History never advances in a straight line. Although, as Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Progress always moves in fits and starts: two steps forward, one step back. This is also the case with women’s rights and equality.

For a decade or more — in Western countries and in the Global South — there have been numerous cases of rights being stripped away after a long period of progress. This regression — according to progressive and liberal political leaders — is linked to the global rise of new forms of authoritarianism and nationalism.

In 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron managed to include the right to abortion in the Constitution (something that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s administration is now promoting in Spain). A few years before making this amendment, Macron warned: “There are reactionary, patriarchal forces trying to regain power in a form that we could call ‘an international conservatism.’ They want to completely question decades of achievements.”

Macron added, quoting the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir: “Never forget that a political, economic or religious crisis will be enough to cast doubt on women’s rights.”

Macron’s diagnosis and Simone de Beauvoir’s warning are the arguments that the centrist French president and the socialist Spanish prime minister have used in their efforts to constitutionally “shield” abortion rights. They point out that, at any moment, a political party could come to power and overrule rights that were taken for granted, such as the right to have an abortion.

It could be argued that the threat isn’t quite so serious. This was demonstrated in France, where an overwhelming parliamentary majority voted in favor of the constitutional changes. Some votes came from the right — including far-right leader Marine Le Pen. Hence, if the leader of the far right voted in favor of the amendment, perhaps it could be deduced that these laws actually enjoy a broad and solid consensus. It could also be said that these measures respond to domestic political calculations — something that Pedro Sánchez has been accused of doing in Spain.

But there is one undeniable reality, according to women with experience in governments and international organizations, representatives of civil society, and experts consulted for this article: in recent years, laws and measures have been adopted that roll back equality and diversity — and this is happening under very different political and cultural regimes.

“The pattern is similar. It’s about questioning liberal ideas about women’s rights and promoting a more traditionalist vision of society regarding gender,” summarizes Saskia Brechenmacher, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Brechenmacher is the author of The New Global Struggle Over Gender, Rights and Family Values (2025), a report that details the legislative changes and identifies the transnational activist groups driving them. She cites (among others) the International Organization for the Family (IOF), Family Watch International, the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) and the Alliance Defending Freedom.

“In most countries, the far-right movement goes hand in hand with so-called ‘pro-family’ policies — a model of family that has nothing to do with diverse or egalitarian families,” explains Cristina Gallach, former under-secretary general at the United Nations and the former secretary of state for Foreign Affairs in Spain. “It’s also linked to a return to more traditional religious values and to cutting off women’s access to the labor market. [The movement] says: ‘A woman’s place is in the home with the children.’ Above all, it goes against sexual and reproductive rights.”

According to another report, titled Beijing+30: A Roadmap for Women’s Rights for the Next Thirty Years, “As autocratic movements have risen in recent years, so too has regression on women’s freedom.” The study was published by the Women’s Initiative at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Conference. “In 2024,” the authors state, “nearly a quarter of countries reported a backlash on women’s rights and gender equality.”

“There’s a push against diversity, in general,” observes lawyer Miriam González Durántez, founder of the international initiative Inspiring Girls. “And this is clearly driven by the Trumpist camp in the United States, led by [President Donald Trump’s adviser] Stephen Miller, who has spoken about abolishing the entire diversity policy, which he calls ‘communist.’”

France’s move to enshrine the right to abortion in its Constitution was prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the 1973 *Roe v. Wade *ruling, which had protected abortion rights nationwide. Lawmakers in France also pointed at the tightening restrictions in European countries such as Hungary and Poland to justify the reform.

But the phenomenon goes beyond Europe and the United States, as documented in Brechenmacher’s report. The expert points to Argentina, highlighting President Javier Milei’s proposal to remove femicide from the penal code, as well as the elimination of the Ministry for Women—measures that mirror actions taken in countries like Turkey. She also mentions Russia, which two years ago, through a Supreme Court decision, classified the “international LGBTQ+ movement” as an “extremist organization.”

Another example is Uganda, where a law passed in 2023 punishes “the promotion of homosexuality” with up to 20 years in prison and so-called “aggravated homosexuality” with the death penalty. The list is long and includes Gambia, China, Nicaragua, India, not to mention the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The latter, Cristina Gallach notes, “is the clearest case of constant human rights violations suffered by women.” She also notes the pressure of Islamist influence in majority-Muslim countries and in some parts of Western Europe.

It seems difficult to compare legislative changes in Western democracies to punitive laws in dictatorships, or to countries where equality has never advanced very much. However, according to Brechenmacher, there’s a common thread. “Often,” she says, “it’s connected to nationalism and religion. They all use similar language.”

Another point of convergence is the international forums where coalitions are formed to alter official language. “Gender now appears less in United Nations documents, for example. Feminism is also excluded,” Cristina Gallach explains. “In a time of regression of rights, controlling language is extremely important; it’s one of the manifestations of these repressive policies.”

Even though the process began 10 or 15 years ago, Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January was a symbol of the strength of this movement. One of his first decisions, as Brechenmacher recalls, was to sign an executive order which mandated that US government agencies withdraw any statement, regulation, or message that “promotes or inculcates gender ideology.”

Today, national-populist parties — which are aligned with Trump — are leading the polls in the main Western European countries: France, Germany and the United Kingdom. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni — a prime minister who is the heir to post-fascism — has governed since 2022. The paradox is that, in many cases, these movements — which are credited with spearheading the anti-feminist counter-revolution — are led by politicians like Le Pen in France, or Alice Weidel in Germany, women who have emerged victorious in very masculine parties.

“Having women at the helm in no way guarantees that they will pursue feminist policies,” Gallach points out, “just as there are men who promote egalitarian programs.”

“They’re no different as leaders than a man in a position [of power] would be,” reflects a former European official, who requested anonymity. “It’s not the Angela Merkel model. It’s not the Theresa May model. It’s not the Kamala Harris model. It’s not the model where you can show more empathy, or even vulnerability. It’s an aggressive model.”

Among the causes of the “counter-revolution,” some experts cite “demographic panic” and the “great replacement” theory fueled by the far right. This theory argues that there’s a conspiracy to have immigrants from the Global South replace the declining white European population.

“They use the ‘great replacement’ myth to suggest that women should have more children. And for women to have more children, we must reduce the right to abortion, and we must not overly insist that women work [outside the home],” the aforementioned source reflects. They prefer to remain anonymous. “A part of the [Trumpist] MAGA movement is here [in Europe]: there’s Vox in Spain, while in France, there’s also this background influence in far-right and ultra-religious circles. Hunger meets desire. The hunger is the great replacement and the need to increase birth rates. The desire is to return women to their traditional role.”

Alice Schwarzer, a historic figure in German feminism, recalls that “right-wing populists have a conservative image of the family and are against the right to abortion.” However, when referring to her own country, she clarifies: “This is well known, but at present it plays no role. They are not in power.” For Schwarzer, what is worrying is “the outdated image of women” that circulates in some spheres on social media and among influencers. In her view, “this destroys feminism.”

Schwarzer — who is critical of what she calls “this absurd debate about trans people” — believes that “queer and woke feminism is misleading.” She says that, “with its absurd language rules, it distracts attention from the reality of women: violence in relationships, the double burden of family and work, etc.”

As head of Inspiring Girls, González Durántez has observed changes in the private sector firsthand throughout her experience in Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. She explains that, nowadays, “there are companies that don’t dare to support anything that could be classified as ‘supporting diversity.’” She adds that this movement is also related to the battles surrounding so-called “wokism” — a term sometimes used disparagingly to describe left-wing ideology based on gender or racial identities.

In her report, Brechenmacher notes that proponents of “gender justice” face a strategic challenge: responding to the problems that have led many men — and young men in particular — to support “reactionary and misogynistic movements.”

“It’s unfair to say that all men — simply because they’re men — are in a privileged position,” González Durántez cautions. “I understand that a young working-class person in the Midwest of the United States — or in my town in Castilla y León — who is white, who has a precarious job and is a victim of deindustrialization, might not understand why woke people categorize him as ‘privileged.’ Because, in his daily life, he isn’t. This provokes a negative reaction that can lead people to extremes. In the end, we need to have empathy: we must try to understand where people are coming from and why they think the way they do, instead of simply saying that they’re wrong.”

In any case, the progress that has been made — the “moral arc of the universe” that Martin Luther King spoke of — is undeniable. “And it will be difficult to reverse,” Saskia Brechenmacher adds. “Women around the world are working in much higher proportions than in the past, they are attending university more, and I do not believe this will reverse,” she argues.

But Brechenmacher point out that, until a few years ago, “some issues related to gender equality had almost been depoliticized.” They seemed indisputable. That’s no longer the case. “Now they are politicized, and many actors do not share these assumptions.”

Regarding the usefulness of recent legislative measures — such as introducing the right to abortion into national constitutions — Brechenmacher reflects: “The more institutionalized certain rights are, the more difficult it is to reverse them. But this is a short-term strategy. I don’t think it’s enough. You need a broad coalition in society that supports these rights.”

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