Reversing Domestic Workers’ Rights: Stories of Backlash and Resilience in Delhi
‘Reversing Domestic Workers’ Rights: Stories of Backlash and Resilience in Delhi’ is a timely and important new ‘storybook’ produced by Gender at Work Consulting – India. It shares 12 stories from domestic workers living in Delhi NCR, and the often-tragic tales of their lives. […]
Backlash in Action? Or Inaction? Stalled Implementation of the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act 2010 in Bangladesh
This paper explores the lax implementation of the Domestic Violence Act, and how it is effecting gender backlash in Bangladesh. It also examines how women’s rights organisations have articulated feminist voices in terms of agenda and framing and used collective agency to counter the pushback. […]
Mothers vs Children: Co-opting Child Rights as Gender Backlash
This paper examines how progressive rights frameworks are used as gender backlash tools to suppress feminist activism. The author engages with the events following Rehana Fathima’s political act ‘Body and Politics’, which faced strong backlash in the form of censure through law, and discourse capture. […]
Unravelling Backlash in the Journey of Legislating Sexual Offences in Uganda
This paper interrogates the reality of gender backlash in Uganda by tracing the process of legislating on the 2019 Sexual Offences Bill (SOB). We trace the early beginnings of the Bill by highlighting the motivation that guided the framing of the Bill, the role of individual actors and alliances in pushing for the gender equity reform, and the oppositional forces against the reform. Working with participatory forms of qualitative research methods, the focus on the legislative cycle of the SOB as a policy case aimed to enable us to understand what constitutes backlash, and its drivers and manifestations. […]
Grasping Patriarchal Backlash: A Brief for Smarter Countermoves
Nearly three decades ago the UN World Conference on Women at Beijing appeared to be uniting the international community around the most progressive platform for women’s rights in history. Instead of steady advancement, we have seen uneven progress, backsliding, co-option, and a recent rising tide of patriarchal backlash. […]
Caste and Gender Backlash: A Study of the #MeToo Movement in Tertiary Education in Kolkata, India
In the light of the #MeToo movement, this paper explores how the positionality (in terms of caste and class) of female university students in Kolkata, India is employed as an instrument of backlash to pushback their efforts at making progressive change with regard to sexual harassment. […]
Feminist protests and politics in a world in crisis
To explore the challenges to feminist and gender justice activism and to identify new energies in the field, Sohela Nazneen and Awino Okech have guest-edited the Gender & Development journal’s special double issue on Feminist protests and politics in a world of crisis. […]
Countering patriarchal backlash against gender justice series summary
Co-hosted with the Men Engage Alliance and Countering Backlash at the MenEngage Ubuntu Symposium this series explored the global patriarchal backlash. […]
Masculinities and Transition: Enduring Privilege?
This 2019 study focusing on Egypt, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Ukraine, include findings that progress on women’s economic advancement remains constrained by persistent and pervasive gender stereotypes, reinforcing gender segregation at work and the gendered division of labour at home, even though all of the countries are in the midst of transitions to more modern market economies. […]
Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice: What’s Law Got to Do with It?
This collection explores different processes by which activists and other actors have worked for change, interrogates what we mean when we talk about ‘solidarity’, and questions the usefulness and place of law. […]
Therapeutic Activism: Men of Hope Refugee Association Uganda Breaking the Silence over Male Rape in Conflict-related Sexual Violence
This study explores the perspectives and dilemmas of male survivors in a context of intersectional marginalisation and patriarchal oppression in Kampala. […]
The New ‘MASVAW Men’: Strategies, Dynamics and Deepening Engagements. A Case Study of a Networked Approach to Challenging Patriarchy Across Institutions in Uttar Pradesh
This study explores a growing network in Uttar Pradesh, India, and the role of men and boys in addressing sexual and gender-based violence through collective action, including experiences of local opposition, institutional resistance, and backlash. […]