This research report from the Arab Institute for Women explores definitions of backlash, and how backlash should be understood in Lebanon. […]
Chess for Countering Backlash
This Chess – Shatranj or Chaturanga – workshop exercise can be played in various ways. You can play this as an exercise – or a series of exercises – in a workshop setting. You can also do it at home or at your desk, to aid thinking and research. […]
Anti-Gender Backlash: Where is Philanthropy?
This working paper explores how philanthropic institutions with a history of supporting women’s and LGBTQI+ rights and democracy are seeing and responding to anti-gender backlash, and the background dynamics shaping the struggle. […]
Understanding Gender Backlash: Southern Perspectives
The 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995, and the 10th anniversary of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are fast approaching. And with global progress on gender justice on the rise around the world, we must find ways to combat gender backlash now.
The Countering Backlash programme has produced timely research and analysis on gender backlash, presenting a range of perspectives and emerging evidence on backlash against gender justice and equality, as such phenomena manifest locally, nationally, and internationally.
‘Understanding Gender Backlash: Southern Perspectives’ is our iteration of the IDS Bulletin, including contributions, insights, expert knowledge from a range of actors in diverse locations across South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, Lebanon and the UK – and all part of the Countering Backlash programme.
The IDS Bulletin addresses the urgent question of how we can better understand the recent swell of anti-gender backlash across different regions, exploring different types of actors, interests, narratives, and tactics for backlash in different places, policy areas, and processes.
The IDS Bulletin will be launched by a hybrid event on 07 March 2024, ahead of the programme’s attendance at UN Women’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 2024.
Articles
Jerker Edström; Jennifer Edwards; Chloe Skinner; Tessa Lewin; Sohela Nazneen
Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Sohela Nazneen
Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Cecília Sardenberg; Teresa Sacchet; Maíra Kubík Mano; Luire Campelo; Camila Daltro; Talita Melgaço Fernandes; Heloisa Bandeira;
Nucleus of Interdisciplinary Women’s Studies of the Federal University of Bahia (NEIM)
Maheen Sultan; Pragyna Mahpara
BRAC BIGD
Adeepto Intisar Ahmed; Ishrat Jahan; Israr Hasan; Sabina Faiz Rashid; Sharin Shajahan Naomi
BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health
Jerker Edström
Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Abhijit Das; Jashodhara Dasgupta; Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay; Sana Contractor; Satish Kumar Singh
Centre for Health and Social Justice (CHSJ)
Shraddha Chigateri; Sudarsana Kundu
Gender at Work Consulting – India
Phil Erick Otieno; Alfred Makabira
Advocates for Social Change Kenya (ADSOCK)
Amon A. Mwiine; Josephine Ahikire
Centre for Basic Research
Tessa Lewin
Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Nay El Rahi; Fatima Antar
Arab Institute for Women (AIW)
Jerker Edström, Jenny Edwards, Tessa Lewin, Rosie McGee, Sohela Nazneen, Chloe Skinner
Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
বাংলাদেশের পারিবারিক সহিংসতা আইন বাস্তবায়নে নেতিবাচক প্রতিক্রিয়া (ব্যাকল্যাশ) প্রতিরোধ
নারী ও শিশু নির্যাতন দমন আইন এবং পারিবারিক সহিংসতা (প্রতিরোধ ও সুরক্ষা) আইন ২০১০- এর মতো আইন থাকা সত্ত্বেও বাংলাদেশে পারিবারিক সহিংসতার হার অনেক বেশি। বাংলাদেশ পরিসংখ্যান ব্যুরোর তথ্য অনুযায়ী, প্রতি পাঁচজন নারীর মধ্যে প্রায় তিনজন (৫৭.৭%) তাদের জীবদ্দশায় কোনো না কোনো ধরনের শারীরিক, যৌন বা মানসিক সহিংসতার শিকার হয়েছেন। […]
Countering Backlash in the Implementation of Bangladesh’s Domestic Violence Act
Domestic violence rates are high in Bangladesh in spite of laws such as the Nari o Shishu Nirjatan Domon Ain and the DVPPA 2010. According to data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, almost three in every five women (57.7%) have experienced some form of physical, sexual, or emotional violence in their lifetime. […]
Anti-Gender Discourse in Serbian Media
This paper seeks to lay out a critical feminist analysis of anti-gender discourse in 843 media texts published in Serbia from January 1, 2019 to October 31, 2022. A database with the largest coverage of mainstream news was selected. […]
Patriarchal (Dis)orders: Backlash as Crisis Management
This article examines more global dynamics of backlash, exploring the question of why and how it has emerged with greater intensity in recent years, and how we can better understand it. […]
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. You can also watch the authors discuss their articles in an Institute of Development Studies’s webinar held in November 2021.
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. […]