Trump’s Defeat: Celebrate, Recharge and Resist

Donald Trump was defeated earlier this month in the 2020 US presidential election. He is still yet to formally concede, but at present – in these bleak times –  progressives everywhere have cause for celebration. This is especially the case on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Let us recognise the significance of a man who uttered the words “grab ‘em by the pussy, you can do anything” being voted out of the White House. Let us celebrate that the man who defended “some very fine people” amongst the white supremacists, nationalists, and neo-Nazis who attended the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville will be evicted. Let us acknowledge that the man known for inciting violence and hatred through misinformation on Twitter – not least through his public broadcast for militia group, the Proud Boys, to “stand back and stand by” – is set to pack his bags.

Work to be done

But for social justice activists around the world, there is much work still to be done.

There may only be one Donald Trump, yet he still received over 70 million votes.

Moreover, populist iterations of homophobia, misogyny, transphobia, racism and ethnonationalism continue to be waged across the globe by the likes of India’s Modi, Brazil’s Bolsanaro, Hungary’s Orban and the Philippine’s Duterte, among others.

The latter of whom enjoyed an 84 per cent popularity rating a year into his presidency, despite likening himself to Hitler, declaring that he was “happy to slaughter” millions living with drug addictions, and ‘joking’ that Filipino troops could rape up to three women at the height of a war against ISIS in Southern Philippines. He also suggested that they shoot female rebels in the vagina because “they are nothing without it.”

Misogynistic, racist and ethnonationalist messaging, posturing and politics are not confined to the U.S., nor to Trump.

The possibilities of transformative gender and social justice have been stifled and squashed through the rise of the far-right globally, and the reign and popularity of populist demagogues in the increasing number of illiberal democracies worldwide.

Patriarchal backlash is manifesting violently and viscerally the world over, and analysis of both its global and context-specific manifestations is necessary if we are to counter it.

Many faces of backlash

In examining patriarchal backlash – indeed any form of violence – it is essential that one does not only focus on the exceptional and the spectacular, but also the subtle and insidious.

That which lies beneath the waterline or even that which masquerades as ‘progress’ while reinforcing problematic binaries can be equally as damaging to gender and social justice.

The problems posed by the Dutertes and the Trumps of this world in this regard are clear; less clear is the more subtle co-optation of feminist and other gender justice agendas, the erosion of their radical potential through depoliticisation and the hollowing out of their transformative core.

Countering Backlash is a programme that seeks to untangle these strands and render visible the many ways in which backlash operates, so that we may effectively resist its many faces.

Celebrate, recharge, but then, resist

Donald Trump’s defeat is a blow to the populists and the right-wing worldwide. His presidency offered legitimacy to those publicly and violently proclaiming hate – whether gendered, racial, ethnonationalist or class-based – and being voted into office regardless.

But we cannot let his defeat be a distraction. Populists peddling hate remain in power elsewhere, and Trump’s voter base has not been deterred by his loss in the election.

These figureheads represent the continued, even growing, normalisation of violence (in its many forms and manifestations) against anyone considered the ‘Other’, whether women, migrants, LGBTQIA+ individuals, or those racially, ethnically or religiously marginalised.

Both overt and insidious backlash against struggles for gender and social justice live on; from remarkable and episodic forms of violence, to the hidden and everyday dynamics of oppression, backlash rages to put the ‘Other’ back into their proverbial place.

In order to contest backlash, we must work and listen across diversity and all the intersections of identity. This means decolonising theory and practice and shifting our focus to all sites in which backlash operates.

Countering Backlash works in partnership with scholars and activists across the world so we can build the solidarity and understanding necessary to counter violent pushbacks and hidden co-options. Collaboration and co-creation are the greatest tools in the box to mutually resist coordinated and global attacks on gender and social justice.

For now, celebrate and recharge, but then, resist.

The state of anti-feminist backlash in Bangladesh

Our perspective on anti-feminist backlash in Bangladesh is based on understandings of structural, political, economic and social forces, and the dynamic power exchange between distinct groups which lead to progress or backlash. In this non-linear narrative of progress and backlash, different masculinities have emerged which are intersectional, multidimensional and non-essentialist. Multiple actors such as state and international power (e.g. international donors, neighboring countries) at the macro level, as well as, family and community at the micro-level play an important role in anti-feminist backlash in reproducing the notion of hegemonic and toxic masculinities.

The history of anti-feminist backlash in Bangladesh has been rooted in targeting state and non-state development interventions advancing women’s empowerment through education, employment and political participation, particularly in rural areas. In anti-feminist backlashes, NGOs and women’s rights groups were particularly targeted. In the contemporary backlash, the targets have been activists, intellectuals, writers and NGO professionals who challenged the gender norms and asked for women’s equality, freedom and choice in sexuality, family, property and political space. Certain areas including advancement of LGBT rights, women’s equal share in property, family laws and challenging of traditional concepts of modesty by feminist movements within the country have come under higher scrutiny and garnered negative attention from antifeminist agendas and movements.

Complex dynamics of masculinities with feminist agendas

The different forms of backlash were dominantly perpetuated by the prevailing patriarchal power structure, fringe religious groups and some community male leaders against women’s empowerment agendas. Many of the women empowerment agendas have been viewed as a sign of Western aggression and perceived as corrupting existing dominant culture and religious beliefs. Women’s greater presence in the public sphere, as well as, their economic and social independence through active employment have been undermined by resistance from patriarchal structures who are at unease with the increase in women’s agency and autonomy. However, these contentions of men about over representation and equality of women seems mythical and are debunked when we turn our eye to some serious violations of human rights and dignity against women.

On the other hand, a considerable number of male allies, activists and male-led organizations have acted as leaders, grassroot community workers and policy makers to develop interventions for women’s empowerment alongside women’s leaderships. Examples of male leadership include Sir Fazle Hasan Abed and Dr. Muhammad Yunus who were pioneers in women’s microcredit programme and girl’s education through NGO’s interventions in Bangladesh.

Contested spaces for women’s advancement

Women are particularly targeted in the global trend of shrinking democratic spaces with laws that enforce discriminations like inheritance laws, absence of legal protection in issues such as marital rape, use of women’s ‘immoral character’ as defence in rape cases or cyberbullying that indirectly threaten women’s voices and freedom in both private and public space. Violence against women, rape, sexual harassment, attacks on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights, and cyberbullying show increasing social and psychological vulnerability in this highly contested spaces where the voices and dignity of women and other vulnerable groups are constantly threatened.

On the other hand, we have witnessed the historical backlash against women’s education and empowerment in rural areas losing power over time due to various factors. These factors range from the changing gender expectations within these rural communities, increasing support from local communities for women’s advancement; the government’s strong determination and position as signatories to various global bodies (i.e. CEDAW); financial support and increasing pressures from donor communities; lastly the enormous contribution from NGOs and civil rights (i.e. women’s movements).

Engaging men in steps towards gender equality

Bangladesh has made remarkable strides towards gender equality on various fronts within a relatively short period; from significantly reducing maternal mortality, achieving increasing levels of secondary school enrollment by girls, increasing number of women in local government administration, justice sector and law enforcement agencies to the case of the recent rape law being passed which states death penalty for the perpetrator. In the Bangladeshi context, within recent decades, the development sector has attempted to activate ‘engage men and boys’ strategies into their programmatic approaches. This has largely been mobilised in order to create more effective methods in tackling issues of gender-based violence, maternal health, sexual and reproductive health outcomes. The inclusion of strategies to engage men and boys in development agendas have shown that there has been an increase in overall realisation of taking masculinity and men’s roles in women’s empowerment into account, without which women’s participation in development does not guarantee their empowerment, health, agency and welfare within a patriarchal society.

Feminist and progressive politics face a backlash in India

India is in the throes of a period of seismic backlash against feminist and progressive politics, and the pace of change, particularly since the outbreak of the pandemic, has been breakneck with serious consequences for women’s equality and human rights. The pandemic, as elsewhere, has brutally exposed, exacerbated and deepened already existing fault-lines and structural inequalities that inhere in Indian society 

health crisis rages on with serious knock-on effects on the livelihoods and food security of millions of people in the country, with particularly egregious effects on those in already precarious contexts such as informal workersand especially women in informal work. The pandemic has also brought to the fore, in all its technicolour terror, the drivers of the backlash against progressive and feminist politics. The rise of a right-wing dominant-caste Hindu nationalism, and an increasingly authoritarian, hypermasculine state in thrall to a neoliberal capitalist agenda have determined the social, political, and economic contexts of the country over the last 8-10 years, and in turn the contours of the current backlash faced by contemporary progressive and feminist politics. 

This was perhaps emblematically captured in the early days of the pandemic by the heart-wrenching scenes of thousands of migrants walking home in the face of callous response by the government to its most vulnerable citizenry, and its vilification of Muslims which began with the discredited characterisation of the Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Delhi as a major source of the pandemic, and which spiralled into hate speech and crimes against Muslims, including social and economic boycotts and religious segregation at hospitals. 

Instead of attending to the structural inequalities exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic, the government’s response has been to accelerate the pace of its political agendawhich together with an increasingly legitimised ‘lynch mob culture’a complicit media, and a judiciary that has had its independence called into question, bring fresh stories of the pushback against the assertion of constitutional rights and democratic accountability every passing day. 

Far-reaching legislative changes  

In the past several weeks alone, having scrapped Question Hourkey mechanism for parliamentary scrutiny and accountability for the monsoon session of parliament, the government violated parliamentary procedure and rushed through several legislative changes amidst a boycott of parliament by the oppositionIt passed three ordinances making sweeping reforms of the agricultural sector which will adversely and disproportionately impact a majority of women farmers and agricultural workers, who form the bulk of the small and marginal sections in Indian agriculture. It also passed three further labour laws in continuation of a process of labour law reform which further retrenches labour rights and continues to invisibilise women workers, the vast majority of whom work in the informal sector.  

In a pushback against democratic accountability by civil society, the government has also recently made further changes to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act through an Amendment which has increased the cost of compliance for non-governmental organisations that receive foreign funds which will seriously impinge on the work of smaller organisations that work in remote locations on the rights of the most marginalised sections of society, including women. 

Another significant recent legislative change has come in the form of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) 2019. In December 2019, in its ‘chronological pursuit’ of redefining the fundamental social and political compact of citizenshipthe Government passed the CAA in the midst of a furore of protests across the country, which continued until a national lockdown was imposed owing to the pandemic 

The CAA provides a fast-track route to citizenship for non-Muslim immigrants (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians) from three neighbouring countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh), who were residing in India before 31st December 2014. What makes this discriminatory provision particularly insidious, however, is that if the experience of the National Population Register (NPR) exercise in Assam, where an unprecedented 1.9 million people were rendered stateless, is anything to go by, the CAA will indeed disenfranchise and render stateless those on the margins, including poor and Muslim communities, of which a disproportionate number will be women. 

Use of ‘lawless laws’ to crush dissent 

Another of the seismic shifts we have seen over recent years has been the concerted efforts to shrink spaces for deliberative democracy in the public sphere and close spaces for dissent, which has happened in tandem with the alarming erosion of civil liberties and state reprisals against political dissenters and human rights defenders through false charges, arbitrary arrests, and imprisonment through the use of draconian laws such as sedition and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA).  

The amendments to the FCRA restricting the functioning of civil society and the recent Supreme Court judgement that curtails the right of peaceful protest, and the announcement by the Uttar Pradesh government of a special force to provide security for a range of public institutions and places which will have extensive powers of search and arrest without a warrant add to this picture of a police state that is shrinking the spaces for dissent. Not surprisingly, India has fallen sharply on several indices that monitor the health of democracies. 

Recent state arrests and reprisals – to whose number there have been regular additions, most recently with the arrest of an 83-year-old Jesuit priest and Adivasi rights activist, Stan Swamy – have focused on two sets of ‘events’ – the anti-CAA protests and the Elgar Parishad gathering, which was a precursor to the violence that erupted at the site of the Bhima Koregaon war memorial. Some of the women human rights defenders who have faced reprisals and arrests include Sudha BharadwajShoma SenDevangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Safoora Zargar.  

An overwhelming number of feminist groups in India have decried the arrests of women’s rights activists. The recent alarming curbs to civil society and the rise in arrests have also received the attention of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet who has made appeals to the Indian government to safeguard the rights of human rights defenders and NGOs 

Given these egregious and alarming changes currently underway in Indian society, it is imperative that we document and analyse both the contours of the backlash and the ways in which progressive and feminist groups are mobilising to counter the backlash against women’s rights and gender justice.

Continuing the fight for women’s rights in Lebanon

While the Arab region represents a diverse configuration of countries, their one commonality is their poor standing in terms of women’s rights. They share patriarchal structures and increasing conservative movements combined with a lack of political will to advance the gender equality agenda, resulting in a backlash against women’s rights.

Lebanon is no different than other Arab countries, where poor performance in terms of gender equality manifests in social, economic, and political shortcomings. Despite some recent gains, sectarian and patriarchal systems hinder gender justice. Outstanding inequalities were further exacerbated with COVID-19 and Beirut’s devastating blast at the beginning of August.

And yet, despite a steady wave of setbacks, Arab women are the face and the force of revolutions across the region. Arab women are leading the charge and demanding change in opposition to the stagnant political and socioeconomic environment that denies feminist demands.

Women’s rights under attack in Lebanon

Lebanese women-led national uprisings from October 2019 onward, demanding long-overdue legislative reforms to ensure full human rights. The legal structure in Lebanon regards women as second-class citizens and dependents. Matters of personal status (marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance) are determined by religious structures where the absence of civil codes that govern the lives of citizens has sustained and promoted grave discrimination against women, putting their freedoms and bodily integrity in the hands of conservative religious courts. Women are also still fighting for the right to pass their nationality to their children and calling for long-overdue reforms due to government inaction.

Quotas in the parliament and cabinet are absent, even though women comprise 50 per cent of society. At present, only 6 out of 128 members of parliament and 6 out of 30 ministers are women, reflecting a dismal rate of women’s political participation and representation. Accountability to survivors of gender-based violence is limited in Lebanon. Despite having a law that criminalises domestic violence, the law overlooks certain types of violence – specifically, marital rape – removed to placate religious authorities. Further, women and girls from marginalised groups often face difficulties accessing justice in Lebanon. This has worsened as a result of stay-at-home orders and other restrictions on mobility as a result of Covid19 restrictions. In the wake of the global pandemic, the worsening financial crisis, and the Beirut blast, rates of domestic violence have continued to increase.

The financial crisis has also doubly affected women and girls in Lebanon, especially refugee and migrant communities. Family structures and state institutions often deny women access to various sectors of the labor force and relegate them to the informal economy, where they are underpaid or unpaid. Worse, women are often among the first to be laid off and often experience a doubling of domestic responsibilities during times of financial crisis.

Poor Lebanese, migrant, and refugee women are struggling to survive financially. Women employed in the healthcare sector – specifically nursing, which is overwhelmingly composed of women – face increasing emotional and physical demands as they sit, quite literally, on the frontlines against the pandemic.

To move forward we must put women’s demands at the centre

In the aftermath of the Beirut blast, women’s rights organisations released a Charter of Demands, laying out a gendered disaster response plan. The Charter identified the need for a feminist agenda ensuring women’s representation and leadership in all decision-making bodies for the response.

Lebanon, like many developing countries, suffers from NGOisation (pdf) of the women’s movement, meaning that the priorities of women’s organizations are often shaped by funding trends, placing them at the whim of donor demands. To counter this pressure, women’s groups must collectively reflect on feminist priorities, creating a unified movement to push for gender equality on their own terms, building a unified movement.

Countering anti-feminist backlash demands that women’s rights activists and groups engage all members of society. Importantly, this includes men, who are indispensable partners in fighting against gender inequality and challenging patriarchal norms. In Lebanon, anti-feminist backlash does not stem only from men, therefore it is critical to include those men in support of gender equality as advocates for the cause.

Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice builds partnerships and forms strategic collaborations to counter backlash against women’s rights by bringing together academics, activists, and researchers to exchange ideas and build a shared agenda that will fuel this movement.

There is global commitment and momentum to end inequalities – Lebanon must follow suit.

The struggle for gender justice in Uganda

There are different critical junctures in Uganda’s history from which debates on gender justice, equality and women’s rights can be traced. One of these significant moments is the “guerrilla bush war” led by Yoweri Museveni between 1981-85. Many women participated in this war on different fronts which ultimately brought about a new regime in 1986.

Inspired by women’s participation in the liberation war and international norms towards women’s rights, the post-war programming introduced practical steps towards promoting gender equality. These included creating “mandatory seats for women in all levels of the grassroots people’s resistance councils and the National Legislative Council (NRC) – the interim national legislature” in 1989, creating a ministry responsible for women’s affairs among other pro-women rights initiative. Feminist scholars argue that “women [often gain] greater visibility during and after war because institutional changes open up opportunities for them to demand women’s rights’ and representation in the context of peace talks, constitutional changes, truth and reconciliation processes and electoral reforms, …”

Institutional changes open up opportunities … to demand women’s rights’ and representation in the context of peace talks, constitutional changes, truth and reconciliation processes and electoral reforms,”

Post-war recovery ushered in a new political dispensation and opened avenues for gender equity reforms e.g. constitutional reforms of 1989-1995 in which women activists and women’s rights organisations (WROs) participated in, a new gender sensitive constitution, resurgence of autonomous WROs. The 1995 constitution particularly named women as citizens of an equal worth with men. The constitution committed the state to protect women and their rights, provided affirmative action measures in favour groups marginalised on the basis of gender, age, disability, and prohibited laws, cultures, customs or traditions which are against the dignity, welfare or interest of women or which undermine their status.

Covert resistance to implementing gender equality

While, these permissive moments created a greater momentum and a sense of optimism in promotion of gender justice, equality and women’s rights, the institutionalisation of gender equality generated diverse forms of resistance especially as WROs moved to translate constitutional promises into reality.

Three years after a gender sensitive constitution came into effect; the WROs registered a loss in pursuit of what came to be known as the Spousal Co-ownership “lost clause” within the 1998 Land Act. Miriam Matembe a women’s rights activist and legislator, who spearheaded mobilisation for the reform calling for wives to co-own property with their husbands – described the loss as “a moment of truth”. This is because women’s lobby realised that the great optimism derived from the formal constitution was not enough to deliver such a far-reaching gender equity change as women co-owning land with their spouses in a marriage arrangement. The experience revealed a systematic bureaucratic resistance to the translation of the constitutional provisions on women’s rights into action.

These covert forms of state resistance influenced future WROs ways of mobilising for gender change. Ten years after the lost clause, WROs drew on formal and informal networks, formed coalitions with government departments, male legislators, religious leaders and traditional leaders to promote a law on domestic violence out of the long-resisted Domestic Relations bill. Drawing on the experiences of backlash from the past, WROs mapped existing forms of resistance to gender equality and negotiated directly with key actors to enable passage of reforms.

We are looking to understand which WROs strategic manoeuvres led to the framing and passage of Domestic Violence Bill (2009) along with the prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation in 2009. We are also focusing on a class-related policy – Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme (UWEP) – government – top-down programme. UWEP was introduced in 2015 under the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development to strengthen the capacity of Women entrepreneurs, provide affordable credit to women groups for enterprise development and spur local economic development.

Contemporary backlashes

A closer analysis of these cases reveals differences in interests and ideas that motivated these policy reforms, as well as varying forms of backlash against them. Notably, strategic negotiations in framing, debates, passage and implementation of gender equality and women’s rights reforms are not without effect. Certain compromises in law reform processes are seen to water down some of the feminist provisions, as actors struggle to make laws “acceptable” to opposition e.g. men, powerful political elites, traditional and religious leaders. A case in point is the fact that the Domestic Violence bill was stripped of provisions on marital rape. There are cases of active stalling of gender reforms, with some reform programmes featuring as government’s unfunded priorities.

In communities where reforms impact on men and women’s everyday lives, there are social tensions emerging from disrupted gender division of labour e.g. in cases where women entrepreneur groups are seen as a threat to men’s social and economic power in households. Other backlashes manifest in form of what Sylvia Tamale has characterised as the conceptual dilemma in feminist conversations that constructs ‘rights’ and ‘culture’ as opposed to each other.

Tamale argues, “[m]ainstream feminists often present the two concepts of “culture” and “rights” as distinct, invariably opposed and antagonistic. Citing the passage of the FGM law, Tamale argues that when government attempted to outlaw the practice, omitting possibilities to harness positive cultural attributes, it created a severe backlash by pushing it underground with vigilante groups consisting of youthful males hunting down “defectors” and forcibly subjecting them to the knife.

These backlashes (and perhaps many other forms) are often exacerbated by neoliberal and neo-conservative politics with a strong emphasis on individual rights, and privileging economic gains, which, in some cases influences the nature of WROs. Some WROs are motivated by personal economic gains rather than transforming societies experiencing gender inequalities. Coupled with increasing government tight control of nongovernmental organisations work, these global and national contexts continue to depoliticise the women’s movement. We are here to reclaim gender justice.

Covid-19 and new struggles over gender and social justice

Backlash against gender and social justice was well underway prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, as Naomi Klein has demonstrated, such crises provide fertile ground for the ‘exceptional politics’ required to dust off and push through illiberal ideas, allowing particular actors to concentrate power and profit from disaster.

The chaos brought about by any global shock can produce a perfect storm allowing for the suspension of democratic norms, deepening of inequalities and heightened fear and polarisation ripe for exploitation. These opportunities have already been recognised and seized by neoconservative projects and populist leaders in the Covid-19 moment. In turn, the crisis triggered by the pandemic appears to be producing — at a whole new level — a heady mix of fear, distraction, restrictions and volatility which seems set to further entrench backlash against struggles for gender and social justice.

Reproductive Rights

Women’s autonomy over their lives and bodies has been consistently denied or threatened through a myriad of attacks on reproductive rights in the ongoing backlash. These rights are further eroded in the context of Covid-19 through the closure of abortion clinics and the designation of abortion as ‘non-essential’, along with supply chain disruptions and diversion of staff and equipment from other Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services. This is expected to have dire consequences with regard to maternal and newborn deaths, unsafe abortions, unplanned and unsafe pregnancies, particularly among marginalised communities.

Domestic Violence

While the ‘necropolitics’ of Covid-19 visibly determine which socioeconomic and ethnic groups are disproportionately killed by the virus, the fallout of lockdowns has also precipitated increases in domestic violence and femicide worldwide. Reports of domestic violence have increased upwards of 25 per cent (pdf) in countries with reporting systems in place, even doubling in some cases. In Bogota, the city mayor stated that reports of violence against women surged 225 per cent in the first week of lockdown, while other crime statistics dropped.

The UN Population Fund asserts that the pandemic is likely to undermine efforts to end gender-based violence, increasing the incidence of violence, while placing already under-resourced prevention and protection efforts under greater strain (pdf). Women’s right to live free from violence, indeed the right to live at all, is seemingly even more viscerally under threat while governmentally enforced to “stay safe, stay home”.

Unpaid Care

Along with enforced restrictions to the home, increased demand for unpaid care — of children and elderly relatives — is deepening pre-existing inequalities in the gendered division of labour. Women were already performing three times as much unpaid care work than men prior to the Covid-19 outbreak (pdf), yet current containment measures — such as school closures — have heightened this burden for women and girls, in particular, both inside and outside of the home (pdf).

The consequences of the pandemic threaten to further impede girls education (pdf) and women’s participation in the paid economy worldwide, jeopardising efforts toward gender and economic equality in the long-term, while reinforcing the traditional structure of the household (in the ‘male breadwinner; female caregiver’ mould).

‘Emergency Powers’ and Authoritarian Rule

The global shock of Covid-19 has exacerbated other key features of backlash, including rising ethnonationalism and authoritarianism, and the hypermasculine performances of the populist figureheads leading the growing number of ‘illiberal democracies’ worldwide. State-led enforcement of lockdowns have been pursued through emergency powers, providing opportunities for stricter authoritarian rule, arbitrary arrests and/or brutal crackdowns, predominantly waged against marginalised minorities, including in IndiaKenyaHungary, the PhilippinesUganda and Paraguay.

(Mis-)information, (fake) news and ‘science’ have also been weaponised, from descriptions of coronavirus as a ‘little flu’ and left-wing conspiracy to undermine President Bolsanaro’s legitimacy in Brazil to clampdowns on alleged “disinformation” and “fake news” in Russia and the Philippines. India’s health ministry spoke of “corona Jihad” and blamed an Islamic seminary for spreading the virus, sparking yet more violence against Muslims from Hindu-nationalist quarters. This came just weeks after state-sanctioned deadly attacks in a Muslim neighbourhood of Delhi, and in a context of broader legislative religious discrimination — peaceful protest of which has recently led to the arrest of two IDS alumni.

In the Philippines, human rights advocates have highlighted President Duterte’s “chilling disregard for the poor and the persecuted” in the response to the crisis, and fear that emergency powers will facilitate arbitrary arrests of activists, journalists and environmental defenders charged with spreading “false information regarding the Covid-19 crisis.”

In India, migrant workers were beaten and humiliated by police on their mass exodus out of cities back to their villages, while migrants were allegedly robbed, beaten and spray-painted with red crosses on their heads by Croatian police officers claiming that the treatment was the “cure against coronavirus” – a story denied by the Croatian authorities. President Trump banned all immigration to the US, with no details of timing, scope or legal basis, while migrant and refugee camps have been turned into ‘virtual prisons’ in a number of other settings, including Qatar, Serbia, Bosnia and Greece.

On May 19th, the Hungarian government passed a law which makes it impossible for transgender or intersex people to legally change their gender, placing them at greater risk of harassment, discrimination, and violence when daily using their identity documents. In a context of acute discrimination against LGBTQI+ individuals and communities, Human Rights Watch writes that this new legislation “comes at a time when the government has used the Covid-19 pandemic as a pretext to grab unlimited power and is using parliament to rubber-stamp problematic non-public health related bills, like this one.”

Fuel to the Fire

These dynamics – of populism and militant ethnonationalism, rollbacks in reproductive rights, along with reinforced gendered violence, discrimination against LGBTQI+ people and divisions of labour – have long functioned to undermine, erode and inhibit progress on gender and social justice. However, they have gathered increasing force and legitimacy in recent years.

The global shock precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic appears to have added fuel to the fire enveloping and diminishing human rights, civic space and gender justice, while also providing a smokescreen for the further erosion of democratic norms, entrenchment of inequalities and scapegoating of the ethnic and gendered other.

Countering Backlash

Yet, all of this is happening in plain sight, and new opportunities, forms of mobilisation and strategies in struggles for gender justice and human rights are likely to also evolve; opportunities, strategies and struggles which need support. IDS has recently embarked on a multi-country research and capacity-strengthening programme entitled ‘Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice’, with partners in Uganda, Kenya, India, Bangladesh, Brazil and Lebanon. While a global pandemic did not feature in the initial conceptualisation of the programme, the implications of Covid-19 on dynamics of backlash are undeniable.

It is only through the collaborative understanding of patriarchal backlash that we can tackle it, and identify opportunities for gender and social justice worldwide. In order to support those countering backlash in this moment of rupture, we must and will maintain a critical eye on dynamics of backlash as they unfold through the pandemic.

Reclaiming gender justice: we must act now to counter backlash threatening women’s rights globally

In the past decade we’ve seen some significant steps forward in the fight for women’s rights and gender equality, from the #MeToo movement that has emboldened more women to speak out against misogynistic abuse, to new domestic violence laws passed to protect women in India and Bangladesh. However, we are now increasingly witnessing a rising tide of patriarchal backlash against that progress. Around the world women’s rights are at risk of being rolled back and those fighting for them are at risk of violent attacks online and off.

In 2017, Russia passed a new law that decriminalised the first instance of domestic violence. The Trump administration brought into being the global gag rule that blocks all US assistance to foreign NGOs that use their own funds to provide abortion services, counselling and referrals or advocates for reproductive rights. Dismantling of institutions that work on gender equality has been a key feature. Brazil has witnessed change to social welfare policies that negatively affect poor women, and abolished the Ministries of Racial Equality, Human Rights and Women. Worldwide, there is a rise in incidence of attacks on-line against female politicians, both sexualised abuse and other kinds of abuse and threats.

First, we must understand it

To counter this growing backlash, I believe that first we need to fully understand it. Is it coordinated, how does it manifest, are there common tactics being used by those fighting against equality in different countries? These are questions that are being addressed in new research taking place with eleven partner organisations across six countries in Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.

But understanding it is only one part of the process that needs to happen. If we are to hope to more effectively counter backlash in its many forms, we also need to find allies, learn from each other, mobilise, build alliances and device savvy strategies together in areas of activism, policy and the role of men as advocates.

It is so important to learn from and understand what is happening in different countries. Much of the research and evidence on backlash against women’s rights and gender equality only covers US, Eastern Europe and the UK. Finding out how this issue is really affecting countries in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East is crucial to international development, as a whole, and to getting anywhere close to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Learning from India, Bangladesh and Uganda

For example, we can learn from the resistance to new laws in India and Bangladesh to tackle domestic violence, where backlash manifested itself in challenges to the details of the law. Where in general there was wide acceptance that domestic violence was wrong, but when laws were being formed individual clauses were changed, for example for the laws to only apply to married couples and left out cohabiting couples or gay relationships.

In Uganda, the resistance to new women’s rights laws was similarly framed in a way that could be classified under the guise of ‘family values’. The proposals received push back from the church due to concerns that the law would reduce power for men, give too much power to women and upset the traditional family dynamic. In order to counter this dynamic, the policy coalition on domestic violence had to frame the issue to show that domestic violence affected men too. They also framed domestic violence as a development concern as it affected the health, labour power and well-being of women. To achieve change the policy coalition and the female MPs actively pursued male MPs to bring them on board as allies.

Building international coalitions and alliances

Those pushing back against women’s rights are forming coalitions so in order to counter this backlash so must we. At an international level, for example, the US, Russia, catholic and Muslim majority countries banded together as far back as 1995 to remove progressive language and provisions agreed upon at the UN’s women conference in Beijing.

We should try not to work in silos. The alliances can and should be wide-ranging, internationally wide-reaching and across activist groups, academia, lawyers, NGOs and liberal-minded local and national politicians. In many cases the backlash against gender equality can also be similar to backlash against LGBTQ rights or minority rights and different rights organisations have opportunities to support and back each other though formal networks and informal support for one another.

Much of this backlash is coupled with the shrinking of civic spaces, where in many countries around the world governments are making it more difficult for civil society organisations and rights groups to speak out or operate openly. This makes it even more important to build alliances to share tactics that work and support and encourage to those facing increased levels of oppression.

We all need to join the battle

With the one in three women affected by gender-based violence at some point in their lifetime and a recent World Bank report showing that on average women only have 75 percent of the legal rights afforded to men, there is much work to do and we can’t afford to lose the hard-fought gains that have been made.

As a researcher I believe it is vital for those working in this field to be more closely aligned with activists and build partnerships with change-makers on the ground. In the fight for women’s rights we all need to join the battle.