The INEVAWG position paper Pushback on Women’s Rights examines the growing global backlash against women’s rights, situating it within broader political, economic, cultural, and ideological shifts. The paper reaffirms the foundational principle that women’s rights are human rights and emphasizes that these rights are essential to self-determination, development, and the advancement of women and girls in all their diversity.
The document traces how early international human rights frameworks were shaped by patriarchal assumptions, with abuses and protections historically defined through male experiences. Although landmark instruments such as CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action, and UN Security Council Resolution 1325 sought to correct this imbalance, their very existence reflects the gendered limitations of earlier human rights conventions. Despite progress over the past three decades, the paper argues that the global women’s rights agenda is now at a critical juncture marked by dilution, co-option, and regression.
The COVID-19 pandemic is identified as a major turning point that intensified existing gender inequalities. Women experienced disproportionate economic hardship, loss of livelihoods, increased unpaid care work, restricted access to services, and rising violence, often without the possibility of escape due to lockdown measures. These conditions further entrenched unequal power relations in both public and private spheres.
The paper highlights a worldwide surge in right-wing politics, religious fundamentalisms, authoritarianism, and shrinking civic space, all of which are driving systematic pushback on women’s rights. This backlash intersects with race, class, religion, and colonial legacies, reinforcing patriarchal norms such as obedience, sexual purity, and male authority. Neo-liberal economic systems, state capture, corruption, extractive industries, climate injustice, and the influence of International Financial Institutions are shown to deepen inequalities and disproportionately harm women, particularly in the Global South.
Legal and policy reversals are presented as concrete manifestations of this pushback. Examples include the rollback of reproductive rights in the United States following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, restrictive abortion laws in Poland, the strengthening of conservative penal codes in some Muslim-majority countries, and the extreme repression of women and girls in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. The weakening or abolition of institutional mechanisms for gender equality, such as ministries focused on women’s affairs, further undermines accountability and protection.
The paper also documents escalating backlash against women human rights defenders and feminist organizations. This includes harassment, imprisonment, surveillance, funding restrictions, deregistration, and violence by both state and non-state actors. Women’s organizations are increasingly forced to justify their existence while being excluded from decision-making spaces at national and global levels, including climate governance and economic policy arenas.
A central concern of the paper is the co-option and dilution of women’s rights language. Feminist concepts such as equality, justice, and rights are increasingly appropriated by states and institutions without meaningful ideological change. Shifts in terminology—from “violence against women” to “family violence” or generic “gender-based violence”—are identified as depoliticizing tools. The rise of “gender ideology” narratives is highlighted as a powerful anti-rights strategy used to undermine bodily autonomy, sexual and reproductive rights, and comprehensive education, while legitimizing patriarchal control.
Finally, the paper emphasizes the importance of intersectional feminism, drawing on Crenshaw’s framework to show how race, class, gender, sexuality, and colonial histories interact to produce layered oppression. INEVAWG concludes that in the face of growing pushback and backlash, feminist movements must remain vigilant, politically grounded, and committed to resisting co-option while advancing transformative, intersectional approaches to women’s rights.