Funding Women Leaders and Movements at the Frontlines, part 1

A key strategy of patriarchal power is creating conditions and cultures permissive to violence against women and gender-expansive people that impose strict gender roles. Over the last few years, a global surge in right-wing, authoritarian movements and “strong men” governments have contributed to a monumental rollback of women’s rights and have aggressively attacked protections against gender-based violence.

In 2017, Vladimir Putin signed into law legislation that decriminalized much of what was previously defined as domestic violence. Unless the abuse results in broken bones and occurs more than once a year, it is no longer punishable by long prison sentences.
Spain’s surging far-right Vox party proposed that the country repeal a landmark law to protect women from violence, citing its unfairness toward men, claiming that men would be the victims by being unfairly accused.
The Trump administration diluted the definition of domestic violence in reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. No longer does it classify as domestic violence if a woman’s partner isolates her from her family and friends, monitors her every move, belittles and berates her, or denies her access to money to support herself and her children, which are the core strategies of control used by domestic abusers.

In 2020, The New York Times best summarized the trend in their headline: Across the Globe, a ‘Serious Backlash Against Women’s Rights’: The rise of authoritarianism has catalyzed a rollback of gender violence protections and support systems. It was also reported in Human Rights Watch.

The article quotes , who leads the UN division focused on ending violence against women and girls: “In general, we see a very serious backlash against women’s rights,” and the article explains that this “has helped normalize violence and harassment, either by dismantling legal protections or by hollowing out support systems.”

Far-right politicians and groups campaign on platforms and messaging designed to encourage violence against women to keep women “in their place.”

In the lead-up to their presidential elections, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro campaigned on his opposition to a law imposing penalties for gender-motivated killing and advised women to stop “whining” about femicide.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered soldiers to shoot female communist guerrillas in their vaginas to discourage them from joining the New People’s Army. This communist rebel force has been waging an insurgency since 1969, with autocrats seeding threats of violence against women to create a culture of fear and to chill resistance.
Feminist activism is the greatest threat to autocracy, and therefore, feminism and women’s autonomy are vilified by autocrats. A culture that promotes patriarchal power is the culture in which autocracy can thrive. It is why feminist author Carol Gilligan, in her 2018 book Darkness
Now Visible: Patriarchy’s Resurgence and Feminist Resistance (co-authored with David A.J. Richards), defines feminism as “the movement to free democracy from patriarchy” and the “key ethical movement of our age.”

Women deploy their own stealth strategies to respond to patriarchal laws that erode women’s rights.

When the legendary Dame Carol Kidu, who was the only woman in the Papua New Guinean parliament for most of her time in office, tried to introduce a law banning marital rape, the male politicians all cried, “Interference in the bedroom!” and there was uproar in parliament resulting in the bill being howled down in protest. But wily Dame Carol got it through in the end.

She bided her time until the last session of parliament in 2002 and bundled it in with a series of amendments to a Child Sex Exploitation and Rape Bill. So, the law banning marital rape finally did pass, and it was months later before all her all-male parliamentary colleagues found out they’d been asleep at the wheel. The legislation had passed when only a few members were in parliament, impatient and ready to go on a holiday.

Such is the balance of diplomacy, strategic planning, and timing that defines a stellar politician. What’s crucial, then, is the role of women’s funds in sustaining an ecosystem of support to women’s organizations and leaders around such wins. This reality is true of women’s political organizing around the world.

Tomorrow we learn about: Funding Women Leaders and Movements at the Frontlines, part 2