Perry World House Conference Examines How Gender and Women’s Rights Can Shape Democracy
On April 22, 2026, Perry World House convened a conference to identify and analyze the ways gender and women’s rights shape the global struggle between democracy and autocracy. The goal of the conference was to better understand how gender “works” alongside and against authoritarianism and to shed light on the strategies, tactics, and narratives that strengthen democratic forces. The conference covered three central themes: gender and authoritarianism; media, gender, and democracy; and gender in democratic renewal.
Experts agreed that anti-gender policies and political discourse are closely tied to democratic backsliding with some calling it a necessary condition for authoritarian consolidation. Autocrats – from the recently defeated Viktor Orban in Hungary to Erdogan in Turkey and beyond – leverage anti-gender policies to divide oppositions, co-opt religious and conservative constituencies, stigmatize outsiders, and construct idealized narratives of an imagined past. The anti-gender equality phenomenon enters political discourse from a range of cultural spaces– from “tradwife” influencers and the manosphere online to exercise venues like Pilates studios and martial arts gyms. Media monopolies and an absence of social media platform regulation accelerate the process, with tech-enabled gender-based violence and harassment of women political candidates on the rise. “Moral panics” – especially on issues like trans rights – are designed to polarize societies.
Moving toward democratic renewal, participants argued that women’s roles are crucial. They pointed to evidence that protest movements with women at the forefront are more successful than when they are excluded. Experts discussed examples from Poland, Hungary, Serbia, and Brazil. They noted that innovative programs like deliberative democracy assemblies can play a role. Some said that inclusion and representation matter but must be genuine and durable.
Experts in attendance agreed on the need for further research in the cultural dynamics of anti-gender quality authoritarianism as well as how to combat and divide authoritarian coalitions that leverage anti-gender equality policies and narratives.
