has focused on diagnosing the problem and illuminating its varied symptoms and causes. Less common have been efforts to chart responses, whether by citizens within backsliding countries or by interested international actors. And within that domain, cross-country analysis of women’s agency and roles in mobilizing against democratic erosion has been noticeably absent. Although scholars have documented women’s involvement in past movements against military and communist dictatorships, studies of the current moment of democratic decline and resistance often have been gender-blind.¹

Yet the power of women’s political mobilization has not gone unnoticed by autocratic and illiberal leaders. In recent years, several autocratic and far-right populist governments have cracked down ferociously on women’s activism and doubled down on conservative gender hierarchies. These leaders have framed progressive gender norms as a radical ideology that destroys traditional families and cultural traditions.² Others have sought to co-opt women’s movements by bringing them into state-controlled channels and implementing top-down women’s rights reforms.³

To help address the lack of analysis on this topic, this compilation examines women’s diverse roles in and influence on popular movements against democratic erosion around the world. It asks why women mobilize for democracy and how they do so, and assesses whether their participation—as individual activists and leaders or as part of organizations—shapes the goals, tactics, and coalitions of democratic resistance. It further analyzes how autocratic and backsliding regimes and their allies in civil society have responded to women’s mobilization for democracy.

The compilation does not assume that women are a homogenous group. Nor does it seek to portray them as inherently democratic actors. Instead, it aims to shed light on the various factors driving women to mobilize for democracy and the diverse priorities and perspectives they bring into broader antiauthoritarian movements. Several case studies also emphasize women’s roles in illiberal or antidemocratic regimes and networks; all of them highlight how women’s cross-cutting political, ethnic, and religious identities structure their political engagement. This diversity underscores the need for a more nuanced understanding of women’s political roles during periods of democratic erosion.

Mobilization for Democracy vs. Gender Equality

Our focus on women’s agency raises the question of how we conceptualize the relationship between women’s prodemocratic mobilization and their activism for gender equality. In this compilation, we define prodemocracy movements or prodemocracy mobilization as citizen action to resist—or remove from office—leaders and parties that seek to entrench themselves in power, weaken checks and balances on the executive, and shut down avenues for political participation and dissent. This form of activism typically is aimed at defending civil rights and liberties, free and fair elections, and the rule of law.

Mobilization for gender equality, by contrast, encompasses a broader set of objectives that extend far beyond the political realm. For more than a century, women around the world have advocated for equal rights and against gender-based violence and discrimination, in both democratic and nondemocratic nations. They have challenged and, in some cases, dismantled the barriers that impede their full participation in society, in areas including education, religious institutions, family law, employment, and politics.

These two forms of mobilization often intersect. The struggle for women’s suffrage in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, for instance, sought to advance gender equality while also deepening democracy. Women’s push for political representation similarly seeks to realize democratic principles of equal rights and participation. Yet in some cases, women’s rights activists have distanced themselves purposefully from struggles for democracy to maintain space for action and reform even in restrictive political settings. Some movements for democratic change, moreover, have not prioritized women’s rights and inclusion or have treated gender equality issues as discrete policy struggles. We therefore argue that it is useful to keep women’s mobilization for gender equality and their activism for democracy analytically separate and examine how they are related in different countries.

Overview of the Compilation

Within the wide and growing domain of women’s prodemocracy mobilization, this compilation focuses on nine case studies that span multiple regions. It covers countries at various stages of democratic backsliding.

Within the realm of troubled but still politically competitive democracies, Marisa von Bülow traces women’s roles in resisting Bolsonaro’s presidency in Brazil and highlights the challenge of centering women’s voices once the most overt threats to democracy have been overcome. Also in the Americas, Saskia Brechenmacher and Erin Jones detail women’s mobilization against Trump as well as broader threats to democracy in the United States and assess how escalating attacks on reproductive rights are influencing the U.S. prodemocracy movement. In Central and Eastern Europe, Paweł Marczewski contrasts Polish women’s mass protests against the Law and Justice Party’s attacks on reproductive rights with women’s more limited antigovernment mobilization in Hungary.

Three additional contributions focus on countries further down the path of democratic erosion. Vijayan MJ examines how women-led movements for social, economic, and environmental justice are revitalizing the progressive resistance against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian agenda in India. Özge Zihnioğlu probes the recent uptick in Turkish women’s mobilization against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government and its conservative gender policies. She outlines the effects of their activism on Turkish opposition parties as well as the persistent limits of women’s political influence. Houda Mzioudet, by contrast, explores how Black Tunisian women have challenged entrenched racial and socioeconomic hierarchies in Tunisian society following the country’s fragile democratic opening—and describes how their activism has been met with increasing illiberal backlash since President Kais Saied’s ascent to power in 2019.

Finally, three authors examine fully autocratic regimes where citizens are nevertheless resisting exclusionary governance. Katsiaryna Shmatsina analyzes women’s prominent roles in the 2020 postelection protests in Belarus and their continuous leadership in the exiled opposition, despite the regime’s brutal crackdown. Tharaphi Than details the diversification of women’s activism after the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, where some women have joined the armed resistance and others contest the military dictatorship using nonviolent means. Finally, drawing on her own experience running for parliament in Zimbabwe, Maureen Kademaunga reflects on the emergence of a new generation of female democracy activists in the country and their relationship to established women’s rights and democracy movements.

The case studies affirm women’s pivotal roles in democratic resistance movements around the world. Particularly in countries where illiberal or autocratic leaders have attacked women’s rights and embraced deeply conservative gender norms, women have spearheaded mass protests that have energized broader antiauthoritarian coalitions, even if they did not immediately achieve their political aims. Democratic erosion also has pushed some women’s rights organizations to become more involved in prodemocracy activism, giving rise to new cross-issue alliances. In addition, women in several countries have used their voting power to help defeat backsliding governments and have successfully diversified the candidates running for and elected to political office.

The compilation also highlights how women are reshaping prodemocracy movements through their advocacy priorities, tactics, and broader political vision. Across different countries, women’s participation “on the front lines” has challenged traditional gender norms and placed gendered concerns higher on the opposition agenda. However, the extent to which women democracy activists have emphasized gender equality issues has varied, as has the responsiveness of typically male-dominated opposition parties.

Beyond gender equality, however, women’s political advocacy has often emphasized substantive equality and democratic inclusion. Women—and especially minority women—have linked their struggle for democracy to other movements for economic justice, minority rights, antiracism, gender equality, and environmental protection, rather than embracing a narrower, procedural understanding of democracy. In several countries, women’s groups and leaders have emphasized the need to model inclusionary practices within prodemocracy movements and protests.

Their varied forms of activism inevitably have triggered backlash, ranging from state repression and state-sponsored countermobilization to more diffuse threats and harassment from extremist nonstate actors. Women have not only confronted the overall closing of civic and political space; they have also had to contend with targeted, gendered threats and abuse as well as patriarchal norms within their own political coalitions. The chapters in this compilation thus tell a story of women’s grassroots mobilization power and their resilience in the face of significant adversity and violence.

The Carnegie Endowment thanks the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the Ford Foundation for generous support that helps make the work of the Civic Research Network possible. The views expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the authors alone.

Notes

¹ See, for example, Lisa Baldez, Why Women Protest: Women’s Movements in Chile (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Sonia E. Alvarez, Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women’s Movements and Transition Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991); and Georgina Waylen, Engendering Transitions: Women’s Mobilization, Institutions, and Gender Outcomes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

² Emil Edenborg, “Anti-Gender Politics as Discourse Coalitions: Russia’s Domestic and International Promotion of “Traditional Values,” Problems of Post-Communism 70, no. 2 (2023): 175–84, https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2021.1987269; and Alexandra Stevenson, “China’s Male Leaders Signal to Women That Their Place Is in the Home,” New York Times, November 2, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/world/asia/china-communist-party-xi-women.html.

³ Daniela Donno, “Autocratic Backsliding in ‘Gender-Washing’ Regimes,” The Loop (blog), European Consortium for Political Research, June 7, 2023, https://theloop.ecpr.eu/autocratic-backsliding-in-gender-washing-regimes.

Women’s Activism: Resistance and Democracy in Brazil

Latin American history demonstrates that women’s rights are especially vulnerable under authoritarian regimes. That women suffer disproportionately in these contexts was illustrated by Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa in his novel The Feast of the Goat, which tells the story of the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo and his systematic abuse of women.¹ Equally devastating were the decades of sexual slavery perpetrated by Paraguayan dictator General Alfredo Stroessner and his close group of supporters.² In Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, women persecuted during the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s were robbed of their newborn children and experienced sexual violence while in prison.³ These cases underscore that the absence of democracy—or even a decline in the quality of democracy—leads to fewer protections for women and more impunity for those who violate women’s human rights.

Latin American activists have often noted the indissociable link between gender rights and democracy. Within the region, women have been key actors in democratizing campaigns, from the suffragists in the first decades of the twentieth century to popular resistance movements against military dictatorships from the 1960s to the 1980s and, more recently, campaigns to resist creeping autocratization. In addition to engaging in direct action and protests, women have successfully lobbied decisionmakers to create more opportunities for women’s political participation and fought for leadership roles in political parties and in government. In 1991, Argentina pioneered the implementation of electoral gender quotas in the region. From securing the right to vote to institutionalizing gender parity rules for public office, women’s activism has had a major impact on democratic institutions and processes across the continent.

Brazil is emblematic of women’s prominent role in prodemocracy activism. As members of feminist organizations, political parties, faith-based organizations, trade unions, and community associations, Brazilian women have been at the forefront of popular resistance to autocracy and the rise of the far right in recent years. They have launched grassroots protest movements and built broad-based campaigns around which new cross-issue coalitions have mushroomed.

Yet Brazil also showcases the challenge of centering women’s voices and demands after the most overt threats to democracy are overcome. The defeat of incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro and the election of a center-left front led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in late 2022 have provided women’s rights activists with new opportunities to influence state policies. But these changes also have shed renewed light on the divisions between progressive actors. In fact, women’s roles in bringing the opposition to power have not translated into equal representation in the new government. Furthermore, ultraconservative and authoritarian forces in the country remain strong. They are increasingly shifting their focus to subnational institutional arenas and the National Congress, where legislative projects limiting the right to abortion and other dimensions of women’s rights are on the agenda.

The Rise of the Populist Far Right and Women’s Resistance

In the Amazonian state of Pará, the slogan for the 2023 Women’s Day mobilization was: “For women’s lives, for democracy, against hunger, and in defense of the Amazonian territories.”⁴ In other parts of the country, women drew similar connections between grievances related to the state of Brazil’s democracy, entrenched poverty, and women’s rights and concerns. These cross-cutting calls to action can be understood only in the context of the resistance to the previous decade of autocratization and the empowerment of the far right, which achieved its peak with the election of Bolsonaro in 2018.

In 2023, a report by the Varieties of Democracy featured Brazil among the world’s top ten autocratizers.⁵ This ranking represented a significant setback for a country that had steadily strengthened its democracy until the mid-2010s. Over the past decade, trust in the country’s political institutions rapidly declined: by 2018, less than 6 percent of Brazilians expressed trust in the National Congress and a mere 1 percent reported trusting political parties.⁶ That same year, Bolsonaro—an outspoken champion of Brazil’s military dictatorship—successfully campaigned for president on an anti-corruption platform. Although Bolsonaro had served in Congress for nearly three decades, he painted himself as an outsider who could clean up the corruption of previous governments and fight against the forces that threatened to destroy traditional values.⁷

For women’s rights advocates, Bolsonaro’s rise presented a clear and serious threat, particularly given his long history of attacking democracy, women’s rights, and LGBTQ rights.⁸ As a result, women activists from various sectors, ideologies, and backgrounds—such as feminists, left-wing activists from the labor movement, and Indigenous women’s rights activists—played prominent roles in organizing the electoral opposition to Bolsonaro. By linking the fight against authoritarianism to the battle against misogyny, women made gender a central focus of mobilization against the far right. Leading up to the 2018 election, a diverse coalition of women launched a hybrid protest campaign, using both digital and street tactics to rally against Bolsonaro. Online, they created the hashtag #EleNão (#NotHim) and established a Facebook group called “Women United Against Bolsonaro” that eventually gathered almost 4 million members. Their manifesto, titled “Democracy Yes,” was emblematic of their coalition-building approach: signed by a diverse group of women, it highlighted Bolsonaro’s history of misogyny and conservative views on gender relations alongside the need to protect workers’ rights and safeguard Brazilian democracy from a vocal supporter of the military dictatorship.⁹ The group called for the unification of “women of all Brazil (and those who live outside of Brazil) against the strengthening of misogyny, racism, and other types of prejudices.”¹⁰

This digital mobilization laid the groundwork for massive street protests in various cities in Brazil and abroad. A protest led by leftist women on September 29, 2018, not only marked the largest mobilization of women in the country’s history; it also unified other sectors of Brazilian society, such as progressive evangelicals and people who did not support the Workers’ Party candidate but saw Bolsonaro as the greater evil.¹¹ The #EleNão campaign was so successful that it spread internationally, with global celebrities such as Madonna and Cher posting #EleNão on social media.¹²

However, women’s grassroots mobilization also spurred pushback. For one, the Bolsonaro campaign’s well-oiled disinformation machine readily disseminated false information about the protesters and their grievances.¹³ As feminist leader Sônia Coelho, one of the organizers of the #EleNão protests, said of Bolsonaro’s supporters: “They were organized, they were filming everything, they came among us. . . . They could see the scale of the movement, which must have scared them. Because they were already prepared with a lot of fake news.”¹⁴ In one example, messages that surfaced on social media showed pictures of naked protesters that were taken at an entirely different demonstration held in Australia years before.¹⁵

Recognizing the political power of women’s voices, conservative women also launched a grassroots countercampaign. Using the hashtag #EleSim (#YesHim) to organize, they took to the streets to show their support for Bolsonaro. Although their campaign was significantly smaller in numbers—their Facebook groups had around 300,000 members before the 2018 election—they focused on criminal violence, an issue that progressive groups often had ignored.¹⁶ They also mobilized in defense of conservative values, a platform that spoke to the country’s conservative religious electorate and has deep roots in Brazilian history. (For instance, in 1964, on the eve of the military coup, hundreds of thousands of women participated in a street protest called “Family March with God and Freedom.”¹⁷)

Ultimately, Bolsonaro won the 2018 election with 55 percent of all valid votes.¹⁸ Religious conservatism and gender were crucial determinants of voter preferences. According to a public opinion survey conducted before the second round of the election, 59 percent of evangelical voters said they would vote for Bolsonaro, compared to only 26 percent who said they would vote for Fernando Haddad, the Workers’ Party candidate.¹⁹ Gender was another key determinant: 55 percent of men reported that they would vote for Bolsonaro, whereas 42 percent of women reported the same. Yet despite this overall gender gap, conservative women’s mobilization produced tangible results: fifty-five out of the seventy-seven women elected to the House of Representatives in 2018 supported Bolsonaro and his anti-feminist agenda.²⁰ Additionally, a conservative religious woman was appointed as head of the newly created Ministry of Women, Family, and Human Rights.

Notwithstanding the empowerment of conservative women, however, women as a group lost representation and influence in government during the Bolsonaro years. Former president Dilma Rousseff once had as many as ten women in her cabinet (out of thirty-nine members), but Bolsonaro’s administration counted a maximum of three, a number that fell to one in the last months of his presidency.²¹ Bolsonaro also continued to be the star of several misogynistic episodes in which he attacked female journalists or downplayed the relevance of gender-based violence and women’s rights.

Not surprisingly, women stayed at the forefront of the opposition to Bolsonaro throughout his time in office, arguing that they were the main victims of the administration’s policies. Officials in his administration questioned the need for gender equality policies and reframed women’s rights as “family issues,” while ignoring demands related to women’s reproductive and sexual health.²² Faced with threats to their hard-won victories, activists created new organizational arenas, engaged in existing civil society organizations, and built broad prodemocracy coalitions. In 2019, for example, Indigenous women organized the first-ever Indigenous Women’s March, protesting the Bolsonaro government’s neglect of Indigenous communities and its embrace of deforestation. As part of the protest, women occupied the building of the Brazilian health ministry, calling out the dire lack of healthcare for Indigenous communities.²³ That same year, the March of the Margaridas, an annual gathering of leftist women that has been taking place since 2000, turned into a protest against the Bolsonaro government.²⁴

In spite of the restrictions and challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, women also participated actively in the Oust Bolsonaro campaign in 2020 and 2021, calling for the president’s impeachment with the hashtag #WomenOustBolsonaro.²⁵ In a manifesto signed by more than 45,000 women in 2020, a feminist organization presented their demands in the following terms: “We fight for the end of slavery and fascism, against the military dictatorship and for democracy.”²⁶ In August 2022, another manifesto supporting former president and opposition candidate Lula, titled “Women United for Brazil,” was signed by women’s organizations, the most important labor organizations, and many other social movement organizations.

Women’s support thus remained Bolsonaro’s Achilles’ heel. The president’s campaign tried to counteract this weakness by launching the Women with Bolsonaro initiative, which saw first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and the Ministry of Women, Family, and Human Rights travel around the country to galvanize women’s support by emphasizing conservative values, such as the need to defend the traditional family, protect children, and fight against abortion.²⁷ Throughout Bolsonaro’s tenure, conservative women’s groups—often linked to religious organizations—also continued to organize street rallies to express support for the president and his policies.²⁸ Yet in the weeks leading up to the first round of the 2022 presidential election, public opinion polls nevertheless showed that only 29 percent of women were planning to vote for Bolsonaro, compared to 46 percent for Lula.²⁹

Representation in the Political System: From the Streets to Electoral Politics

Despite women’s extensive mobilization during the 2018 and 2022 elections and throughout Bolsonaro’s administration, their grassroots efforts have failed so far to translate into equal political power within formal institutions. This is not a new paradox. Even after decades of vibrant activism and engagement with political parties and the state, increasing women’s political representation has remained “an all but insurmountable challenge.”³⁰

As the far-right threat in Brazil grew, progressive forces in civil society renewed their efforts to elect sympathetic representatives who would advance their agenda. New collective action initiatives emerged to empower progressive women representatives in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections. Some of these initiatives sought to provide much-needed support to women candidates. The nongovernmental organization Elas no Poder (Women in Power), for instance, was created in 2018 to offer capacity-building and mobilize on behalf of women who want to run for office.³¹

Other initiatives have sought to impact the institutional environment and address the challenges women face in formal politics through an intersectional lens. Black and Indigenous women face particularly high barriers to elected office, an issue that activists have been raising for a long time. In 2021, a coalition of 134 civil society organizations, academic groups, associations, political parties, and think tanks launched the Frente pelo Avanço dos Direitos Políticos das Mulheres (Front for the Advancement of the Political Rights of Women), with a dual goal: to prevent setbacks in electoral legislation and support new initiatives that “thematize gender and race-based political violence, in defense of the democratic society and of fundamental liberties of the Brazilian women.”³² New Indigenous women’s organizations also drew attention to the issue in 2022, when Articulação Nacional de Mulheres Indígenas Guerreiras da Ancestralidade (the National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestry) chose Indigenous women’s representation in institutional politics as one of its six axes of mobilization.

The impact of these initiatives has been mixed. On the one hand, between 2014 and 2022, Indigenous women’s candidacies increased by 189 percent—compared to only a 78.5 percent increase in Indigenous men’s candidacies.³³ In 2020, more women ran for mayor and local legislative offices than ever before. On the other hand, women’s relative lack of resources and the privileged position enjoyed by incumbents running for reelection remain key hurdles to women’s election to office. In 2020, 88 percent of mayoral positions still went to men, the same share as in 2016, and only 0.8 percent went to Black women.³⁴

A similar pattern was evident in 2022. The elections took place in a context of significant political upheaval. As Brazilians went to the polls to elect a new president, Bolsonaro alongside key national and subnational elected officials threatened to undermine the integrity of the process for the first time since the county’s democratic transition.³⁵ In this fragile political environment, the percentage of women candidates was higher than ever before, at 33.3 percent of all candidacies. For the first time in Brazilian history, two Indigenous women activists were elected to the lower chamber, and the overall number of women in the chamber rose by 18 percent. Despite these positive trends, women still make up only 18 percent of all representatives (91 out of 513). The number of women elected to the Senate declined.³⁶

The environment for women in politics, particularly for progressive women, has also grown increasingly hostile, despite a new law (passed in 2022) that criminalized political violence against women. Such violence is by no means a new phenomenon in Brazil. However, during the Bolsonaro administration, women representatives became constant targets of vicious online and offline attacks.³⁷ The assassination of local councilwoman Marielle Franco, who was gunned down in the streets of Rio de Janeiro in 2018, became a symbol of the violence targeting women representatives and the difficulty of holding the perpetrators of such violence accountable. In 2021, a report mapping gendered political violence on digital platforms found that 9 percent of 4 million online posts that mentioned female legislators were attacking them.³⁸ As Manuela D’Ávila, a former legislator and vice presidential candidate, argues, “The election of an openly misogynist president in 2018 opened the floodgates for violence against women in politics.”³⁹ Manuela herself decided not to run for office in 2022, arguing that this decision was made because of recurrent attacks and threats against herself, her mother, and her daughter. The increasingly toxic and dangerous environment for women in politics has not changed after the 2022 election and remains a critical obstacle to the emergence of new political leaders.

Despite these continuing challenges, Bolsonaro’s defeat and the victory of the coalition led by the Workers’ Party has enabled the reestablishment of several institutional channels for women’s participation in government. In the first months of the new administration, eleven members of the cabinet (30 percent) were women. The Ministry for Women was reestablished, and the new Ministry for Indigenous People was headed by the first Indigenous woman to ever hold a cabinet position.

Conclusion

Establishing the fact that without women’s rights and participation there is no democracy remains an ongoing battle worldwide, even in countries that generally are characterized as democratic. In Brazil, after decades of slow but continuous improvements in gender equality and women’s political participation, the rise of the far right led to a period of heightened resistance.

Paradoxically, the successes of the radical right also incentivized the creation of new coalitions of women, who led collective action campaigns linking the women’s rights agenda to broader threats to democracy. In the face of a shared threat, these coalitions used a wide range of defensive tactics to resist. They also launched campaigns aimed at increasing women’s political representation to bring more diverse voices and experiences into democratic institutions. These mobilization efforts opposed not only the far-right government but also newly empowered conservative women, who had been using the Bolsonaro government as an opportunity to push forward an anti-feminist agenda based on traditional religious values.

Bolsonaro’s defeat in 2022 was in no small part due to women’s ability to build broad prodemocracy alliances around frames that wove together economic, social, and gender concerns. As of early 2024 the impact of these initiatives has been mixed. It is clear, however, that regardless of who is in power, women’s mobilization will remain critical for preventing future democratic setbacks and advancing gender equality in Brazil.

Notes

¹ Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).

² Santi Carneri, “‘A Rose and a Thousand Soldiers’: A First-Person Account of the Network of Girls Who Were Held as Sex Slaves During Paraguay’s Dictatorship,” El País, June 2 2023, https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-02/a-rose-and-a-thousand-soldiers-a-first-person-account-of-the-network-of-girls-who-were-held-as-sex-slaves-during-paraguays-dictatorship.html.

³ See Memórias da Ditadura, “Mulheres,” accessed March 1, 2024, https://memoriasdaditadura.org.br/cnv-e-mulheres; and European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, “Argentine Court Follows International Jurisdiction on Sexual Violence,” accessed March 1, 2024, https://www.ecchr.eu/en/case/argentine-court-follows-international-jurisdiction-on-sexual-violence.

⁴ Fernanda Pessoa, “Mulheres vão às ruas pela democracia, contra o racismo e o fascismo” [Women take to the streets for democracy, against racism and fascism], Catarinas, March 7, 2023, https://catarinas.info/mulheres-vao-as-ruas-pela-democracia-contra-o-racismo-e-o-fascismo.

⁵ Evie Papada et al., Defiance in the Face of Autocratization. Democracy Report 2023 (University of Gothenburg: Varieties of Democracy Institute, 2023): 22, https://www.v-dem.net/documents/29/V-dem_democracyreport2023_lowres.pdf.

⁶ “IDDC: A cara da democracia” [IDDC: The face of democracy], National Institute of Democracy, accessed December 14, 2023, https://www.institutodademocracia.org/a-cara-da-democracia.

⁷ Marisa von Bülow and Rebecca Abers, “Denialism and Populism: Two Sides of a Coin in Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil,” Government & Opposition (2022): 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2022.14.

⁸ Evidence of these attacks abounds. See, for example, the list organized by journalist Irene Chagas, available at “Veja nove vezes em que Bolsonaro atacou os direitos das mulheres” [See nine times Bolsonaro attacked women’s rights], Brasil de Fato, March 8, 2023, https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2022/03/08/veja-nove-vezes-em-que-bolsonaro-atacou-os-direitos-das-mulheres.

⁹ Olivia Perez, Joana Tereza Vaz de Moura, and Caroline Bandeira de Brito Melo, “Protests for Women’s Rights and Against the Bolsonaro Administration,” Latin American Perspectives 50, no. 1 (2023): 171, https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221150442.

¹⁰ Perez, Moura, and Melo, “Protests for Women’s Rights and Against the Bolsonaro Administration.”

¹¹ Amanda Rossi, Julia Carneiro, and Juliana Gragnani, “#EleNão: A manifestação histórica liderada por mulheres no Brasil vista por quatro ângulos” [#EleNão: The historic demonstration led by women in Brazil, as seen from four angles], BBC News Brasil, September 30, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-45700013.

¹² Correio Braziliense (@correio), “Após aderir ao #ELENÃO” [After joining #ELENÃO], Twitter, September 29, 2018, https://twitter.com/correio/status/1046104823618142208.

¹³ Fundação Getulio Vargas, “Desinformação nas eleições 2018: O debate sobre fake news no Brasil” [Disinformation in the 2018 elections: The debate about fake news in Brazil], FVG DAPP, 2019, https://repositorio.fgv.br/items/22e73c94-6e39-4c53-b9f9-49ae888391e6.

¹⁴ Clara Assunção, “Minimizar o #EleNão à reação da máquina bolsonarista de ‘fake news’ é desvalorizar a luta das mulheres” [Minimizing #EleNão to the Bolsonarista machine's reaction to ‘fake news’ is devaluing women’s struggle], Rede Brasil Atual, March 8, 2022, https://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/cidadania/minimizar-o-elenao-a-reacao-da-maquina-bolsonarista-de-fake-news-e-desvalorizar-a-luta-das-mulheres.

¹⁵ UOL, “Não é verdade que manifestantes ficaram nus em protesto contra Bolsonaro” [It is not true that protesters were naked in protest against Bolsonaro], UOL Confere, October 5, 2018, https://www.estadao.com.br/estadao-verifica/nao-e-verdade-que-manifestantes-ficaram-nus-em-protesto-contra-bolsonaro.

¹⁶ Chayenne Polimédio, “Women for Bolsonaro: What Drives Female Support for Brazil’s Far Right,” Foreign Affairs, October 26, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/brazil/2018-10-26/women-bolsonaro.

¹⁷ Janaína Martins Cordeiro, “A marcha da Família com Deus pela Liberdade em São Paulo: Direitas, Participação Política e Golpe no Brasil,” Revista de História, 2021, 180, https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2316-9141.rh.2021.167214.

¹⁸ “Eleições 2018” [Elections 2018], Justiça Eleitoral, https://www.tse.jus.br/eleicoes/eleicoes-2018/informacoes-sobre-as-eleicoes-2018.

¹⁹ G1, “Datafolha de 25 de outubro para presidente por sexo, idade, escolaridade, renda, região, religião e orientação sexual” [Datafolha from October 25th for president by gender, age, education, income, region, religion and sexual orientation], October 26, 2018, https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/eleicao-em-numeros/noticia/2018/10/26/datafolha-de-25-de-outubro-para-presidente-por-sexo-idade-escolaridade-renda-regiao-religiao-e-orientacao-sexual.ghtml.

²⁰ Sarah Teófilo, “Maioria da bancada feminina na câmara é conservadora e aliada de Bolsonaro” [The majority of the female bloc in the chamber is conservative and allied with Bolsonaro], Correio Braziliense, January 3, 2021, https://www.em.com.br/app/noticia/politica/2021/01/03/interna_politica,1225503/maioria-da-bancada-feminina-na-camara-e-conservadora-e-aliada-de-bolsonaro.shtml.

²¹ Flávia Said and Rebeca Borges, “Governo Bolsonaro passa a ter apenas uma mulher no primeiro escalão” [The Bolsonaro government now has only one woman at the top], Metrópoles, March 31, 2022, https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/politica-brasil/governo-bolsonaro-passa-a-ter-apenas-uma-mulher-no-primeiro-escalao.

²² Flávia Biroli and Luciana Tatagiba, “Overcoming the Bolsonaro Backlash Against Gender Equality in Brazil,” The Loop (blog), European Consortium for Political Research, 2022, https://theloop.ecpr.eu/overcoming-the-bolsonaro-backlash-against-gender-equality-in-brazil.

²³ “Brazil’s Indigenous Women Protest Against Bolsonaro Policies,” BCC, August 13, 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49329680.

²⁴ Perez, Vaz de Moura, and Bandeira de Brito Melo, “Protests for Women’s Rights and Against the Bolsonaro Administration,” 173–74.

²⁵ RBA, “Maiores vítimas dos seus ‘inúmeros crimes,’ mulheres dão impulso a impeachment de Bolsonaro” [The greatest victims of his ‘countless crimes,’ women give impetus to Bolsonaro’s impeachment], Rede Brasil Atual, January 27, 2021, https://www.redebrasilatual.com.br/politica/maiores-vitimas-dos-seus-inumeros-crimes-mulheres-impulsionam-movimento-por-impeachment-de-bolsonaro.

²⁶ Levante das Mulheres Brasileiras, Manifesto do levante das mulheres brasileiras [Manifesto of the uprising of Brazilian women], 2020, https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScy4S3ofcagrZ-2tWNSxwR6S4ZDCIqBjxik4H0pb9drYsZ2uA/viewform?fbzx=6712268386939503387.

²⁷ Videos of the speeches given at these rallies are available on YouTube and on Facebook. See, for instance, “MICHELLE BOLSONARO NA GRANDE BH: CONFIRA O DISCURSO DA PRIMEIRA-DAMA PARA APOIADORES,” Itatiaia, YouTube, October 21, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_tHmWm9ojs.

²⁸ Luana Pedra, “7 de setembro: Mulheres se organizam para demonstrar apoio a Bolsonaro” [7 September: Women organize to demonstrate against Bolsonaro], Correio Braziliense, September 7, 2022, https://www.correiobraziliense.com.br/brasil/2022/09/5035132-7-de-setembro-mulheres-se-organizam-para-demonstrar-apoio-a-bolsonaro.html.

²⁹ Ciara Nugent, “Brazilian Women May Deny President Jair Bolsonaro a Second Term,” Time, September 16, 2022, https://time.com/6214054/bolsonaro-women-brazil-election.

³⁰ Ana Alice Alcântara, “Women and Politics: The Brazil Paradox,” Open Democracy, March 11, 2008, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/women_and_politics_the_brazil_paradox.

³¹ See “Elas no Poder,” accessed March 1, 2024, https://elasnopoder.org.

³² Polianna Pereira dos Santos, “Frente pelo Avanço dos Direitos Políticos das Mulheres Publica Manifesto Nacional com apoio de 134 Organizações,” June 16, 2021, https://visibilidadefeminina.org/noticias/27-manifesto-nacional-pelo-direito-das-mulheres.

³³ “Eleições 2022: Bancada indígena traz mulheres à frente da luta contra a política antiindígena” [The 2022 elections: Indigenous bloc brings women to the forefront of the fight against anti-indigenous politics], Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, August 2, 2022, https://apiboficial.org/2022/10/02/eleicoes-2022-bancada-indigena-traz-mulheres-a-frente-da-luta-contra-a-politica-antiindigena.

³⁴ Malu Gatto, Guilherme A. Russo, and Débora Thomé, +Representatividade: Relatório [+Representativeness: Report] (São Paulo: Instituto Update, 2021): 73, https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10139751/1/UpdateRepresentatividade_Relatorio-1.pdf.

³⁵ Leonardo Avritzer, Eliara Santana, and Rachel Bragatto, eds, Eleições 2022 e a reconstrução da democracia no Brasil [The 2022 elections and the reconstruction of democracy in Brazil] (Belo Horizonte: Ed. Autêntica, 2023).

³⁶ Women’s representation declined from eleven to ten senators, out of a total of eighty-one. See “Violência política de gênero: Brasil registra sete casos a cada 30 dias” [Political gender violence: Brazil records seven cases every 30 days], Conselho Nacional de Justiça, December 7, 2022 https://www.cnj.jus.br/violencia-politica-de-genero-brasil-registra-sete-casos-a-cada-30-dias.

³⁷ See, for instance, Flávia Biroli, “Violência política contra as mulheres” [Political violence against women], Blog da Boitempo, 2016, https://blogdaboitempo.com.br/2016/08/12/violencia-politica-contra-as-mulheres.

³⁸ Letícia Sabbatini et al., “Mapa da Violência Política de Gênero em Plataformas Digitais,” Niterói, coLAB/UFF, 2023, https://colab-uff.github.io/ddoslab/project/report-gender-violence.

³⁹ Manuela d’Ávila, “Violence in Social Media Threatens Women Active in Brazilian Politics,” Henrich Böll Stiftung, September 27, 2022, https://us.boell.org/en/2022/09/27/violence-social-media-threatens-women-active-brazilian-politics.

Beyond the Women’s March: Women’s Rights and Mobilization in the U.S. Democracy Movement

On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. president, hundreds of thousands of women poured onto the streets of Washington, DC, and cities around the country to voice their outrage at his election. Witnessing Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential candidate of a major political party, lose to a man known for his misogyny proved to be a galvanizing moment. One woman’s call to action on Facebook morphed into a national movement, drawing more than 400 organizational partners and over 2 million participants worldwide. The Women’s March became one of the most visible manifestations of resistance against the Trump presidency, ushering in a period of heightened political contention.¹

Trump’s election was a wake-up call for many Americans who had trusted the resilience of the country’s democratic institutions. Since then, signs of democratic distress have multiplied.² One of the country’s two main political parties—the Republican Party—has been captured by an increasingly far-right faction that challenges the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and seeks to entrench its power by limiting who votes and oversees elections. This extremist turn feeds on structural and institutional problems that have been developing for years, including increasingly minoritarian political institutions and rising political polarization.³ However, escalating threats to U.S. democracy have catalyzed new forms of action to defend democratic institutions, beginning during the Trump years and accelerating following the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

As in many other parts of the world, women have often been at the forefront of this prodemocracy movement, pushed to action by overlapping attacks on democracy, women’s rights, and norms of equality. This article examines women’s diverse roles in the evolving U.S. democracy movement, highlighting several key patterns. First, women are driving prodemocratic mobilization at different levels: as grassroots organizers, Democratic-leaning voters, and leaders in politics and advocacy organizations. However, their engagement is shaped by cross-cutting partisan and ethnic identities, reflecting larger patterns of polarization. White women in particular are playing important grassroots organizing roles within illiberal networks. Second, the place of women’s rights—particularly reproductive rights—in the struggle to defend U.S. democracy remains contested. Although attacks on reproductive rights in the United States have pushed more women and women’s organizations to mobilize for democracy, they have revealed strategic divisions within the prodemocracy movement. Finally, women politicians and election officials standing up for democracy in the United States face disproportionate and gendered harassment and attacks.

Women’s Roles in the U.S. Prodemocracy Movement

In the United States, popular mobilization focused explicitly on defending democracy largely subsided after the height of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Although various actors continued to push for voting rights, campaign finance regulations, and broader institutional reforms, they were mostly professionalized nongovernmental organizations rather than membership organizations galvanizing mass participation.

Trump’s election in 2016 dramatically changed the political landscape. For one, the Trump administration fueled a significant spike in grassroots citizen mobilization, with analysts tracking more than 60,000 demonstrations during Trump’s years in office. Although many of these protests focused on racism, immigration, policing, and gun violence, some also revolved explicitly around threats to democracy and spawned new organizing efforts aimed at defeating Trump at the polls.⁴ Beyond this surge in protests, countless new organizations sprang up after the 2016 and 2020 elections to tackle democratic weaknesses that previously had received less attention, such as election subversion, political violence, and online disinformation. Efforts to build coalitions among these newer actors and older organizations, such as the NAACP and Issue One, also intensified.⁵ “In some ways, 2020 was a catalyst in creating a common sense of purpose and underlining the urgency for a prodemocracy movement that goes beyond single issues,” says Maria Stephan, chief organizer at the Horizons Project, an initiative focused on movement-building among social change organizations.⁶

What is striking about these new forms of mobilization is the central role that women are playing at different levels: as grassroots protesters and activists; as lawyers, advocates, and election officials; and as voters. The 2016 women’s marches were the first indication of this pattern. In their aftermath, thousands of loosely connected women-led volunteer groups formed around the country, often drawing on the online networks formed during the marches.⁷ Following outlines for action developed by the newly created Indivisible organization, they mobilized to help Democrats win back control of the House of Representatives in 2018, recruited hundreds of first-time women candidates to run for office, and rallied to protect healthcare reforms from Barack Obama’s presidency. Yet these volunteer groups were not simply extensions of the Democratic Party. Although many were motivated by anti-Trump partisanship, they often framed their work in terms of defending American democracy. Their efforts proved highly effective. The Democrats won back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, thereby weakening Trump’s political coalition; in addition, female candidates ran for office and won in record numbers, powered by women’s grassroots support as well as established organizations such as Emily’s List.⁸

Beyond the grassroots, women are well-represented in the leadership and staff of organizations fighting for democratic renewal. Women are currently at the helm of the States United Democracy Center, the Election Trust Initiative, Democracy Forward, Common Cause, FairVote, OpenSecrets, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Advancement Project, to name a few. Several women lawyers—such as Roberta Kaplan, Sally Yates, Stacey Abrams, and Vanita Gupta—played prominent roles in challenging Trump and his administration’s policies.⁹ Women are also organizing for democracy within religious communities, as leaders in organizations such as Sojourners and NETWORK that are confronting illiberal strands within faith communities. And they are deeply embedded in the management of U.S. elections, as more than 80 percent of the country’s election workers are women.¹⁰ Although these women may not necessarily describe themselves as democracy activists, they have found themselves on the front lines of ongoing struggles over democratic processes.

Finally, women have also emerged as an important electoral force opposing Trump and MAGA-affiliated candidates.¹¹ Women in the United States have long voted at higher rates than men and have been more likely to identify as Democrats or Democratic leaning than men (particularly Black women, the most loyal Democratic voting bloc).¹² This gender gap grew even more pronounced in the Trump years: In 2016, for instance, women were 13 percentage points more likely to vote for Clinton than for Trump. In 2018, women favored Democrats by 19 percentage points.¹³ Gender differences in support for Trump narrowed somewhat in 2020, with 42 percent of women voting for Trump compared to 53 percent of men.¹⁴ Yet in the 2022 midterms, battles over abortion rights once again brought many women out to vote against Republican candidates. Not only did women vote in larger numbers than men, but 53 percent voted Democratic; and in highly contested races, women’s support for Democrats increased relative to 2020.¹⁵ Of course, voting for Democrats should not necessarily be considered prodemocratic action: voting choices are strongly colored by partisanship, and concerns about democracy or Trumpism may only be a decisive factor for some voters. Yet in a political context in which attacks on democracy are emanating primarily from extremist factions of the Republican Party, women’s electoral choices repeatedly have had a moderating effect.

Beneath these overarching patterns, women’s roles in prodemocratic mobilization are deeply shaped by their cross-cutting identities, including race, partisanship, and educational attainment. For many women of color in the United States, current trends of democratic erosion represent not a radical break with the past but a revival of long-standing ethnonationalist and illiberal strands in American politics. Black women have mobilized for voting rights and against state-sanctioned, White supremacist violence throughout the twentieth century.¹⁶ Although few held formal leadership roles in the U.S. civil rights movement, they acted as critical “bridge leaders,” using their social networks to recruit new members and build ties between local communities and the organizational core of the movement.¹⁷ This legacy lives on today. Black women are one of the most active voting blocs in the U.S. electorate, as well as a leading force in the voting rights movement and in progressive politics more broadly, both as organizers and politicians.¹⁸ They also have played critical roles in increasing voter turnout in the face of concerted attacks on their voting rights.

For many White women, by contrast, Trump’s election and subsequent attacks on democratic rights and institutions were a shock to the system, triggering new forms of mobilization among women who previously had been less politically engaged. A 2019 study by Leah Gose and Theda Skocpol found that the grassroots resistance groups formed after Trump’s election were overwhelmingly led by White, suburban, college-educated women, mostly middle-aged or older.¹⁹ These women felt, perhaps for the first time, that the health of U.S. democracy was at risk and were repulsed by Trump as a public figure. At the same time, White women as a group have remained starkly divided by partisanship, which also colors their electoral support for antidemocratic candidates. Although White women since 2018 have swung toward Democrats, they have done so by a modest margin. Many conservative White women continue to support Trump and Trump-affiliated candidates.²⁰ White women without college degrees have been key supporters of the election fraud lie, with one survey finding that a majority believe that Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.²¹ Finally, grassroots women’s networks such as Moms for Liberty as well as individual women like Marjorie Taylor Greene have taken on key political roles in the Trumpist movement. Their success illustrates that women are effective organizers on both sides of the political divide—a trend described in more detail below.²²

Attacks on Reproductive Rights and Divisions Over Strategy

The uptick in women’s mobilization for democracy has been driven in part by illiberal attacks on women’s rights, and on reproductive rights in particular. Trump and the illiberal movements associated with him (including extremist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers) have relied on misogynistic rhetoric as a political mobilization tool. Misogyny runs through Trump’s commentary on prominent women leaders, and anti–political correctness and the politics of insult are key parts of his popular appeal. His voter base reflects these attitudes: studies have found that hostile sexism is a primary predictor of support for Trump.²³

Over the past several years, democratic erosion in the United States has coincided with increasing legislative and judicial attacks on reproductive rights. At the federal level, the Supreme Court in 2021 overturned the long-standing precedent of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed the right to abortion nationally. This decision reflected a pattern of minoritarianism in U.S. politics: it was made by a court in which most justices had been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote and approved by a Senate that disproportionately represented low-population states.²⁴ At the subnational level, states implementing new voting restrictions often have been the same ones putting forward restrictive antiabortion laws or de facto abortion bans. This pattern is no coincidence: reproductive rights advocates note that voting rights restrictions and gerrymandering have produced legislatures that increasingly are out of sync with public opinion on abortion.²⁵

Some state legislatures have openly attempted to restrict political participation in order to put forward unpopular abortion policies. In Ohio, for example, the state legislature in 2023 held a special election to try to increase the vote threshold required to pass constitutional amendments from 50 to 60 percent—an effort intended to thwart a ballot initiative that sought to enshrine reproductive rights in the state’s constitution. The election followed a 2022 law that included new voter ID requirements that made it more difficult to vote.²⁶ Many other Republican-led state legislatures have taken or are trying to take similar steps to limit ballot initiatives on abortion, including in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.²⁷ A similar convergence between antiabortion activism and antidemocratic action is evident in civil society. Antiabortion groups like Susan B. Anthony List have become more involved in advocating for voting restrictions since the 2020 election, and linkages have formed between groups pushing for harsh abortion restrictions and the White Christian nationalist movement.²⁸ In one example, a White supremacist group showed up to a March for Life rally in Chicago, viewing it as a recruitment opportunity.²⁹

U.S. women’s rights groups have long understood the right to bodily autonomy as an important building block to women’s equal political citizenship and freedom from state violence. However, most previously did not see themselves as part of the U.S. democracy movement. Instead, they focused their work on policy advocacy related to issues ranging from gender-based violence and sexual harassment to abortion access. The current political context has pushed many to reconsider their strategy. Observing the use of antidemocratic processes and institutions to advance harsher abortion restrictions, they increasingly are framing their work in terms of defending democracy.

At the state level, some women’s rights groups now focus on getting people out to vote and mobilize against voting rights restrictions, recognizing that functioning democratic processes are a precondition for achieving their other political objectives. In Ohio, for instance, the Ohio Women’s Alliance not only collected signatures for the state’s abortion rights ballot initiative but also collaborated with various democracy organizations to mobilize voters to turn out for the special election about the electoral threshold needed for constitutional amendments.³⁰ These grassroots efforts resulted in a dual victory for democracy and reproductive rights advocates. Ohioans rejected raising the bar for constitutional amendments and in November 2023 voted to enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution.³¹ Some democracy organizations also have started linking their work on elections to reproductive rights, often by arguing that citizens should have a greater say in deciding state-level abortion rules. In late 2023, the Public Rights Project, for example, filed an advisory opinion at the Florida Supreme Court contending that Florida voters should have the right to petition for a proposed state constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights.³²

Despite these instances of state-level cooperation between women’s rights and democracy advocates, the broader prodemocracy movement remains split on how to handle polarizing social issues like reproductive rights. Some activists and organizations view the pushback against women’s rights—as well as racism and anti-LGBTQ mobilization—as key avenues for authoritarian actors to mobilize the support of socially conservative and religious voters, following the playbook pioneered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and other illiberal leaders globally. Consequently, they argue that an effective response needs to overcome issue silos and foster stronger coalitions between different progressive movements—what political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks have termed “a united front for multiracial, cross-class, feminist democracy defense.”³³ Key to this theory of change is the idea that attacks on democratic processes cannot be dealt with in isolation from restrictions on bodily autonomy and LGBTQ rights, as all of these efforts are rooted in a political vision built on sociopolitical hierarchies and exclusion.

Other groups have adopted a different stance. They may agree on substance. But strategically, they prioritize building a moderate political coalition that includes center-right voices as the most viable option for countering authoritarian threats. They argue that it is better to focus on defending democracy narrowly—by fighting for voting rights, fair elections, and institutional reforms—rather than tying these priorities together with divisive social issues like abortion and transgender rights. In this view, repairing democratic procedures and institutions would allow voters and politicians to tackle other contentious questions through a functioning democratic process.

In sum, among the different currents of the prodemocracy movement, there is general agreement on the urgent need to defeat Trumpist candidates, election deniers, and others mobilizing against democratic processes. But behind this near-term unity lies somewhat divergent visions of the movement’s path ahead, with some actors placing strategic emphasis on restoring democratic health by rebuilding the political center and other groups emphasizing the need to more fundamentally challenge the exclusionary power structures and ideologies running through American society and fueling authoritarian movements. According to this latter view, dismantling an unjust system may require adversarial advocacy in the pursuit of social transformation.³⁴

Gender, Violence, and Countermobilization

As political polarization has worsened, those standing up for U.S. democracy are confronting new forms of countermobilization by illiberal political actors, right-wing extremist groups, and radicalized citizens. Far-right organizing efforts such as True the Vote have popularized narratives of election fraud and pushed Republican secretaries of state and attorneys general to pull out of ERIC, an election security mechanism that once had bipartisan support.³⁵ Backlash has bubbled up against voter turnout efforts targeting youth, women, and other groups, and extremist groups have started forging alliances with sheriffs’ groups in preparation for challenging future election outcomes.³⁶ Most alarmingly, political violence by far-right extremist actors has been on the rise, fueled by dehumanizing rhetoric from media personalities and political leaders.³⁷

Such political violence is highly gendered. Sexism and political extremism are connected: those who hold hostile sexist views are more likely to justify the use of political violence.³⁸ Moreover, politically active women have been disproportionately targeted. For example, because the vast majority of election workers are women, they have found themselves at the center of extremist attacks on the U.S. election infrastructure.³⁹ A 2023 Brennan Center survey found that nearly one in three election officials had been harassed, abused, or threatened.⁴⁰ Although the perpetrators of these attacks are difficult to trace, most appear to be men who are within the orbit of far-right websites and conspiracy theories.⁴¹ “When we talk about political violence and the impacts of the election denial movement, that burden is falling disproportionately on women,” says an associate at States United.⁴²

From Michigan’s Attorney General Dana Nessel to Boise’s Mayor Lauren McLean, women politicians are also confronting rising threats of violence tied to election denialism and White supremacist movements.⁴³ Although all politicians face intimidation, research suggests that women and other underrepresented groups are targeted at higher rates. One 2017 survey of mayors found that 23 percent of women respondents had experienced physical violence, compared to 10 percent of men.⁴⁴ Another national survey of local elected officials found that almost half had been insulted verbally and a third had been harassed—though officials that identified as women or racial or ethnic minorities were much more likely to experience insults, harassment, and threats.⁴⁵ These findings indicate that a more permissive environment for political violence has particularly severe consequences for those who challenge traditional gender and racial hierarchies.

Although many of the extremist groups that have gained in prominence in recent years are dominated by men and characterized by overt appeals to violent masculinity, women also play important roles within illiberal political movements and networks. Moms for Liberty, an organization created during the COVID-19 pandemic to oppose mask mandates in schools, has emerged as a particularly powerful vehicle for far-right mobilization, focused primarily on fighting progressive ideology in public education. In the legacy of White mothers’ associations that fought to uphold Jim Crow order in the South, the group’s members invoke motherhood to paint themselves as concerned parents.⁴⁶ Yet Moms for Liberty has cultivated ties to right-wing extremist networks such as the Proud Boys, and local group leaders have been convicted for harassing and threatening neighbors and school officials.⁴⁷ Women are also amplifying far-right ideas and conspiracy theories through social media, including ideas associated with the QAnon movement.⁴⁸ By playing into gendered tropes about women’s inherent peacefulness and caregiving roles, women often contribute to making extreme political ideas and messages palatable to a broader audience.⁴⁹

Conclusion

Women play a critical role in driving prodemocratic mobilization in the United States, owing to their strong presence as grassroots activists and professional advocates, their power as a voting bloc, and their overrepresentation among election workers. Yet their political engagement can only be understood through an intersectional lens. Among many White, suburban, and educated women, the Trump presidency spurred new forms of political action aimed at defending both U.S. democracy and progressive policy gains. At the same time, White women also play important organizing roles within illiberal and antidemocratic movements in the United States, often by tapping into traditional conceptions of femininity and motherhood. Women of color, by contrast, have a long history of mobilizing for voting rights and equal rights protections in the United States; for many, Trump represented a continuation of long-standing currents in American politics.

However, the place of women’s rights—and reproductive rights in particular—in the struggle to defend U.S. democracy remains contested. Trump’s misogynistic rhetoric and more recent right-wing attacks on abortion rights have made threats to democracy more salient to some women voters and activists. The fact that attacks on reproductive rights are emanating from the same legislatures and movements that are subverting democratic processes has also opened the door to new coalitions between democracy groups and those defending reproductive rights and gender justice. This is emblematic of a broader pattern: intensifying polarization and the authoritarian drift of the Republican Party are eroding the boundaries between policy issues and democracy issues. Yet some actors worry that bundling democratic activism together with progressive policy priorities will make it more difficult to build broad, bipartisan coalitions against political extremism. Struggles over abortion rights (as well as LGBTQ rights) thus surface deeper divisions over strategy in the prodemocracy movement. Some organizations and initiatives continue to focus fairly narrowly on the institutional dimension of democracy, setting aside divisive social issues to counter partisan polarization. Others adopt a broader definition of democracy that centers a longer list of nonnegotiable rights. They link the defense of democracy with movements for social, gender, and racial justice and emphasize coalition-building across these domains.

In some ways, these divisions reflect differences in time horizons. As the United States heads toward the next presidential election, defeating openly authoritarian politicians and minimizing risks of political violence are urgent priorities. Yet countering the illiberal and anti-women tendencies shaping American politics will require sustained mobilization long after November 2024.

Notes

¹ Marie Berry and Erica Chenoweth, “Who Made the Women’s March?” in David S. Meyer and Sidney Tarrow, eds., The Resistance: The Dawn of the Anti-Trump Opposition Movement Get (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

² Rachel Kleinfeld, “Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 15, 2022, https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/09/15/five-strategies-to-support-u.s.-democracy-pub-87918.

³ Kleinfeld, “Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy”; and David Leonhardt, “‘A Crisis Coming’: The Twin Threats to American Democracy,” New York Times, September 17, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/us/american-democracy-threats.html.

⁴ Jeremy Pressman et al., “Protests Under Trump, 2017–2021,” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 27, no. 1 (2022): 13–26, https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-27-1-13.

⁵ Interview with a staff member at the Carter Center, June 21, 2023.

⁶ Interview with Maria Stephan, Horizons Project, June 21, 2023.

⁷ Charlotte Alter, “How the Anti-Trump Resistance Is Organizing Its Outrage,” Time, October 18, 2018, https://time.com/longform/democrat-midterm-strategy.

⁸ Lauren Gambino, “‘Truly the Year of the Woman’: Female Candidates Win in Record Numbers,” The Guardian, November 7, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/07/women-candidates-midterms-wins; and Kelly Dittmar, “Why & How Women Run,” in Unfinished Business: Women Running in 2018 and Beyond (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, 2019).

⁹ Dahlia Lithwick, Lady Justice: Women, The Law, and the Battle to Save America (New York: Penguin, 2022).

¹⁰ Paul Gronke et al., “Pursuing Diversity and Representation Among Local Election Officials,” Democracy Fund, May 20, 2021, https://democracyfund.org/idea/pursuing-diversity-and-representation-among-local-election-officials.

¹¹ MAGA stands for “Make America Great Again,” a political slogan closely associated with Trump.

¹² Samantha Schmidt, “The Gender Gap Was Expected to be Historic. Instead, Women Voted Much as They Always Have,” Washington Post, November 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/11/06/election-2020-gender-gap-women.

¹³ Janie Valencia, “The 2018 Gender Gap Was Huge,” FiveThirtyEight, November 9, 2018, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-2018-gender-gap-was-huge; and Center for American Women in Politics, “Gender Gap: Voting Choices in Presidential Elections,” accessed September 21, 2023, https://cawp.rutgers.edu/gender-gap-voting-choices-presidential-elections. This gender gap also played out in public approval data. During Trump’s time in office, his approval average among men was 48 percent and was 35 percent among women. Harold Clarke et al., “The Large Gender Gap in Trump’s Support Threatens His Reelection. Here’s What’s Driving It,” London School of Economics, July 2, 2020, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/07/02/the-large-gender-gap-in-trumps-support-threatens-his-reelection-heres-whats-driving-it.

¹⁴ Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, “How Groups Voted in 2020,” Cornell University, accessed December 8, 2023, https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2020. Some polls find slightly different percentages. See Center for American Women and Politics, “Gender Gap: Voting Choices in Presidential Elections,” accessed December 8, 2023, https://cawp.rutgers.edu/gender-gap-voting-choices-presidential-elections.

¹⁵ Elaine Kamarck and William A. Galston, “It Wasn’t Just ‘The Economy Stupid’—It Was Abortion,” Brookings Institution, November 10, 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/it-wasnt-just-the-economy-stupid-it-was-abortion; and Catalist, “What Happened in 2022: An Analysis of the 2022 Midterms,” accessed February 26, 2024, https://catalist.us/whathappened2022.

¹⁶ Keisha N. Blain, “The Black Women Who Paved the Way for This Moment,” The Atlantic, June 9, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/pioneering-black-women-who-paved-way-moment/612838; and Martha S. Jones, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (New York City: Basic Books, 2020).

¹⁷ Belinda Robnett, “African-American Women in the Civil Rights Movement, 1954–1965: Gender, Leadership, and Micromobilization,” American Journal of Sociology 101, no. 6 (1996): 1661–93, https://doi.org/10.1086/230870; and Marjoleine Kars, “The Black Women Who Fought for Political Rights – And Get Little Credit,” Washington Post, November 6, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-black-women-who-fought-for-political-rights--and-get-little-credit/2020/11/05/07ddc1e0-04e1-11eb-a2db-417cddf4816a_story.html.

¹⁸ Danyelle Solomon and Connor Maxwell, “Women of Color: A Collective Powerhouse in the U.S. Electorate,” Center for American Progress, November 19, 2029, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/women-color-collective-powerhouse-u-s-electorate; Defender News Service, “How Black Women Are Organizing to Energize Voters This Fall,” Defender, September 12, 2018, https://defendernetwork.com/news/national/how-black-women-are-organizing-to-energize-voters-this-fall; and Taeku Lee and EunSook Lee, “Why Trump Fears Women of Color,” New York Times, August 13, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/opinion/trump-black-women-2020.html.

¹⁹ Leah E. Gose and Theda Skocpol, “Resist, Persist, and Transform: The Emergence and Impact of Grassroots Resistance Groups Opposing the Trump Presidency,” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2019): 293–317, https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-24-3-293.

²⁰ Julie Kohler, “White Women: Our Most Divided Voting Bloc,” Democracy Journal 57, 2020, https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/57/white-women-our-most-divided-voting-bloc.

²¹ YouGov, “The Economist/YouGov Poll: November 14–16, 2021 – 1500 U.S. Adult Citizens,” November 2021, 310, https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/jcmve9bxap/econTabReport.pdf.

²² Emily Johnson, “How Prominent Women Built and Sustained the Religious Right,” Religion & Politics, April 16, 2019, https://religionandpolitics.org/2019/04/16/how-prominent-women-built-and-sustained-the-religious-right.

²³ Kate A. Ratliff et al., “Engendering Support: Hostile Sexism Predicts Voting for Donald Trump Over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential Election,” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 22, no. 4 (2019): 578–93, https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430217741203.

²⁴ Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, “How American Democracy Fell So Far Behind,” The Atlantic, September 5, 2023, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/american-constitution-norway/675199.

²⁵ Interview with a staff member at the Center for Reproductive Rights, June 5, 2023.

²⁶ Susan Tebben, “Changes to Ohio Voter ID Law Will Impact August 8 Election. Here’s How,” Ohio Capital Journal, July 19, 2023, https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2023/07/19/changes-to-ohio-voter-id-law-will-impact-august-8-election-heres-how.

²⁷ Grace Panetta, “How Some Republican Officials Are Trying to Make Sure Abortion Isn’t Directly on the Ballot,” The 19th, August 4, 2023, https://19thnews.org/2023/08/abortion-ballot-measures-republican-officials-rules; Laura Benshoff, “This Group Gets Left-Leaning Policies Passed in Red States. How? Ballot Measures,” NPR, February 24, 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/02/24/1158797456/fairness-project-abortion-ballot-measures-gop-democrats-medicaid-minimum-wage; and Scott S. Greenberger, “As Abortion Measures Loom, GOP Raises New Barriers to Ballot Initiatives,” Stateline, February 15, 2023, https://stateline.org/2023/02/15/as-abortion-measures-loom-gop-raises-new-barriers-to-ballot-initiatives.

²⁸ Jessica Glenza and Sam Levine, “US Anti-abortion Groups Shift Focus to Voting Restrictions,” The Guardian, April 9, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/09/us-voting-restrictions-conservative-groups-lobbying-against-abortion.

²⁹ NBC Chicago, “White Supremacist Group Crashes Anti-abortion Rally in the Loop,” January 10, 2022, https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/white-supremacist-group-crashes-anti-abortion-rally-in-the-loop/2724861.

³⁰ Interview with a staff member at the Ohio Women’s Alliance, June 22, 2023.

³¹ Amanda Becker, “Ohio’s Abortion Protections Take Effect, but the Fight Over Access Continues,” The 19th, December 7, 2023, https://19thnews.org/2023/12/ohios-abortion-protections-take-effect-issue-1-fight-access.

³² Public Rights Project, “11/13/2023 – Florida Ballot Initiative Amicus,” accessed December 8, 2023, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/592c8640c534a5adf895986b/t/65526471e2fd84784d281b78/1699898482299/Former+Florida+Republican+Elected+Officials+in+Support+of+Abortion+Ballot+Initiative.pdf; and Katie Tandy, “If You Care About Abortion Justice, You Need to Care About Free and Fair Elections,” Medium, November 14, 2023, https://medium.com/the-public-magazine/if-you-care-about-abortion-justice-you-need-to-care-about-free-and-fair-elections-6af5a5591eba.

³³ Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks, “Pro-Democracy Organizing Against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations,” Harvard Kennedy School Working Paper no. RWP-017, October 2022, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4245181%20.

³⁴ Erica Chenoweth, Marcy Rein, and Zoe Marks, “Organizing Against Autocracy in the US: Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks,” Convergence, November 11, 2022, https://convergencemag.com/articles/organizing-against-autocracy-in-the-us-erica-chenoweth-and-zoe-marks.

³⁵ Interview with a staff member at States United, June 6, 2023.

³⁶ Michael Wines, “The Student Vote Is Surging. So Are Efforts to Suppress It,” New York Times, October 24, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/voting-college-suppression.html; Peter Stone, “Rightwing Sheriff’s Groups Ramp Up Drives To Monitor US Midterm Elections,” The Guardian, August 17, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/17/rightwing-sheriffs-trump-midterm-elections-voting-arizona; and Isaac Stone Simonelli, “Arizona ‘Ground Zero’ for Extremist, Anti-Government Sheriff Movement,” Arizona Mirror, October 22, 2022, https://www.azmirror.com/2022/10/21/arizona-ground-zero-for-extremist-anti-government-constitutional-sheriffs-movement.

³⁷ Rachel Kleinfeld, “Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 5, 2023, https://carnegieendowment.org/2023/09/05/polarization-democracy-and-political-violence-in-united-states-what-research-says-pub-90457.

³⁸ Kleinfeld, “Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States.”

³⁹ Cat Zakrzewski, “Election Workers Brace for a Torrent of Threats: ‘I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP,’” Washington Post, November 8, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/08/election-workers-online-threats.

⁴⁰ Ruby Edlin and Lawrence Norden, “Poll of Election Officials Shows High Turnover Amid Safety Threats and Political Interference,” Brennan Center, April 25, 2023, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/poll-election-officials-shows-high-turnover-amid-safety-threats-and; and Benenson Strategy Group and Brennan Center, “Local Election Officials Survey – April 2023,” Brennan Center, April 25, 2023, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/local-election-officials-survey-april-2023.

⁴¹ Linda So and Jason Szep, “Campaign of Fear,” Reuters, November 9, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-threats.

⁴² Interview with a staff member at States United, June 6, 2023.

⁴³ Barbara Rodriguez, “Threats Against Michigan Women Leaders Highlight Ongoing Concerns Over Political Violence,” The 19th, March 15, 2023, https://19thnews.org/2023/03/michigan-women-leaders-targets-threats-ongoing-political-violence; and Amanda Holpuch, “Boise’s Mayor, Who Championed Covid Restrictions, Says She Faces Violent Threats and Harassment,” New York Times, March 5, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/06/us/boise-mayor-covid.html.

⁴⁴ Rebekah Herrick et al., “Physical Violence and Psychological Abuse Against Female and Male Mayors in the United States,” Politics, Groups and Identities 9, no. 4 (2019): 681–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2019.1629321.

⁴⁵ Dan Farmer, Nathan Lee, and Joel Day, “High Rates of Harassment and Threats May Deter Entry Into Local Politics,” Civic Pulse, December 14, 2022, https://www.civicpulse.org/post/high-rates-of-harassment-and-threats-may-deter-entry-into-local-politics.

⁴⁶ Rebecca Brückmann, Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021).

⁴⁷ Olivia Little, “Moms for Liberty Members Have Been Linked to Incidents of Harassments and Threats Around the Country,” Media Matters, April 11, 2023, https://www.mediamatters.org/moms-liberty/moms-liberty-members-have-been-linked-incidents-harassment-and-threats-around-country; and Peter Becker, “Monroe County Moms for Liberty Chairperson Convicted in Harassment Case,” Pocono Record, May 31, 2023, https://www.poconorecord.com/story/news/courts/2023/05/31/prussman-convicted-in-pike-harassing-moms-for-liberty-poconos-monroe-county-pa/70274649007.

⁴⁸ MacKenzie Ryan, “‘Better Martyrs’: The Growing Role of Women in the Far-Right Movement,” The Guardian, August 12, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/12/conservative-women-tradwife-republican; and Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko, “QAnon, Women, and the American Culture Wars,” Social Research: An International Quarterly 89, no. 3 (2022): 525–50, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/867503.

⁴⁹ Hilary Matfess and Devorah Margolin, “The Women of January 6th: A Gendered Analysis of the 21st-Century American Far-Right,” Program on Extremism at George Washington University, April 2022, https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/Women-of-Jan6_Matfess-and-Margolin.pdf.

Mobilizing for Reproductive Rights: Women’s Activism and the Crisis of Democracy in Poland and Hungary

When the Fidesz government in Hungary and Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice Party, or PiS) in Poland began undermining the rule of law, women joined protests against their governments’ assaults on judicial independence. Some women were members of civil society organizations mobilizing in general defense of democracy. Others were active in feminist groups, collectives, and civil society organizations that saw attacks on the rule of law as a threat to gender equality and reproductive rights.

Their concerns were soon validated by the anti-feminist rhetoric and legislation put forward by both governments. In Poland, in October 2020, the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal issued a ruling that penalized women for terminating pregnancies even in cases of severe damage to the fetus. An already very strict abortion law thus became more draconian. In Hungary, Fidesz had already inscribed the protection of life from conception into the Hungarian Constitution in 2012 and later passed new abortion restrictions requiring women to listen to the fetal heartbeat before having an abortion. These measures undermining reproductive rights would not have been possible if the rule of law had not already been eroded.¹

Over the past several years, both governments have also engaged in aggressive campaigns against “gender ideology”—a vaguely defined umbrella term for progressive gender norms and policies that Polish and Hungarian pro-government media outlets have framed as a form of neo-Bolshevism aimed at destroying traditional families and lifestyles. Both countries’ ministries of education have built on this rhetoric to interfere in public education. In Hungary, gender studies programs have been expelled from universities.² In Poland, gender studies have not been banned, but former minister of education Przemysław Czarnek on many occasions denounced them publicly as “absurd” and “neo-Marxist.”³

In both countries, the anti-feminist turn of both illiberal regimes has been closely connected with their assaults on the judiciary. A lack of guarantees for the rule of law has created a context in which the executives can use their discretionary power to limit reproductive rights and academic freedom without having to justify their actions to independent courts. However, these patterns have provoked varying responses. In Poland, women’s protests against new restrictions on their rights became part of a larger struggle for democracy, thereby reinvigorating the broader prodemocracy movement. In Hungary, women’s mobilization has remained much smaller in scale and has not had a powerful impact on the opposition against Fidesz.

Protests Against Limits on Reproductive Rights

After Poland’s politicized Constitutional Tribunal ruled on October 20, 2020, that even abortions performed because of severe damage to or terminal disease of a fetus were illegal, the country witnessed its largest street demonstrations since 1989. According to confidential police estimates, at the peak of the protests approximately 430,000 people took to the streets in 410 demonstrations across the country.⁴ The main force behind this mobilization was Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet (Polish Women’s Strike, or OSK), a group of feminist activists who had already gained organizational experience during the so-called Black Protests that followed the government’s first attempt to limit reproductive rights in 2016. OSK was supported by several human rights and prodemocracy civil society organizations, including the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and Amnesty International Poland. In some regions, activists of the Komitet Obrony Demokracji (Committee for the Defence of Democracy), a critical force behind earlier protests in defense of the rule of law, also joined the movement. However, despite a call by OSK and the support of left-wing labor unions such as Inicjatywa Pracownicza, these demonstrations were not followed by a nationwide general strike.

As these demonstrations broke out during the COVID-19 pandemic, some police commanders, pressured by the ruling party and using an interior ministry decree banning all public gatherings as a pretext, initiated a harsh crackdown on the protesters. Attorney general Bogdan Święczkowski ordered prosecutors’ offices to start proceedings against all those who organized or initiated the protests and stressed that they could face up to eight years in prison.⁵ During eight weeks of continuous demonstrations, at least eighty people were held by the police.⁶

In contrast, protests against new abortion restrictions that came into force in Hungary on September 15, 2022, remained relatively limited, gathering only around a thousand people.⁷ However, the Hungarian government’s changes were far less consequential for women’s reproductive rights. Whereas the ruling of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal effectively banned abortion in Poland, the new Hungarian regulations obliged healthcare providers to present women considering an abortion with the fetus’s “vital signs of life,” which in practice means forcing pregnant women to listen to the heartbeat. Terminating a pregnancy in case of fetal anomalies or in cases of personal crisis remains legal in Hungary.

Another factor that helps explain the more limited scope of protests in Hungary is Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s “social contract” with women, to use a term coined by analyst Orsolya Bajnay.⁸ Women in Hungary are not adequately represented politically, but they enjoy a certain degree of economic stability that, according to Bajnay, limits their readiness to protest against Fidesz. After the 2022 elections, only 13.6 percent of parliamentarians were women, ranking Hungary 149th globally.⁹ But some of the government’s social policies are aimed at improving the economic situation of women, particularly mothers, such as day nurseries in all municipalities, housing benefits for families, and lifetime tax exemptions for women with four children or more. In addition, the gender pay gap in Hungary is 17.3 percent, above the European Union average of 13 percent but below the pay gap in Germany (18.3 percent) or Switzerland (18.4 percent).¹⁰

Both the Hungarian government under Orbán and the PiS government in Poland define themselves as conservative and stress their allegiance to conservative family values. Both countries also face rapid population declines; actual and symbolic infringements of reproductive rights are thus justified by some members of the ruling elite as measures to combat depopulation, even though they have had no proven positive (and potentially even adverse) effects on fertility rates. According to World Bank data, the total fertility rate (TFR) in Poland dropped from 1.4 children per woman in 2020 to 1.3 in 2021. The drop was particularly steep in large cities, where the TFR used to be above the national average before the total abortion ban. In Warsaw, it decreased from 1.5 in 2020 to 1.2 in 2021.¹¹ In Hungary, the TFR has risen from 1.2 in 2011 to 1.6 in 2021, despite the fact that abortion remains legal.¹² In sum, new abortion restrictions to date appear to have had little impact on people’s decisions to have children. The restrictions have, however, curried favor with each ruling party’s conservative voter base, though this dynamic has been more pronounced in Poland than in Hungary.

Living in Parallel Worlds: Social Views on Abortion in Poland and Hungary

In Hungary, government attacks on reproductive rights remain largely symbolic and have sparked only limited protests. In Poland, by contrast, a new legal framework has profoundly changed women’s reproductive rights protections, triggering widespread popular resistance. What explains these differences?

Popular views on abortion across the two countries do not differ significantly. According to an Ipsos poll published in August 2022, 70 percent of Hungarians were in favor of the right to abortion.¹³ In Poland, 66 percent supported the right to have an abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.¹⁴ In some respects, Poles seem to have more liberal views than Hungarians: Hungarian respondents were less inclined than Poles to support termination after six weeks of pregnancy.

Intergenerational divisions in Poland offer a partial explanation for the government’s willingness to ignore popular opinion. In Poland, views on abortion are significantly shaped by generational rather than gender divides. Women and men favor the right to abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy at roughly similar rates.¹⁵ Yet looking at attitudes across different age groups reveals significant cleavages. Whereas 83 percent of women aged eighteen to thirty-nine supported abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, the Ipsos poll cited above found that only 49 percent of women aged sixty or older supported the same. According to CBOS, only 45 percent of female respondents aged sixty-five or older supported liberalizing the existing law.

Not surprisingly, mobilization in defense of reproductive rights has been driven by younger segments of Polish society. Women who took to the streets in the weeks after the Constitutional Tribunal ruling were not necessarily mobilizing against men trying to control their bodies but against older generations imposing their conservative viewpoints. According to a CBOS study from December 2020, 28 percent of women aged eighteen to twenty-four declared that they took part in the 2020 protests. Among women aged sixty-five or older, this figure dropped to 1 percent.¹⁶ In Hungary, however, existing survey data do not suggest similarly stark intergenerational divisions on abortion. In fact, some younger Hungarians have more restrictive views than older generations. A 2023 survey by Ipsos showed that in Hungary, support for abortion was lowest among younger men—only 47 percent were supportive, compared with 72 percent of the general population.¹⁷

Religion also helps explain why illiberal leaders in Poland focus on limiting abortion. The social significance of religion and the political influence of the Catholic Church is much greater in Poland than in Hungary. According to the Atlas of European Values 2017, only 45 percent of Hungarians said that religion was very or quite important to them, compared to 79 percent of respondents in Poland. Only 10.3 percent of Hungarians said they attended church services at least once a week, compared to 47.7 percent Poles.¹⁸ But even in Poland, where religion has far more influence over people’s lives than in Hungary, younger generations are more secular than older ones. According to a Pew Research Center survey published in 2018, among all countries studied Poland had the largest age gap in reported religiosity. Among those under age forty, only 16 percent stated that religion was very important to them, whereas 40 percent of people over age forty said the same.¹⁹

Mass mobilization for reproductive rights in Poland thus reflected an intergenerational conflict between a younger, secular generation of Poles and an older, more religious part of Polish society that in many ways was the backbone of PiS. Older, more religious and younger, increasingly secular Poles continue to live in parallel worlds when it comes to reproductive rights. PiS made a deliberate choice to consolidate its electoral base in the latter group. Lavish state subsidies to Catholic educational institutions and civil society organizations and additional pensions to elderly citizens further indicate that the government has focused on appealing to an older and more conservative segment of the Polish society.

Spillover Effects: Gradual Changes to the Political Landscape

Despite their unprecedented scale, abortion rights protests in Poland did not bring about the immediate political change that many advocates had hoped for. The total abortion ban remained in place, the state budget continued to include donations to the Catholic Church, and the government did not resign. A draft law granting the right to abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy was dismissed by the Polish Parliament in June 2022, with 265 members of Parliament, mostly from the right-wing ruling coalition, voting against it.

Yet the 2020 protests nevertheless had important political effects. For one, they resulted in increased support for the opposition among women, particularly among younger women. According to an exit poll conducted after the 2019 elections, 43 percent of women voted for the ruling PiS and 30 percent for Koalicja Obywatelska (Civic Coalition, or KO), the biggest opposition party.²⁰ But women’s voting preferences changed after the protests. By June 2023, 35 percent of women said they would vote for the KO (compared to 26 percent of men), and the share of women supportive of PiS had dropped to 31 percent (compared to 39 percent of men).²¹ Support for the opposition was particularly high among women under age forty: 38 percent in that age group said they would vote for the KO, 18 percent for the far-right Konfederacja (Confederation), and 17 percent for Lewica (The Left). Only 7 percent of women under age forty said they would vote for PiS. In comparison, men under age forty were significantly more supportive of the far right: although only 11 percent claimed that they would vote for the ruling party, 40 percent expressed support for Konfederacja, by far the most popular party among men in that age group.

Women’s mass mobilization against harsher antiabortion laws has also pushed the political opposition to acknowledge reproductive rights more explicitly in their platforms. Even though Lewica—an alliance of three left-wing opposition parties—had supported a liberalization of abortion laws even before the protests, the KO had never taken a clear position on abortion, leaving the decision to each of its individual members of Parliament. When the party governed from 2007 to 2015, it took no action on abortion. In a major turnaround in May 2023, however, the coalition announced a package of proposals focused on women’s rights that included legalizing abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy.²²

Reproductive rights figured prominently in voter mobilization campaigns before the October 2023 elections, many of which were aimed at young women. One campaign that went viral was organized under the slogan “Cicho już byłyśmy” (We already were silent) by a group of young activists called Inicjatywa Wschód, which had also actively participated in the 2020 abortion rights protests.

Women’s mobilization and opposition parties’ acknowledgment of the importance of reproductive rights resulted in an uptick of women running for office: a record 43.8 percent of candidates in the October 2023 parliamentary elections were women. Lewica had the highest share of women on the ballot (49.6 percent), but nearly all parties exceeded the quota requiring parties to grant women at least 35 percent of party list positions.²³ Importantly, the KO also allocated 40 percent of the party’s top positions on electoral lists to women, followed by Lewica with 34.2 percent, the PiS with 24.2 percent, and Trzecia Droga (Third Way) with 20 percent. The only party that did not offer women a substantial number of top positions was Konfederacja, with only 2.4 percent. These numbers indicate that most parties not only fulfilled their quota obligations but also took meaningful action to increase women’s representation in politics—perhaps in order to appeal to voters concerned about reproductive rights.

The October 2023 parliamentary elections confirmed these trends and underscored the importance of reproductive rights to Polish voters. In the end, 74.7 percent of eligible women voted—12 percent more than in 2019. This increase highlights the effectiveness of preelection campaigns calling on women to cast their ballots.²⁴ Moreover, according to exit polls conducted by Ogólnopolska Grupa Badawcza, reproductive rights were critical in influencing voting choices, with 16.5 percent of voters ranking it as the most important issue (ranking second only to the economic situation).²⁵ Women’s votes were shaped by the same generational divides that characterized the 2020 protests. Although many older women continued to vote for PiS, younger Poles turned out at higher rates than those over age sixty, and smaller opposition parties such as Trzecia Droga benefited from a surge in support from young women voters.²⁶ Together, these trends dealt a decisive blow to the ruling PiS. Although it remains the largest parliamentary party with 35.7 percent of the vote, it now lacks the majority needed to govern. Opposition parties won a total of 248 mandates, paving the way for a new center-left coalition government. And even though this government still has to take shape, it is certain that 29.6 percent of representatives in the Sejm, the lower house of Parliament that plays a key part in formulating legislation, will be women.

It remains to be seen whether these changes will ensure greater protections for reproductive rights. Although Lewica and the KO now support legal abortion until the twelfth week, its coalition partners Poland 2050 and the Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (Polish Popular Party, or PSL) would like to hold a referendum on the matter. PSL leader Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz indicated shortly after the elections that he would not accept a clear position on abortion as part of the coalition agreement.²⁷ But regardless of whether the elections will bring about legislative change on abortion, women’s mobilization for democracy and reproductive rights already has had a significant political impact.

Such political shifts did not materialize in Hungary during the most recent 2022 elections. In Hungary, a consensus based on relatively liberal abortion laws and conservative antiabortion rhetoric appears stable. Orbán’s social contract with women is still in place. Families with children continue to enjoy tax exemptions, housing benefits, and preferential loans that are meant to encourage them to have more children. Although this contract increasingly has been accompanied by the symbolic shaming of women who decide to terminate their pregnancies, these measures so far have not been enough to mobilize widespread resistance. Instead, during the 2022 election campaign, the opposition to Orbán’s government focused on the corruption of the Fidesz government. (Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Hungary at seventy-seven, the lowest score among EU countries.²⁸) In sum, reproductive rights are still not on top of the anti-Orbán agenda.²⁹

Conclusion: A Liberal Backlash?

In recent years, much has been written about conservative backlash—the mobilization of right-wing parties, social movements, and civic organizations against legislation and cultural changes that they perceive as undermining a traditional way of life. In the 2023 Polish elections, high turnout rates among youth and women and the political and social mobilization that preceded the voting show that limiting reproductive rights can also trigger the opposite process—a liberal backlash of sorts.

PiS’s first term from 2015 to 2019, when most legal changes undermining the rule of law were introduced, failed to provoke mass mobilization, even though this period also was marked by some demonstrations in defense of judicial independence. But infringements on reproductive rights—specifically, the Constitutional Tribunal’s 2020 ruling on abortion—had a galvanizing effect, provoking mass resistance that reshaped politics long after street protests had stopped. Although these protests did not bring about an immediate change of government, they helped shift voting preferences and mobilized women voters, thereby contributing to PiS not being able to form a government on its own after the 2023 elections.

One can only speculate what would have happened during the 2022 elections in Hungary if the Fidesz government had gone beyond a symbolic constitutional amendment and similarly limited access to legal abortion. The Polish case shows that reproductive rights are very important to women voters, especially to younger women. In Poland, the right to access abortions proved to be more concrete and galvanizing than more abstract concerns about the rule of law. Orbán’s offer of relative economic stability for women with children so far has had a demobilizing effect, but it is possible that a more direct attack on reproductive rights similarly would have broken or weakened his social contract with women voters. The Polish case shows that women’s political mobilization can quickly become a mass phenomenon that fundamentally changes the political landscape.

Notes

¹ Atina Krajewska, “Connecting Reproductive Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law: Lessons From Poland in Times of COVID-19,” German Law Journal 22, no. 6 (September 2021): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/german-law-journal/article/connecting-reproductive-rights-democracy-and-the-rule-of-law-lessons-from-poland-in-times-of-covid19/CE048E79D093FFEE33326F7C4E889BB7.

² Lauren Kent and Samantha Tapfumaneyi, “Hungary’s PM Bans Gender Study at Colleges Saying ‘People Are Born Either Male or Female,’” CNN, October 19, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/19/europe/hungary-bans-gender-study-at-colleges-trnd/index.html.

³ Adam Leszczyński, “Cenzura i czystka na uczelniach? Czarnek chce zakazać gender studies i marksizmu” [Censorship and purges at universities? Czarnek wants to ban gender studies and marxisim], Oko.press, October 2, 2020, https://oko.press/cenzura-i-czystka-na-uczelniach-minister-czarnek-chce-zakazac-gender-studies-i-marksizmu.

⁴ Katarzyna Nowaczyk, “Ile osób bierze udział w protestach? Szef policji się wygadał” [Chief of police reveals how many people are taking part in the protests], Fakt, October 30, 2020, https://www.fakt.pl/wydarzenia/polska/prawie-pol-miliona-ludzi-na-protestach-psycholog-spoleczny-o-strajku-kobiet/ebbdenq.

⁵ Patryk Michalski, “Nawet do 8 lat więzienia. Prokuratura chce ścigać organizatorów protestów ws. Aborcji” [Up to 8 years imprisonment. Police wants to pursue organizers of the abortion protests], RMF24.pl, October 29, 2020, https://www.rmf24.pl/raporty/raport-strajk-kobiet/news-nawet-8-lat-wiezienia-prokuratura-chce-scigac-organizatorow-,nId,4822741.

⁶ Dominika Sitnica and Anton Ambroziak, “‘Dajcie nam osobę, a znajdziemy paragraf.’ Adwokaci mówią, co się dzieje po zatrzymaniu” [“Give us a person and we will find a paragraph”: Lawyers explain what happens in detention], Oko.press, December 14, 2020, https://oko.press/dajcie-nam-osobe-a-znajdziemy-paragraf-adwokaci-mowia-co-sie-dzieje-po-zatrzymaniu-wywiad.

⁷ “Hungarians Protest Change in Abortion Rules,” Reuters, September 28, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarians-protest-change-abortion-rules-2022-09-28.

⁸ Orsolya Bajnay, “Financial Incentives Meet Moral Imperatives in Viktor Orbán’s ‘Social Contract’ With Hungarian Women,” Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Prague, December 9, 2022, https://cz.boell.org/en/2022/12/09/Orban-Viktors-social-contract-women.

⁹ “Monthly Ranking of Women in National Parliaments,” IPU Parline, October 2023, https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking?month=10&year=2023.

¹⁰ Lili Rutai, “In Hungary, Politics Is Mainly a Man’s Game,” Radio Free Europe, May 8, 2023, https://www.rferl.org/a/hungary-politics-women-man-s-game/32401814.html.

¹¹ “Current Demographic Research Database,” Statistics Poland, 2022, https://demografia.stat.gov.pl/BazaDemografia/Tables.aspx.

¹² “Fertility Rate, Total Births Per Woman – Poland, Hungary,” World Bank, accessed February 26, 2024, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=PL-HU&name_desc=false.

¹³ “Global Views on Abortion,” Ipsos, August 2022, https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2022-07/Global%20Advisor-Global%20Opinion%20on%20Abortion%202022-Graphic%20Report.pdf.

¹⁴ Magdalena Chrzczonowicz, “66 proc. za prawem do przerywania ciąży. Wśród młodych to aż 80 proc.” [66 percent for legal abortion. 80 percent among the youth], Oko.press, May 19, 2022, https://oko.press/66-proc-za-prawem-kobiety-do-przerwania-ciazy-do-12-tygodnia.

¹⁵ Chrzczonowicz, “66 proc. za prawem do przerywania ciąży”; and “Stosunek Polaków do aborcji” [Poles attitudes toward abortion], CBOS, April 2023, https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2023/K_047_23.PDF.

¹⁶ “O dopuszczalności przerywania ciąży i protestach po wyroku Trybunału Konstytucyjnego” [On acceptability of abortion and protests after ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal], CBOS, December, 2020, https://www.cbos.pl/SPISKOM.POL/2020/K_153_20.PDF.

¹⁷ “Ipsos: Több az abortuszpárti Magyarországon mint korábban, de nagy a nemek közötti különbség a kérdésben” [Ipsos: There are more pro-abortionists in Hungary than before, but there is a big difference between the sexes on the issue], Népszava, August 22, 2023, https://nepszava.hu/3206123_ipsos-abortusz-tamogatottsag-magyarorszag-vilag-felmeres.

¹⁸ Joanna Kulska, “The Sacralization of Politics? A Case Study of Hungary and Poland,” Religions 14, no. 4 (2023): https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/4/525.

¹⁹ “Young Adults Around the World Are Less Religious by Several Measures,” Pew Research Center, June 13, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/06/13/young-adults-around-the-world-are-less-religious-by-several-measures.

²⁰ “Wyniki wyborów 2019: sondaż exit poll” [2019 elections results: Exit poll], Rmf24.pl, October 13, 2019, https://www.rmf24.pl/raporty/raport-wybory-parlamentarne-2019-fakty/najnowsze/news-wyniki-wyborow-2019-sondaz-exit-poll-infografiki,nId,3276140.

²¹ Piotr Pacewicz, “Gender wisi nad PiS. Wg sondażu Ipsos na 100 dni przed wyborami Polki są zupełnie inne niż Polacy” [Gender looms over PiS. 100 days before the elections, Ipsos poll shows that Polish women are completely different than men], Oko.press, July 18, 2023, https://oko.press/polki-sa-zupelnie-inne-niz-polacy.

²² “Pakiet Praw Kobiet” [Package of women’s rights], Platforma.org, https://platforma.org/aktualnosci/pakiet-praw-kobiet.

²³ Regarding candidates, 47.8 percent of KO candidates were women, as were 41.2 percent of Third Way candidates, 40.4 percent of PiS candidates, and 39.9 percent of Konfederacja candidates. “Rekordowy udział kandydatek w wyborach 2023” [Record participation of female candidates in 2023 elections], Instytut Spraw Publicznych, September 13, 2023, https://www.isp.org.pl/pl/aktualnosci/rekordowy-udzial-kandydatek-w-wyborach-2023.

²⁴ Patrice McMahon, “Young, Female Voters Were the Key to Defeating Populists in Poland’s Election – Providing a Blueprint to Reverse Democracy’s Decline,” The Conversation, October 31, 2023, https://theconversation.com/young-female-voters-were-the-key-to-defeating-populists-in-polands-election-providing-a-blueprint-to-reverse-democracys-decline-216397.

²⁵ “Który z tematów miał dla Pana(i) największe znaczenie przy podejmowaniu decyzji w dzisiejszym głosowaniu?” [Which topic was the most important to you when you made a decision in today’s elections?], OGB, Twitter, https://twitter.com/LukasPawlowski/status/1714921066273890648/photo/1.

²⁶ Monika Sieradzka, “Were Women Key to Voting Out Poland’s Conservatives?,” Deutsche Welle, October 25, 2023, https://www.dw.com/en/were-women-key-to-voting-out-polands-ruling-conservatives/a-67214867.

²⁷ “Aborcja w umowie koalicyjnej? Ostra reakcja lidera Trzeciej Drogi” [Abortion in the coalition agreement? A sharp reaction from the leader of the Third Way], Wiadomości w Onet, October 17, 2023, https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/wpisza-aborcje-w-umowe-koalicyjna-stanowcza-reakcja-szefa-psl/zn3004q.

²⁸ “2022 Corruption Perceptions Index,” Transparency International, 2022, https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022.

²⁹ Rita Palfi, “Hungary Election: Who’s Running? What Are the Key Issues? Will Viktor Orban be Waving Goodbye?,” Euronews, April 2, 2022, https://www.euronews.com/2022/04/02/hungary-election-who-s-running-what-are-the-key-issues-will-viktor-orban-be-waving-goodbye.

Women Crafting New Pathways for Democratic Resistance in India

“When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life. When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices on behalf of our ideals.”¹
– Clara Zetkin

The landscape of Indian civic action is at a crossroads.² Over the past several years, the country’s quickly shrinking democratic space has been marked by arrests of activists and academics across the country, legislative changes that threaten the Indian Constitution and democracy, growing sociopolitical majoritarianism, and punitive actions against civil society organizations and academic institutions. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns not only crippled political mobilization but also militarized society in a way that has discouraged people from asking questions or speaking truth to power; the lockdown induced by the pandemic has been converted into a continuing lockdown on democracy.

Amid this crisis, several women-led movements in India have emerged as shining examples of Clara Zetkin’s words above. Both women-led movements for democracy and for gender justice are critical parts of India’s new prodemocracy spectrum. The Indian Parliament in 2023 passed a law reserving one-third of the seats in legislative bodies for women. The passage of this national gender quota validates women’s advocacy for gender justice and equality and also affirms the linkages between women’s rights mobilization and prodemocracy mobilization and the success of their complementary advocacy and ground campaigns. However, there are important differences between these two currents of mobilization.

This article examines women’s roles across a wide spectrum of popular movements in contemporary India and highlights the differences and intersections between women-led movements for gender equality and women-led movements for democracy, justice, and human rights. It also demonstrates how these movements collaborate and build the foundation for progressive resistance to authoritarian and antidemocratic forces. The Indian case illustrates how women’s prodemocratic mobilization can unfold in unusual spaces—not only around elections and civil liberties but also in contestations about citizenship, land rights, and the environment. In many of these movements, women are drawing connections between the anti-women posture of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the party’s antidemocratic, majoritarian, antienvironmental, and anti-poor positions and policies.

The Struggle Against Sexual Violence

Over the past decade, women’s rights movements in India have focused extensively on fighting sexual violence. In an early landmark achievement, the campaign for a legal framework addressing sexual harassment in the workplace led to the Indian Supreme Court’s 1997 Vishaka Guidelines, which were superseded in 2013 by the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act.³ However, sexual violence remained pervasive, whether in people’s homes or in the streets. In 2012, for example, the Nirbhaya case—when a twenty-three-year-old woman was gang-raped in a moving bus in New Delhi—sparked mass protests, which eventually prompted legislative amendments that increased the punishments for sexual violence, rape, and threat of rape.⁴

The 2020 Hathras gang-rape of a Dalit girl by a group of “upper-caste” men with political backing similarly rocked Indian society and further brought the women’s rights movement closer to the fight for democracy. The horrendous nature of the violence was not the only source of outrage: the fact that the Uttar Pradesh state police hurriedly buried the victim’s body after she succumbed to fatal injuries in a Delhi hospital pushed people to come out of their homes and demand justice.⁵ Forging a new alliance, the women’s movement and the anti-caste movement came together to lead a series of protests across the country to demand action against the accused. Their mobilization led to the arrest of four people by the state police, the punishment of several police officers who had harassed the girl’s family, and a high-level investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The protests also compelled the state government to compensate the victim’s family and allot them a house plot. More broadly, the incident and subsequent protests exposed the continuing feudal and caste-based sexual violence targeting the Dalit community as well as the political patronage that upper-caste elites receive from the BJP.

More recently, several gender justice struggles have made national headlines. The countrywide movement demanding justice for victims of sexual violence in the northeastern state of Manipur is a powerful example. In July 2023, a video that showed a crowd of Meitei men in the state parading two naked Indigenous Kuki-Zo women went viral across India.⁶ Prior to the incident, anti-Indigenous and anti-Christian violence had been spreading in Manipur for several months, taking the form of rapes, gang-rapes, murders, and arson. Yet until the video went viral, the extent of the brutality was not widely understood.⁷ In response, women’s organizations, political parties, and human rights groups organized hundreds of protests across the country. People from diverse backgrounds condemned the violence and brutality and shamed the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for its inaction and apathy. Within ten days, the protests compelled the state government—which had ignored the violence for more than two months—to arrest the perpetrators.⁸

Also in 2023, globally acclaimed women wrestlers from India’s wrestling team took to the streets of New Delhi to protest sexual harassment and exploitation by the president of the Wrestling Federation of India—who is also a member of Parliament from the ruling BJP. Many prominent figures in sports came out to demand administrative action against the president, who was accused of molesting young female athletes and compelling them to give sexual favors. In a rare act of unity, opposition political parties and civil society jointly mobilized to show their solidarity with the athletes. The accused has not yet been arrested, likely because of the patronage and protection he receives from the ruling party.⁹ Yet these protests had important repercussions. They fanned the flames of many northern Indian farming communities’ opposition to the government and the prime minister, as many of the young women wrestlers belonged to the Other Backward Classes—a term used by the government to describe socially and educationally disadvantaged groups.¹⁰ Though initiated as a movement for gender justice, the women wrestlers’ struggle activated and strengthened prodemocracy forces across India.

These high-profile instances of sexual violence brought people of all genders to the streets in protest. However, despite the implementation of a new stringent law against sexual violence and public demands for stronger action against perpetrators, the number of reported rapes and sexual offences has increased in recent years. According to data by the Indian National Crime Records Bureau, India recorded 31,677 cases of rape in 2021, amounting to a daily rate of 86 rapes. It also recorded almost forty-nine complaints related to crimes against women every hour that year. In 2022, the Indian National Commission for Women alone received more than 31,000 complaints of crimes against women.¹¹

Progressive analysts have explained the increase in violence against women by pointing to the rise of conservative civil society groups and politicians defending traditional gender norms, such as with respect to women’s dress codes, as well as state patronage offered to offenders (as seen in the early release of the murderers and rapists convicted in the Gujarat Bilkis Bano case).¹² They have argued that India is witnessing a Hindutva-led “Talibanization” of society that encourages patriarchal oppression and violence.¹³ For example, the comment by a BJP minister in 2012 that “women should not wear clothes that provoke others to misbehave with them” continues to haunt many people’s consciences.¹⁴ Yet rising violence has also led to new alliances, as the examples above illustrate. The Hathras incident saw women’s rights organizations, Dalit and Ambedkarite groups, Adivasi organizations, and Muslim and Christian groups coming together to demand justice.

Muslim Women’s Leadership in Indian Prodemocracy Movements

In addition to demanding gender justice and equality, Indian women in recent years have also taken the lead in mobilizing for democracy.

Women’s leadership in the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Registrar of Citizens (NRC) in 2019 and 2020 exemplifies this trend.¹⁵ The CAA grants eligibility for Indian citizenship to non-Muslim undocumented migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who reached India before 2015—but excludes Muslim migrants from the same countries. It thus makes religion an explicit basis for citizenship. The NRC, meanwhile, aims to enumerate all Indian citizens residing in the country and identify those who do not have legally valid citizenship documents for deportation. Both the CAA and NRC were introduced by the Indian government in a non-consultative fashion that triggered widespread criticism. As the scholar Ali Khan Mahmudabad has argued, “The Citizenship Amendment Act, India’s Nuremberg moment, was a significant marker of the fundamental shift in the political, economic, legal, institutional, cultural and social status of Indian Muslims.”¹⁶ The legislation represented an extraordinary instance of exclusion of the Muslim community that made India their home country following partition and independence seventy-five years ago.

In response, Indian Muslims—led by young and elderly women—joined with other progressive forces to form a formidable resistance movement. Following Mahatma Gandhi’s model, they initiated dharna and satyagraha (sit-in demonstrations) at Shaheen Bagh in Delhi.¹⁷ Many similar sit-ins sprang up in cities and small towns across the country. Shaheen Bagh thus quickly became a popular model of mobilization, featuring artistic expressions like poetry, songs, theatre performances, and stand-up comedy. Political parties and scholars likened the protests to the nonooperation movement led by Gandhi against colonial rule in the 1920s.¹⁸

Women managed hundreds of such protest sites. In most cases, these were ordinary community women and not activists or professionals associated with any civil society organization. The fact that the protests were secular in character yet led by Muslim women lent significant credibility to the progressive nature of the anti-CAA/NRC resistance. Shaheen Bagh sit-ins set up across the country lasted for nearly a hundred days and were only curtailed when the government used the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown as an excuse to crack down on the protest sites.

In addition to taking on leadership roles, women bore the brunt of the conservative Hindutva backlash against the protests. Particularly in the district of North East Delhi, the site of a Shaheen Bagh-inspired protest site, this backlash resulted in communal polarization and violence. Several young women leaders were among the people arrested for demonstrating, and some are still in jail.¹⁹ It took many months before a pregnant woman, Safoora Zargar, was able to get conditional bail on health grounds, and many more months for Ishrat Jahan, Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal, and other women to secure bail. Authors Ziya Us Salam and Uzma Ausaf wrote about what made the Muslim women of Shaheen Bagh and elsewhere stand up for equal citizenship, with the Constitution in one hand and the Indian flag in the other. For many of these women, it was a moment of reckoning with history and an opportunity to stand up against what they saw as a majoritarian and authoritarian government.²⁰

The Farmers’ Protests and the Revival of Grassroots Democracy

Like the Muslim women targeted by the CAA and the NRC, communities affected by struggles over natural resources in India have also become a key part of popular resistance against democratic backsliding. Over the past decade, women have increasingly taken on leadership roles in this realm—especially in critical political struggles like the farmers’ mobilization against new farm laws.

In 2020 and 2021, widespread farmers’ protests broke out across northern India.²¹ The protests have been called the “largest and longest peasants’ struggle in the history of modern India.”²² They came in response to three farm laws put forward by the BJP government that aimed to corporatize farming and end state subsidies and the Minimum Support Price for farm products. In response, agitated farming communities came together and mobilized amid the COVID-19 pandemic and government lockdowns. Although formal leadership for the movement was in the hands of male members of farmers’ organizations, women agricultural workers and farmers spearheaded many of the protests, especially the blockade organized at the main borders of Delhi: Tikri, Singhu, and Ghazipur.²³

The protesters wanted the government not only to repeal the legislation but also stop privatizing and corporatizing the agricultural industry, an impulse many viewed as anti-poor and antidemocratic. The government’s refusal to engage in dialogue with the farmers was also widely unpopular. Overlapping grievances gave rise to a larger alliance among progressive political and civil society forces, minority rights organizations, and the farmers’ movement. For example, statements issued by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (a coalition of more than forty Indian farmers’ unions) expressed opposition not merely to the farm laws but also to anti-minority violence, the anti-women stance of the BJP, the suppression of democratic voices, the abuse of Indian women wrestlers, the government’s attacks on prodemocracy journalists, and the violence in Manipur, among other domestic and international topics.²⁴ This range of statements stood in contrast to earlier times of mobilization when farmers’ movements stuck to narrower demands.

The Shaheen Bagh model inspired women in the farmers’ protests to set up camps at different entry points to New Delhi. Women protesters communicated the movement’s demands to local communities and toured nearby villages, singing songs and collecting food for the protesters. The fact that women from the farming community were mobilizing around issues of land and livelihood marked a drastic change from the past, highlighting the possibility of a new type of feminist movement. Indeed, comparative analyses of the anti-CAA/NRC protests and the farmers’ protests found women’s leadership to be the most promising and progressive common denominator.²⁵ “The farmers’ movement not only led to a slowdown in the BJP government’s aspirations for a Hindutva state, but it has also created space for the resurgence of grassroot democracy,” wrote Rajinder Singh Deep Singh Wala of the Kirti Kisan Union.²⁶

The farmers’ mobilization highlights that the struggle for land rights in India is deeply intertwined with the struggle for women’s rights. Since legal titles usually make men the formal owners of land, women are excluded from any decisionmaking rights. In the western state of Maharashtra, for example, 88 percent of rural women work in the agricultural sector, without any rights over the land.²⁷ Women-led civil society organizations have come to realize that women’s land ownership is critical to establishing their rights and participation in an agricultural economy. With this purpose, in 2020 the Swayam Shikshan Prayog—a women-led network based out of the city of Pune—initiated a program to make sure women gain land ownership and decisionmaking rights.²⁸ Their activism has encouraged other women to take on leadership roles in the agricultural movement and in the region’s farmers’ protests.

Women’s Defense of Natural Resources as Prodemocratic Mobilization

Women’s mobilization for land rights is also evident in the climate movement. Especially in the resource-rich central-eastern states of India, women are at the forefront of resistance to displacement induced by land grabs and natural resource exploitation. For example, Adivasi women leaders are opposing private sector mining companies and energy projects in the Indigenous homelands of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.²⁹

However, far from recognizing their contribution to preventing ecological damage, government narratives often paint these women leaders as Maoists, supporters of left-wing extremism, and threats to national security. Charged under national security laws meant to prevent terrorism, women Adivasi leaders such as Hidme Markam and Soni Sori have gone through long periods of incarceration and endured sexual and gender-based violence for their staunch opposition to land grabs, crony capitalism, ecological looting, and the destruction of Indigenous homelands.³⁰

The All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) epitomizes women’s leadership in the environmental movement, especially since the enactment of the Forest Rights Act in 2006. Men—and upper-caste men in particular—traditionally lead labor unions in India. In sharp contrast, the AIUFWP is almost entirely fronted by women. Sukalo Gond, an Adivasi woman from the mineral-rich Kaimur forest region in Uttar Pradesh, is the national president of the AIUFWP as well as a militant activist and orator.³¹ Incarcerated multiple times, including under the National Security Act, Sukalo Gond and her colleagues have been instrumental to the forest workers’ movement in India.³² The women-led union has campaigned for climate justice, allied with the farmers’ movement and the anti-CAA resistance, and stood up against sexual violence and the authoritarian repression of democratic voices. Through a national initiative called Bandini, they also have been instrumental in bringing together and raising awareness of women political prisoners.³³ By doing so, they have carved out an important space for prodemocratic alliance-building within the land and livelihoods movement.

Beyond the forest sector, some women have taken on leadership roles in trade unions. In India, the larger unions have often been accused of sticking to their sectoral demands and not joining hands with other democratic and pro-Constitution forces. Several women are challenging this pattern. Amarjeet Kaur, the national leader of the largest trade union in India, the All India Trade Union Congress, has forged new alliances with other anti-communal, anti-caste, and secular progressive forces fighting authoritarianism—for instance, conducting joint protests with those leading the farmers’ movement.³⁴ Others, like the young trade unionist and Dalit rights activist Nodeep Kaur of the Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan (Organization for Labor Rights), have been kept in jail for months but consistently have been at the forefront of the larger struggle against the authoritarianism of the Modi regime.³⁵

When Going Gets Tough: Women and the Civil Rights Movement in India

All women actively engaged in the democracy movement or the movement against communalism in India today risk being arrested or jailed. For example, women’s media collectives that seek to educate the public about democracy, fight caste-based discrimination, and redefine gender roles—like Khabar Lahariya (“News Waves”) or BehanBox—have been targeted by conservative forces.³⁶ The minimum punishment usually consists of multiple police raids, interrogations, or public harassment from online trolls. Enjoying widespread impunity, right-wing actors increasingly attack women with hate speech and online threats of sexual and gender-based violence. This has been the experience of many women leaders, including environmental leader Medha Patkar; labor lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj; women’s movement leader Annie Raja; forest union activist Roma; academic Shoma Sen; jailed student leaders Gulafsha Fatima, Valarmathi, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, and Richa Singh; civil liberties advocate Kavita Srivastava; poet Meena Kandasamy; renowned activists Syeda Hameed, Shabnam Hashmi, Anjali Bhardwaj, Kavita Krishnan, and Brinda Karat; and prominent journalists Teesta Setalvad, Rana Ayyub, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Anuradha Bhasin, Nidhi Razdan, Barkha Dutt, and Sagarika Ghose. Threats are worse for Muslim women and worse yet for Kashmiri Muslims, since women with intersectional identities are more vulnerable in a context of rising Hindu majoritarianism.³⁷

However, politically active women have been protected in the legal sphere by an army of strong, progressive women lawyers. Although women lawyers in the lower courts are rarely acknowledged, women wield notable power in the higher courts, especially at the Supreme Court. From senior lawyers like Indira Jaising, Kamini Jaiswal, Rebecca John, Nitya Ramakrishnan, Vrinda Grover, Karuna Nundy, and Indira Unninayar to the rising generation of lawyers from the best legal education institutes of India, women lawyers are lining up for a wide range of prodemocracy causes. Most focus on protecting human rights and civil liberties, but some women lawyers like Shomona Khanna have prioritized community resource rights. Availing themselves to causes and people who cannot afford regular lawyers, they provide crucial assistance to marginalized people. These women are modeling a sense of defiance against authoritarianism and championing the constitutional, democratic rights movement in India. They are building narratives of love and compassion at a time when hate speech and militarized nationalism have become the norm.

At a dark time for democracy, women’s leadership in civic action in India represents a strong silver lining that narrates new stories and brings a vibrant sense of hope to the progressive movement at large. Recognizing the interconnectedness of various struggles for rights and justice, women have brought together different progressive movements under the umbrella of mobilizing for democratic inclusion. In an assertive response to the clarion call by Zetkin, countless women have indeed taken it on themselves to carve out a democratic future for India at the risk of their careers and lives.

Notes

¹ Philip S. Foner ed., Clara Zetkin: Selected Writings (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015): https://files.libcom.org/files/Clara%20Zetkin%20-%20Selected%20Writings.pdf.

² Vijayan MJ, “Dark Clouds and Silver Linings: Authoritarianism and Civic Action in India,” Carnegie Europe, December 7, 2020, https://carnegieeurope.eu/2020/12/07/dark-clouds-and-silver-linings-authoritarianism-and-civic-action-in-india-pub-83141.

³ “The Sexul Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act,” India Code, 2013, https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/2104?sam_handle=123456789/1362; and “Vishsaka Guidelines,” Government Polytechnic Sorab, accessed December 14, 2023, http://gptsoraba.in/english/doc/vishakaguidelines.pdf.

⁴ Arjun, “Nirbhaya Case History And Present,” Legal Service India, accessed December 14, 2023, https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-1788-nirbhaya-case-history-and-present.html; and Bharat 2.0, “Case Study Nirbhaya Reforms Introduced in Rape Laws,” Legal Service India, accessed December 14, 2023, https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-2133-case-study-nirbhaya-reforms-introduced-in-rape-laws.html.

⁵ Billy Perrigo, “The Fatal Gag Rape of a Young Woman Is Forcing a Reckoning in India Over the Caste System,” Time, October 15, 2020, https://time.com/5900402/hathras-rape-case-india-violence.

⁶ The Meitei people are the dominant ethnic group in Manipur.

⁷ Kim Vaiphei and Damlemsang Vaiphei, “The Video Hurts So Much, I Cannot Find the Words,” The Caravan, July 31, 2023, https://caravanmagazine.in/conflict/manipur-women-video-viral-family-recounts-ordeal.

⁸ PTI, “Manipur Cops Identify 14 More People in Women Paraded Naked Case,” Deccan Herald, July 24, 2023, https://www.deccanherald.com/india/manipur-cops-identify-14-more-people-in-women-paraded-naked-case-2-1240153.html.

⁹ Rhea Mogul, “India’s Wrestling Chief Charged in Sexual Harassment Case,” CNN, June 15, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/15/india/india-brij-bhushan-singh-charged-wrestlers-intl-hnk/index.html.

¹⁰ “Indian Farmers Break Down Barricades to Join Protesting Wrestlers,” Al Jazeera, May 8, 2023, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/8/indian-farmers-break-down-barricades-to-join-protesting-wrestlers.

¹¹ “India Lodged Average 86 Rapes Daily, 49 Offences Against Women Per House in 2021: NCRP Data,” The Hindu, August 31, 2022, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/india-lodged-average-86-rapes-daily-49-offences-against-women-per-hour-in-2021-government-data/article65833488.ece.

¹² Vijayan MJ, “The Ascent of Conservative Civil Society in India,” Carnegie Europe, October 4, 2018, https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/10/04/ascent-of-conservative-civil-society-in-india-pub-77372; Awstika Das, “Bilkis Bano Case | Gujarat Govt Says Convicts Deserve Chance of Reformation; Supreme Court Asks, ‘Why Is Remission Policy Being Selectively Applied?,’” Livelaw, August 17, 2023,

https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-bilkis-bano-reformation-remission-policy-being-selectively-applied-235468; and “BJP Leader Kailash Vijayvargiya Draws Criticism for Remarks Against Women’s Clothing,” Times of India, April 8, 2023, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/indore/bjp-leader-kailash-vijayvargiya-draws-criticism-for-remarks-against-womens-clothing/articleshow/99345296.cms?from=mdr.

¹³ Anish Kapoor, “India Is Being Ruled by a Hindu Taliban,” The Guardian, November 12, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/12/india-hindu-taliban-narendra-modi; and Vir Sanghvi, “The Talibanisation of Hinduism,” October 26, 2023, https://www.virsanghvi.com/Article-Details.aspx?key=2091.

¹⁴ “AIDWA Condemns BJP Leaders Justification of Sexual Crimes on Women,” AIDWA, January 3, 2013, https://www.aidwaonline.org/aidwa-condemns-bjp-leaders-justification-sexual-crimes-women.

¹⁵ Sangbida Lahiri, “We Are Seeing, for the First Time, a Sustained Countrywide Movement Led by Women,” The Wire, March 8, 2020, https://thewire.in/women/caa-nrc-protests-women.

¹⁶ Ali Khan Mahmudabad, “Indian Muslims and the Anti-CAA Protests: From Marginalization Towards Exclusion,” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 24/25 (Winter 2019–2020): https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.6701.

¹⁷ Elizabeth Puranam, “Why Shaheen Bagh Protests Are an Important Moment in India’s History,” Al Jazeera, February 3, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/2/3/why-shaheen-bagh-protests-are-an-important-moment-in-indias-history.

¹⁸ PTI, “Anti-CAA Stirs Like Mahatma’s Non-cooperation Movement: Sitaram Yechury,” Indian Express, February 20, 2020, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/anti-caa-stirs-like-mahatmas-non-cooperation-movement-sitaram-yechury-6278419.

¹⁹ “Women of JNU Statement in Solidarity With Jailed Anti-CAA Activists Safoora Zargar, Ishrat Jahan, and Gulfisha,” Maktoob Media, May 9, 2020, https://maktoobmedia.com/india/women-of-jnu-statement-in-solidarity-with-jailed-anti-caa-activists-safoora-zargar-ishrat-jahan-and-gulfisha.

²⁰ Ziya Us Salam and Uzma Ausaf, Shaheen Bagh: From Protest to a Movement (New Delhi: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020).

²¹ “2020: Farmers Take the Country by Storm,” Frontline, August 15, 2022, https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/agriculture/india-at-75-epochal-moments-2020-farmers-protests-take-the-country-by-storm/article65722271.ece.

²² “2020: Farmers Take the Country by Storm,” Frontline.

²³ T. K. Rajalakshmi, “Peasant Women From Punjab and Haryana Stand Shoulder to Shoulder in Year-Long Farmers’ Protests,” Frontline, December 1, 2021, https://frontline.thehindu.com/farmers-struggle/women-warriors-peasant-women-from-punjab-and-haryana-stand-shoulder-to-shoulder-in-year-long-farmers-protests-against-controversial-farm-laws/article64926242.ece.

²⁴ “Samyukt Kisan Morcha,” Wikipedia, last updated February 20, 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samyukt_Kisan_Morcha.

²⁵ Prasiddhi Shrestha, “Shaheen Bagh, the Farmers’ Protest and the Importance of Gender Inclusivity in Social Movements,” Centre for Social Change, September 6, 2021, https://socialchange.org.np/shaheen-bagh-the-farmers-protest-and-the-importance-of-gender-inclusivity-in-social-movements; and Preetha Nair, “Wonder Women Leading Indians’ Battle,” Outlook India, November 30, 2021, https://www.outlookindia.com/opinion/india-news-wonder-women-leading-indians-battle-news-305221.

²⁶ Natasha Behl, “India’s Farmers’ Protest: An Inclusive Vision of Indian Democracy,” American Political Science Review 116, no. 3 (2022): 1141–1146, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/indias-farmers-protest-an-inclusive-vision-of-indian-democracy/78B4021417116DCC65F05177645AA34F.

²⁷ Shreya Raman, “73.2% of Rural Women Workers Are Farmers, But Own 12.8% of Land Holdings,” IndiaSpend, September 8, 2019, https://www.indiaspend.com/73-2-of-rural-women-workers-are-farmers-but-own-12-8-land-holdings.

²⁸ Debojit Dutta and Smarinita Shetty, “A Crisis Is an Opportunity to Recognise Women’s Leadership,” India Development Review, December 17, 2021, https://idronline.org/article/gender/building-an-ecosystem-for-women-leaders-in-rural-india.

²⁹ Suchitra, “Adivasi Women Lead the Fight Against Coal Mining in India,” Women’s Media Center, December 17, 2021, https://womensmediacenter.com/climate/adivasi-women-lead-the-fight-against-coal-mining-in-india.

³⁰ “Profile: Hidme Markam,” Front Line Defenders, March 25, 2021, https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/hidme-markam; and “Case History: Soni Sori,” Front Line Defenders, March 7, 2018, https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-soni-sori.

³¹ “Women in Resistance - Sukalo Gond,” Update Collective, April 17, 2019, https://updatecollective.wordpress.com/2019/03/20/women-in-resistance-sukalo-gond.

³² “Women in Resistance - Nivada Rana,” Update Collective, April 17, 2019, https://updatecollective.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/women-in-resistance-nivada-rana.

³³ Delhi Solidarity Group, “Booklet: [Public Hearing] Bandini: Women in Resistance, Women in Prison,” February 18, 2019, https://delhisolidaritygroup.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/booklet-public-hearing-bandini-women-in-resistance-women-in-prison.

³⁴ Sindhu Menon, “Amarjeet Kaur: The Trade Unionist Who Broke Gender Barriers,” Labour File, 2007, https://www.labourfile.com/section-detail.php?aid=580.

³⁵ Ashok Kumar, “Who Is Nodeep Kaur, and Why Was She Arrested,” The Hindu, February 9, 2021, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/who-is-nodeep-kaur-and-why-was-she-arrested/article33790286.ece.

³⁶ See BehanBoxat https://behanbox.com. (“Behan” means sister in Hindustani). See also Khabar Lahariya (खबर लहरिया), https://khabarlahariya.org; and Narpur Basu, “Women Journalists Trolled and Targeted: India,” Institute of Commonwealth Studies, May 12, 2022, https://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk/blog/women-journalists-trolled-and-targeted-india.

³⁷ Samar Halarnkar, “The Widening War Against India’s Women Journalists,” Scroll.in, October 25, 2020, https://scroll.in/article/976611/the-widening-war-against-indias-women-journalists.

Women’s Activism for Democracy in Turkey: Impact, Limitations, and State Responses

The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP), a conservative party with Islamist roots, has controlled Turkey’s national government since 2002. Although the AKP under the leadership of current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan implemented some democratic reforms during its early years, it began to drift away from democracy later in the decade. Democratic backsliding intensified significantly in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt in 2016. A 2017 referendum transforming the parliamentary government into a presidential system marked an important turning point, effectively institutionalizing one-man rule. Over the past fifteen years, the government has systematically eroded the rule of law, relying on arbitrary prosecutions as well as restrictions on freedom of expression and association to tighten civic and political space.¹

These antidemocratic measures have provoked intermittent waves of countermobilization. In 2013, the Gezi protests brought together a broad-based coalition of prodemocracy groups that initially challenged a local urban development effort in Istanbul but quickly expanded to contest the government’s broader attacks secularism and democracy. Offshoots of the Gezi protests, such as City Defenses or “park forums,” continued to challenge the government’s policies over the next several years by modeling an alternative form of politics rooted in dialogue and bottom-up participation.² Although they gradually lost momentum, these prodemocracy groups also organized “no” campaigns in the lead-up to the 2017 referendum.

In recent years, democratic backsliding in Turkey has coincided with escalating attacks on women’s rights, triggering new forms of activism among women. Particularly in the lead-up to the 2023 election, women’s organizations that previously were less engaged in debates about democracy have become more involved. At the same time, women’s intersecting identities have also influenced the goals of their mobilization. For instance, Kurdish women have a long history of protest against undemocratic practices, fully aware of the detrimental consequences of autocratic centralization for their community. Some Islamic women, by contrast, have criticized the AKP’s approach to women’s rights yet generally have maintained their allegiance to the party. These divisions have made it difficult to build broad-based coalitions. Growing civic repression and the fact that even reform-minded political parties do not perceive women as significant political actors have further constrained women’s prodemocratic mobilization.

With their extensive experience in civic activism and their ability to connect with diverse segments of society, women nevertheless offer significant opportunities for democratic resistance in Turkey. The key challenge for the women’s rights movement lies in expanding to embrace a broader prodemocracy agenda while navigating the increasing pressure exerted by the state.

Women’s Activism and Turkish Prodemocracy Campaigns

The prodemocracy movement in Turkey encompasses diverse groups, from secularists and Kurdish nationalists to feminists and environmentalists. Over the past decade, these groups have come together in unified opposition to Erdoğan and his policies. They have organized various campaigns and protests against democratic backsliding, especially during the Gezi protests and in the years that followed. In the lead-up to the most recent May 2023 elections, prodemocratic mobilization focused primarily on preventing Erdoğan’s reelection. One of the strongest actors in this coalition was the Nation Alliance, a group of six political parties known as the Table of Six and led by the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or CHP) that campaigned for restoring a strengthened parliamentary system, reversing democratic backsliding, and reinstating the rule of law. The Nation Alliance garnered support from many Turkish women’s organizations that openly endorsed CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance. Recognizing the significance of the elections to preserving not only women’s rights but also the space to fight for those rights, many women activists adopted a broader prodemocracy discourse.

Although separate from the prodemocracy movement, the women’s rights movement in Turkey has contributed to the country’s democratic development and culture since the 1980s.³ Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, secular women who identified as feminists—typically educated women based in Turkey’s urban centers—initiated campaigns and protest movements to advocate for women’s rights and against domestic violence, and they established new civil society organizations and women’s studies programs and centers within universities.⁴ These efforts had tangible results, including Turkey’s 1985 ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and a 1998 law on domestic violence prevention. In the early 2000s, feminist bureaucrats (“femocrats”) helped amend discriminatory articles in the legal framework, such as those that previously designated the husband as the head of the family and those pertaining to property regimes within families.

Yet the Turkish women’s rights movement is not homogenous: it encompasses secular, Islamic, and Kurdish feminists and organizations. These actors occasionally work together to advance joint priorities but also voice distinct political demands. For instance, Kurdish women have historically fought for women’s rights alongside the right to ethnic self-determination, challenging Kurdish patriarchy and the Turkish state—as well as Turkish women who dismiss their unique plight.⁵ By the late 1990s, they had successfully established a gender quota in Kurdish political parties, which they have worked to strengthen over time. Islamic women, by comparison, traditionally have mobilized for gender-based religious rights, especially following the Council of Ministers’ 1981 decision to ban students and women employees in public institutions from wearing headscarves. Embracing a language of rights, they argued that the headscarf ban violated their religious rights and their right to education.⁶

After the AKP’s ascent to power in 2002, the party initially leveraged women’s rights protections and liberal discourse on gender equality to soften any negative perceptions and fears related to its Islamist roots.⁷ The government during its first term advanced various women’s rights reforms to bolster its legitimacy, including with regard to secular Turkish elites in the military and state bureaucracy. However, as Erdoğan moved to centralize power and escalate civic repression, feminists’ political influence gradually waned. As the AKP marched toward authoritarianism, it rallied women aligned with conservative gender norms to support the party and established new conservative women’s institutions and organizations that supported the government’s political and ideological agenda. In his speeches, Erdoğan began lashing out against progressive gender norms and LGBTQ rights, framing them as opposed to Turkish culture and tradition.⁸

Over the past decade, the government has increasingly reinterpreted existing legal frameworks to advance conservative gender norms, using its growing control over the courts to strengthen the role of religion in family law and public life.⁹ For example, in 2019, Erdoğan began targeting the Istanbul Convention, a landmark treaty on preventing and combating domestic violence and violence against women, for undermining traditional family values. He eventually withdrew Turkey from the convention in 2021. Court rulings and laws formalizing religious marriage and granting religious officials the right to perform marriages have stripped women of their civil marriage rights and paved the way for an increase in early marriages. More recently, the Islamist parties that are part of the AKP’s current election alliance, the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi) and the Free Cause Party (HÜDA-Par), have sought to end indefinite alimony for divorced couples and amend Law No. 6284 on the Protection of the Family and the Prevention of Violence Against Women, which incorporates the Istanbul Convention into domestic law.¹⁰

As a result of these changes, many women across the ideological spectrum have felt that their rights are increasingly vulnerable. They have responded by mobilizing for women’s rights alongside standing up for democracy. For one, despite the constraints placed on the freedom of peaceful assembly, women have remained undeterred in their determination to take to the streets. In 2021, after Erdoğan issued a presidential decree announcing Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, they organized protests across fifty-one locations.¹¹ They argued that leaving an internationally recognized treaty through a presidential decree, which had been approved by the parliament, not only disregarded the people’s will but also violated Turkish law.¹²

Furthermore, women’s organizations have actively mobilized during election campaigns. Before the 2017 presidential referendum, for instance, the We Will Stop Femicides platform moved beyond reporting on femicides to also launch a “no” campaign against Erdoğan’s proposed constitutional changes.¹³ The group spoke out about the government’s role in femicides, emphasizing the insufficient punishment of perpetrators and inadequate protection of women.¹⁴ It also demonstrated solidarity with the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet during its trial and protested the detention of Kurdish women politicians during the state of emergency imposed after the 2016 coup attempt.¹⁵ During the May 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections, various women’s organizations also called on women voters to oppose Erdoğan, pointing to the government’s economic mismanagement, the country’s deepening poverty, and the government’s mishandling of the catastrophic earthquake that struck the country in February. They organized on social media as well as offline, with groups such as Feminists for Elections distributing leaflets and engaging with women at public markets in Istanbul.¹⁶ As active participants in the campaign process, they urged women to stand up for their rights and exercise their right to vote.

In addition to mobilizing women voters against Erdoğan and the AKP, secular women’s organizations called on political parties to support women’s formal participation in politics. The number of women members of parliament in Turkey has historically been relatively low, rising from around 2 percent in the 1990s to slightly over 4 percent in 2002. Women’s representation gradually increased in subsequent years, fluctuating between 14 percent and 17 percent during the 2010s.¹⁷ Although the AKP’s percentage of women members of parliament was 11 percent and around 17 percent in the 2015 and 2018 elections, it was the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, or HDP) within the opposition that played a significant role in raising the overall percentage of women members of parliament.¹⁸ Ahead of the 2023 polls, women’s organizations therefore advocated for parties across the ideological spectrum to run as many women as men candidates and support women’s campaigns with party funding.¹⁹ To ensure that no further progress on women’s rights was lost, various women’s organizations also challenged the anti-feminist rhetoric of both the government and the Islamist parties with whom the government formed a new election alliance.

Islamic feminists have at various points joined the opposition to the AKP’s policies on women’s issues, though they have refrained from explicitly mobilizing against the government. In the 2010s, they launched initiatives such as Reçel (“Jam”) Blog, the Muslim Initiative Against Violence Against Women, and Women in Mosques to open a new space within the Turkish feminist movement for Muslim women. During this period, they actively voiced their objections to certain government policies that had an impact on women and girls. They expressed their concerns in debates regarding the authorization of religious officials to perform civil marriages and voiced their opposition to child abuse legislation.²⁰ They also advocated for the Istanbul Convention.²¹ In the run-up to the May 2023 elections, Islamic feminists organized events to discuss the election process, but they did not directly campaign against Erdoğan. For instance, the Islamic women’s organization Havle brought together young religious women with women politicians from across the ideological spectrum to discuss young women’s priorities ahead of the elections.²² Many religious women attending these meetings were critical of the government’s social policies, especially of social and economic assistance that supports women only within the framework of the family. Like other women’s organizations and activists, Islamic feminists also disputed women’s underrepresentation in and exclusion from elected office.²³

Kurdish women’s organizations and activists, by contrast, have a long history of protesting undemocratic practices and recognizing their detrimental consequences for women in the region. Indeed, Kurdish women’s organizations have established a narrative that explicitly links the broader democratic struggle to the advancement of women’s rights. For instance, the government has in recent years removed elected mayors from the pro-Kurdish HDP and replaced them with state-appointed trustees. Protesting this policy, Kurdish women activists have emphasized how the trustees have eliminated the gender quotas in hiring for which Kurdish women had fought, in addition to disbanding all women’s units and counseling centers previously established under the elected mayors. In other words, the central government’s intervention has led to women’s spaces being eroded.²⁴ The Kurdish women’s movement therefore sees democratization as a necessary precondition for women’s empowerment and rights protections and views patriarchy as intrinsically connected to Kurdish oppression by the state.

Women’s intersecting identities thus have shaped their responses to democratic backsliding. Secular women have mobilized to preserve the rights they have acquired since the 1980s, whereas Kurdish women are dedicated to achieving ethnic self-determination. Islamic women who previously had advocated for gender-based religious rights have in recent years taken steps to challenge the prevailing Islamic patriarchy. In pursuit of their goals, each of these movements employs a language of rights and challenges the patriarchal structures of the state.

Women’s Impact on the Turkish Prodemocracy Movement—and Their Limits

One of the main successes of Turkish women’s mobilization over the past several years has been to bring women’s rights—and violence against women in particular—onto the political opposition’s agenda. For instance, Kılıçdaroğlu, the main opposition leader and presidential candidate, repeatedly defended Law No. 6284 (on violence against women) and said that the removal of the law should not be allowed.²⁵ Prominent figures from another opposition party, İYİ, have also made supportive statements, asserting that “we are returning to all international agreements because we know that the Istanbul Convention saves lives.”²⁶ Furthermore, the law granting religious officials the authority to conduct civil marriages has drawn negative reactions from opposition parties such as CHP, İYİ, and HDP since its conception.²⁷

Yet women’s mobilization, while noteworthy, has so far failed to fundamentally reshape the Turkish prodemocracy movement, for three main reasons. First, collaboration among women’s organizations and other actors within the prodemocracy movement remains limited. There have been some examples of joint initiatives, such as the Rosa Women’s Association partnering with legal and medical associations to establish a network on combating violence against women.²⁸ However, these alliances remain the exception rather than the rule. This rarity can be attributed to the fact that Turkish civil society organizations often have been inwardly focused, not just on their ideologies but also on specific thematic areas.²⁹ In addition, the development of civil society in Turkey, with the exceptions of some women’s organizations, is recent. Many key actors are relatively new and do not know each other well, which inhibits alliance-building. As a result, the demands, expectations, and discourses of women’s rights advocates often do not extend beyond their own organizations and networks.

Second, heightened political and social polarization makes it difficult for women to build broad coalitions across ethnic and religious divides. As noted above, some conservative women close to the AKP have expressed their dissatisfaction with the AKP’s anti-feminist policies and the hostile rhetoric of party officials within the AKP’s electoral alliance. Similarly, some women AKP politicians and conservative women closely associated with the AKP—such as the Women and Democracy Association (KADEM)—have shown support for the Istanbul Convention and Law No. 6284.³⁰ For instance, AKP Deputy Group Chair Özlem Zengin referred to Law No. 6284 as “our red line” in a parliamentary statement. Former minister of family and social services Derya Yanık also stated that “opening the subject to discussion is unacceptable to us.”³¹

Yet these expressions of protest by conservative women have not necessarily resulted in a complete break from the party. Instead, women in or close to the AKP who are uncomfortable with the government’s anti-feminist rhetoric still maintain their overall political identity. Their allegiance to the party—rooted in a broader set of ideological and political considerations—tends to outweigh these policy concerns. In short, women’s rights policies and concerns are not the primary factors shaping their alliances. Women’s efforts to build broader prodemocracy campaigns therefore suffer from low levels of unity, making it more difficult to bring women’s issues to the forefront.

The third challenge is that despite their active participation in protests and civic mobilization, women are still not seen as significant political actors by prodemocratic political parties. This mindset is most evident in the composition of opposition parties’ parliamentary candidate lists. With a few exceptions like the Green Left Party (now called the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party), most opposition parties ahead of the 2023 elections either limited the number of women candidates or strategically placed them in positions that offered them little chance of being elected. As a result, women’s representation in the newly formed Turkish parliament remains low. For instance, out of the 169 members of parliament representing the main opposition party, CHP, only 30 (17 percent) are women—a slightly lower share than in the AKP’s parliamentary faction, which includes 50 women among its 267 representatives. The İYİ Party, the CHP’s largest partner in the Nation Alliance, also counts only 6 women among its 44 representatives.³² Women’s marginalization in parliament is further reinforced by high levels of party discipline, which constrains women’s ability to speak up on gender issues.³³

The consequences of these exclusionary practices are far-reaching. In recent years, political parties have increasingly emerged as a key platform for prodemocratic opposition in Turkey. Women’s exclusion from these parties therefore poses a particularly pressing challenge. The parties disregarding women as full political subjects and failing to provide them with opportunities for meaningful participation restricts women’s ability to consolidate their voices and interests within broader prodemocracy campaigns, particularly since women’s strong representation in parliament would likely bolster their influence in civil society as well. Conversely, the opposition’s exclusionary practices limit the overall impact of women’s advocacy for their rights and democratic values.

Understanding State Responses to Women’s Activism

Women’s mobilization in Turkey is unfolding in a context of increasing state hostility. Over the past fifteen years, but particularly since the 2016 coup attempt, the government has imposed significant restrictions on peaceful assembly and freedom of association. The police have intervened consistently to limit street mobilization, including for the International Women’s Day march on March 8, protests in solidarity with the Istanbul Convention, and demonstrations against violence toward women. In addition, many women’s rights activists have been arrested and fined for their participation in peaceful protests and campaigns in recent years. Women activists and politicians who protested Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, for example, were met with a wave of criminal complaints.³⁴ The total amount of fines imposed on members of the Mersin Women’s Platform, who organized a sit-in protest, exceeded 120,000 Turkish lira (around $14,000).³⁵

Increasingly, women activists and women’s rights organizations have been attacked when they adopt broader prodemocracy discourse and challenge the government’s policies. For instance, many members of the Kurdish Rosa Women’s Association, which protested the replacement of elected mayors by state-appointed trustees in southeastern Turkey, have been detained and arrested in various waves.³⁶ Similarly, in response to their work monitoring violence against LGBTQ individuals, the We Will Stop Femicides Platform in 2021 faced a lawsuit accusing the group of “engaging in activities contrary to law and morality” and requesting the association’s dissolution. In September, courts dismissed this lawsuit.³⁷

An important reason for the increasing pressure on women activists and women’s organizations who advocate for democracy lies in Turkey’s highly polarized environment. The government perceives any prodemocracy stance as a sign of support for the political opposition. Consequently, it does not view women activists as independent civic actors but rather as integral parts of the opposition landscape. Especially during election periods, it therefore relies on legal cases, detentions, and arrests to divert the focus, energy, and resources of women activists, thereby suppressing women’s autonomous activism altogether. These tactics are also aimed at stigmatizing and criminalizing women’s organizations in order to diminish their legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Pressure on women activists and women’s rights organizations thus serves a dual purpose: disrupting their efforts from within and undermining their credibility externally.

Conclusion

Turkey’s long-standing women’s rights movement has a wealth of policy and advocacy expertise and enjoys widespread grassroots support. Over the years, this movement has achieved significant progress for women’s rights and gender equality. At the same time, some women’s organizations and women activists have also engaged in prodemocracy initiatives. Secular women’s involvement in prodemocratic mobilization has aimed to preserve their hard-fought legal rights and political spaces, whereas Islamic women have traditionally aimed to expand gender-based religious rights. More recently, both groups have voiced opposition to the Erdoğan government’s policies on women’s rights and participated in some initiatives to open up new political spaces for women. Kurdish women’s mobilization, by contrast, is influenced by their perception of patriarchy as inherently intertwined with the Turkish state’s oppression of the Kurds. Despite state restrictions on peaceful demonstrations, the determination of these diverse women to take to the streets to protest has served as a powerful testament to their commitment to defending their rights.

However, the impact of women’s mobilization on the broader prodemocracy movement has remained somewhat limited. In recent years, opposition to Erdoğan has consolidated in opposition political parties, yet these parties have not fully recognized women as critical political agents. In addition, despite the potential for agreement on specific issues with the AKP’s stance on gender-related issues, political and social polarization poses a significant challenge to coalition-building. Moreover, the women’s movement has increasingly become a target of government repression. The pressures on and the scrutiny faced by women’s organizations are even greater when they explicitly embrace prodemocracy discourse and activism. However, despite these pressures, women continue to mobilize. Their activism is crucial not only for safeguarding past gains in women’s rights but also for preserving space for the women’s rights movement, with its extensive experience and commitment to democracy, to continue its advocacy.

Notes

¹ Yeşim Arat and Şevket Pamuk, “Islamists in Power,” in Yeşim Arat and Şevket Pamuk, eds., Turkey Between Democracy and Authoritarianism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019): 88–129.

² Özge Zihnioğlu, “Strategizing Post-Protest Activism in Abeyance: Retaining Activist Capital under Political Constraint,” Social Movement Studies 22, no. 1 (2023): 122–37, https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2021.2003193,

³ Yeşim Arat and Şevket Pamuk, “Women’s Call for Democracy,” in Arat and Pamuk, Turkey Between Democracy and Authoritarianism, 250.

⁴ Arat and Pamuk, “Women’s Call for Democracy,” 230–37.

⁵ Arat and Pamuk, “Women’s Call for Democracy,” 244

⁶ Arat and Pamuk, “Women’s Call for Democracy,” 240–41.

⁷ Yeşim Arat, “Democratic Backsliding and the Instrumentalization of Women’s Rights in Turkey,” Politics & Gender 18, no. 4 (2022): 911–41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X21000192,

⁸ See, for instance “Erdoğan: Kadın-Erkek Eşitliği Fıtrata Ters [Erdoğan: Gender equality goes against nature], BBC, November 24, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2014/11/141124_kadininfitrati_erdogan; “Erdoğan: Doğum Kontrolü ile Yıllarca İhanet Yaptılar” [Erdoğan: They betrayed for years with birth control], BBC, December 22, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2014/12/141222_erdogan_dogum_kontrolu; and “LGBT Dayatması Aileyi ve İslami Değerleri Zayıflatmayı Amaçlayan Bir Tehdittir” [The imposition of LGBT is a threat aimed at weakening the family and Islamic values], Bianet, November 22, 2022, https://bianet.org/haber/lgbt-dayatmasi-aileyi-ve-islami-degerleri-zayiflatmayi-amaclayan-bir-tehdittir-270647.

⁹ Arat and Pamuk, “Women’s Call for Democracy”; and Arat, “Democratic Backsliding and the Instrumentalization of Women’s Rights.”

¹⁰ New Welfare Party, “Party Constitution,” April 13, 2023, https://yenidenrefahpartisi.org.tr/page/2023-genel-secimleri-beyannamemiz/2501; and HÜDA PAR, “Seçim Vizyon Belgesi” [Election vision document], 2023, https://tafsilat.hudapar.org/media/StatikIcerikGorselleri/Yayinlar/PdfDosyalari/Hudapar2023SecimVizyonBelgesi.pdf.

¹¹ Çatlak Zemin, “İstanbul Sözleşmesi bizim! İl il eylem yerleri” [The Istanbul convention is ours! Protest locations by province], March 20, 2021, https://catlakzemin.com/istanbul-sozlesmesi-bizim-il-il-eylem-yerleri.

¹² Sözcü, “‘İstanbul Sözleşmesi’ feshine tepki! Sokağa döküldüler” [Reaction to the termination of the Istanbul Convention! They took to the streets], March 20, 2021, https://www.sozcu.com.tr/2021/gundem/istanbul-sozlesmesi-iptaline-tepki-sokaga-dokulduler-6325696.

¹³ Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu, “Bu Mektup Tum Kadinlar Icindir” [This letter is for all women], September 4, 2017, https://kadincinayetlerinidurduracagiz.net/aciklamalar/2811/bu-mektup-tum-kadinlar-icindir-.

¹⁴ Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu, “Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu 2022 Yıllık Veri Raporu” [We Will Stop Femicide Platform 2022 Annual Data Report], January 2, 2023, https://kadincinayetlerinidurduracagiz.net/veriler/3040/kadin-cinayetlerini-durduracagiz-platformu-2022-yillik-veri-raporu.

¹⁵ @KadinCinayeti, October 31, 2016, 5:56 PM, Twitter, https://twitter.com/KadinCinayeti/status/793149779362586624; and @KadinCinayeti, November 5, 2016, 8:45 PM, Twitter, https://twitter.com/KadinCinayeti/status/795004140032327681.

¹⁶ Bianet, “Seçim İçin Feministler: Haklarımızdan vazgeçmeyeceğiz” [Feminists for election: We will not give up our rights], May 25, 2023, https://bianet.org/haber/secim-icin-feministler-haklarimizdan-vazgecmeyecegiz-279311.

¹⁷ Burcu Taşkın, “Political Representation of Women in Turkey. Institutional Opportunities Versus Cultural Constraints,” Open Gender Journal (2021): 6–7, https://opengenderjournal.de/article/view/106/62.

¹⁸ Pınar Tarcan, “AK Parti’nin Mecliste Kadın Temsilini Artırdığı İddiası” [Allegation that the AK Party increased women’s representation in parliament], Teyit, April 4, 2023, https://teyit.org/demec-kontrolu/ak-partinin-mecliste-kadin-temsilini-artirdigi-iddiasi.

¹⁹ EŞİK Platform, “EŞİK Platform’dan Siyasi Partilere Açık Mektup” [Open letter to political parties from EŞİK Platform], March 30, 2023, https://esikplatform.net/kategori/basin-aciklamalari/74085/esik-platform-dan-siyasi-partilere-acik-mektup; and Kadın Adayları Destekleme Derneği, “KA.DER’in Siyasi Partilere Açık Çağrısı” [KA.DER’s open call to political parties], https://ka-der.org.tr/ka-derin-siyasi-partilere-acik-cagrisi.

²⁰ Kadına Şiddete Karşı Müslümanlar İnisiyatifi, “Müftülere Resmi Nikah Yetkisi Tartışmalarında Biz Neredeyiz?” [Where are we in the discussions on official marriage authorization for muftis?], October 26, 2019, https://kskmi.wordpress.com/2019/10/16/muftulere-resmi-nikah-yetkisi-tartismalarinda-biz-neredeyiz; and Kadına Şiddete Karşı Müslümanlar İnisiyatifi, “Erkek Şiddetini Görünmez Kılan Yasa Tasarısına İtiraz Ediyoruz!” [We object to the bill that makes male violence invisible!], October 16, 2019, https://kskmi.wordpress.com/2019/10/16/erkek-siddetini-gorunmez-kilan-yasa-tasarisina-itiraz-ediyoruz.

²¹ @HavleKadin, March 20, 2021, 1:25 PM, Twitter, https://twitter.com/HavleKadin/status/1373264373431599120; and @HavleKadin, May 24, 2021, 9:49 PM, Twitter, https://twitter.com/HavleKadin/status/1396931376469975050.

²² “Havle Kadın Derneği Kadın Masasına Çağırıyor” [Havle Women’s Association calls to the women’s table], Bianet, April 20, 2023, https://bianet.org/haber/havle-kadin-dernegi-kadin-masasi-na-cagiriyor-277576.

²³ Havle Kadın Derneği, Kadınların Masası: Dindar Kadınlar Yeni Dönemden Ne Bekliyor? [Women’s desk: What do religious women expect from the new era?], Seçimine Doğru, May 14, 2023, https://www.havlekadin.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Havle_Kadinlarin_Masasi.pdf.

²⁴ Çatlak Zemin, “Baskıdan vazgeçin yoksa daha çok büyüyecek bu mücadele” [Give up the pressure or this fight will grow even bigger], June 20, 2022, https://catlakzemin.com/baskidan-vazgecin-yoksa-daha-cok-buyuyecek-bu-mucadele-rosa-kadin-dernegi-ile-soylesi.

²⁵ “6284 sayılı kanun nedir, neden yeniden gündeme geldi?” [What is Law No. 6284 and why is it on the agenda again?], BBC News Türkçe, March 14, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/articles/cn03j6225exo.

²⁶ Seda Taşkın, “Millet İttifakı’nda İstanbul Sözleşmesi’nin ‘Adı’ Yok ‘Sözü’ Var” [There is no “name” for the Istanbul Convention in the Nation Alliance, it has a “word”], Artı Gerçek, January 30, 2023, https://artigercek.com/kadin/millet-ittifakinda-istanbul-sozlesmesinin-adi-yok-sozu-var-237366h.

²⁷ Hilal Köylü, “Müftülere nikah yetkisi hazırlığı tartışma yarattı” [Preparation for marriage authorization for muftis created controversy], Deutsche Welle Türkçe, July 29, 2017, https://www.dw.com/tr/m%C3%BCft%C3%BClere-nikah-yetkisi-haz%C4%B1rl%C4%B1%C4%9F%C4%B1-tart%C4%B1%C5%9Fma-yaratt%C4%B1/a-39880225.

²⁸ Mahmut Bozarslan, “Kadın cinayetlerine kadınlardan tepki” [Women’s reaction to femicides], VOA Türkçe, October 12, 2021, https://www.voaturkce.com/a/kadin-cinayetlerine-kadinlardan-tepki/6267892.html.

²⁹ Yaşama Dair Vakıf, “Sivil toplumun siyaset ve karar mekanizmalariyla ilişkilerinin incelenmesi araştırması” [Research on the investigation of civil society relations with politics and decision mechanisms], 2022, https://www.yada.org.tr/s/2626/i/siyaset-ve-sivil-toplum-Arastirma-Raporu-agustos-2022.pdf.

³⁰ “KADEM’den İstanbul Sözleşmesine destek: Şiddete başvurup bir tarafa zulmedilen bir ilişkide artık ‘aileden’ bahsedemeyiz” [Support from KADEM to the Istanbul Convention: “We can no longer say ‘family’ in a relationship where violence is used and one side is oppressed”], BBC News Türkçe, August 1, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-53623077.

³¹ “6284 sayılı kanun nedir, neden yeniden gündeme geldi?,” BBC News Türkçe.

³² Veri Kaynağı, “Yıllara göre kadın milletvekili sayıları” [Number of women members of parliament by year], March 6, 2023, https://www.verikaynagi.com/grafik/yillara-gore-kadin-milletvekili-sayilari.

³³ Burcu Taşkın, “Cherry-Picking in Policymaking: The EU’s Presumptive Roles on Gender Policymaking in Turkey,” in Rahime Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm and F. Melis Cin, eds., Feminist Framing of Europeanization: Gender Equality Policies in Turkey and the EU (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020): 131–56. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-52770-9_7.

³⁴ Sessiz Kalma, “İstanbul Sözleşmesi Savunucuları” [Istanbul Convention advocates], June 7, 2023, https://www.sessizkalma.org/tr/savunucu/istanbul-sozlesmesi-savunuculari.

³⁵ Sessiz Kalma, “Mersin Kadın Platformu” [Mersin Women’s platform], May 29, 2021, https://www.sessizkalma.org/tr/savunucu/mersin-kadin-platformu.

³⁶ Sessiz Kalma, “Rosa Kadın Derneği” [Rosa Women’s Association], September 12, 2023, https://www.sessizkalma.org/tr/savunucu/rosa-kadin-dernegi.

³⁷ Sessiz Kalma, “Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu” [We Will Stop Femicide Platform], September 13, 2023, https://www.sessizkalma.org/tr/savunucu/kadin-cinayetlerini-durduracagiz-platformu.

Black Tunisian Women’s Mobilization and the Fight Against Racist and Populist Backlash

On February 21, 2023, Tunisian President Kais Saied made an inflammatory speech warning of the danger posed by Black African migrants allegedly hell-bent on replacing Tunisia’s Arab-Islamic identity with an African one.¹ His rhetoric encouraged some Tunisians to attack sub-Saharan African migrants and accuse them of wanting to colonize the country. Many Tunisians remained silent about the president’s speech, whether because of fear of repression or implicit agreement. Yet a minority denounced what they described as fascist and racist discourse and called for the protection of vulnerable Black African migrants in Tunisia.

This article examines the role of Black Tunisian women in the Tunisian prodemocracy movement since 2011. It focuses on several Black Tunisian organizations, including ADAM (Association for Equality and Development), M’nemty, and Voix des Femmes Tunisiennes Noires (Voice of Black Tunisian Women, or VFTN), as well as the work of the late Ennahdha member of parliament Jamila Ksiksi. By examining their activism, it analyzes how Black Tunisian women have placed human rights, particularly the rights of Black African migrants, at the heart of their political vision.

Drawing on their own experiences, Black Tunisian women activists have called attention to the nexus of racial, gender, and class discrimination in Tunisian society. They have stressed that these intersecting dynamics impact their daily lives not only as Black women but also as activists who often feel alienated by the stereotypical image of the light-skinned Tunisian woman and Tunisian state feminism.² By ques