In a year of elections, can women’s rights drive change?

After decades of progress, women’s rights are being rolled back by right-wing populist political parties that seek to restore conservative gender hierarchies.

Today marks two years since the US Supreme Court wound back abortion rights when it struck out Roe v Wade, part of a growing backlash against women’s rights after decades of progress.

In a year marked by an unusually high number of elections, right-wing political parties across the globe are seeking to restore stereotypical gender roles and wind back hard-fought gains on reproductive rights and equality.

Such conservative candidates, who often run on a platform of nationalism, have been dubbed “patriarchal populists” by some researchers (although they’re not always men, as France’s Marine Le Pen and Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, show.)

These right-wing politicians — including US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump — tend to attack reproductive rights and reject LGBTQI-affirming legal reforms including same-sex marriage. Many also seek to reinstate biologically understood binary gender differences.

But women’s rights advocates are resisting.

In the US, two years after landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade was overturned, reproductive rights remains a hot political issue. Women voters and the pro-choice movement may even have the potential to swing November’s election. 

In Asia, women in countries including India, Myanmar and Iran have fronted mass peaceful protests against exclusionary regimes, including by forming new civil society groups and by engaging in new forms of digital activism.

In Malaysia, women’s rights advocates are mobilising to change inequitable citizenship rights that favour the children of Malaysian men — but not women — born outside the country.

In Europe, where the far right is on the march, activists have been resisting the move to anti-feminism and populism for years. In Poland, women made headlines when they took to the streets in October 2020 to protest the ruling Law and Justice Party, to oppose legislation that would make abortion illegal in almost all cases.

With elections coming soon in France and the UK, among other countries, it remains to be seen how many of Europe’s right-wing populist politicians will succeed in their attacks on women’s rights.

Meanwhile, across the Pacific Islands, which are experiencing a busy election year, only a small percentage of women serve as heads of state — which has experts concerned about the implications for democracy in the region.

In a region where gender-based violence remains rife — and where this violence has been linked to broader instability — feminist peacebuilding movements do exist. But women’s voices need amplification if they are to play an effective part in conflict prevention, management and recovery.

This special report examines whether, and to what extent, women are swaying elections away from populist authoritarians as a backlash against the rolling back of women’s rights.