Facing Setbacks on the Path to Progress: Internal Divisions and Feminist Solidarity

During a plenary session on women’s rights and priorities, a self-proclaimed women's rights advocate began his intervetion by saying, "Women are the enemy of women." He was a well-known activist in his region and the husband of the director of a feminist organization. Met with approval by a number of the participants, the audience seemed to agree with his statement.

In fact, such statements are a common tool used in anti-rights campaigns, in particular against the movements for women’s rights and for the rights of people with non-conforming gender identities. They undermine collective movements by diverting attention to divisive individual acts or anecdotal incidents. By flooding the collective consciousness with similar statements, they create self-doubt within feminist movements and encourage criticism against them.

Certain practices stemming from within feminist movements can indeed fuel these accusations. This means critiques cannot be ignored or refuted without first deconstructing the complex contexts that lead to internal conflicts and disagreements. This often prevents the achievement of common positions and weakens the ability of movements to confront the growing momentum of anti-rights discourses.

Populism vs. Elitism

While anti-feminist movements do not necessarily need to produce a homogenous discourse, their core ideas do tend to overlap. These commonalities are clear and specific enough for most people to grasp and embrace easily. For example, during the 2020 "Family Protection" campaign in Jordan, a group of conservative, religious, and tribal movements came together in response to the draft law on "Protecting the Family from Violence". Despite their diverse ideological backgrounds, they collectively rejected the law on the grounds that it threatened the "family structure".

Countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Tunisia rejected The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), while in Palestine there were campaigns under slogans such as "CEDAW Destroys the Family" and "No to CEDAW, Yes to Identity." Similarly, countries as diverse as Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia also adopted a unified stance against comprehensive sex education. In every case, social media platforms and religion played an effective role in this mobilization.

By contrast, feminist movements suffer from fragmentation and a preoccupation with nuanced differences in vision and objectives, all at the expense of building general consensus. Feminists are burdened by internal debates over legitimacy, methods of creating change, and priorities for advocacy. They also differ on issues such as the hijab, sexual rights, and the relation between national priorities and feminist ones. Despite the vast geographic breadth and social variation of the region, most feminist movements have been defined by the priorities of socio-economic elites, whose interests are far removed from those of women working at home, on farms, and in factories. Without establishing the unifying feminist principles that bind people with diverse interests and motivations, it will be impossible to confront the populist discourse that can so easily seep into every home.

The Use of Patriarchal Tools to Control Differences Weakens Feminist Movements

Social norms and popular images of masculine leadership impose a stereotypical image of women as passive followers, which reinforces a patriarchal authoritarian model. In many feminist movements and organizations, women attempt to embody this model as a means of convincing society that they can indeed succeed as leaders. Conversely, due to ongoing feminist mobilization and growing awareness of the importance of rejecting patriarchal authoritarianism, voices critical of this model are rising, particularly among the younger generation.

The absence of feminist accountability mechanisms is detrimental to efforts at building understanding across differences. Building effective feminist accountability tools requires a conviction in feminist principles, allowing space for diversity in ideas and practices, fostering creativity, and opening the door to alliances with other human rights movements. Feminist accountability also requires an awareness of how difference reinforces stereotypes about feminist work, while simultaneously refusing to tolerate authoritarian patterns or those that exploit power for personal gain.

In this context, several challenges can be identified that feminist and queer movements face in their efforts to counter reactionary narratives, most notably:

First: From the Pursuit of a Unified Discourse to the Acceptance of Feminist Pluralism

Overcoming anti-feminist discourse requires a shift: rather than seeking to reach a homogenous narrative, the feminist movement must embrace feminist pluralism and formulate a "common ground of struggle" that sees difference as an asset rather than an obstacle. Many feminist movements in our region emerged from specific political parties and intellectual movements, which bound them to narrow partisan ideologies at the expense of developing independent feminist thought and practice. Starting from a closed ideological position often leads to the exclusion of those who differ and contributes to a sense of alienation within the movement itself. This explains the lack of strategic feminist alliances in the region and between feminist movements around the world which could, if they worked collectively, confront the discourses targeting them.

Second: Competition within Feminist Movements

Competition within feminist movements poses a profound challenge, whether in terms of funding, representation, or decision-making. Internal disagreements weaken movements while also fueling anti-women discourse like the idea that "women are the enemy of women." Through these discources, feminist and queer movements are paralyzed by their disagreements and marginalized by their absence of a "collective vision."

Third: The Limiting of Feminist Issues Hinders Potential for Expansion

This final challeng entails the constraining of feminist movements to a specific set of issues previously defined as "feminist," leaving other areas open to reactionary movements. For example, the feminist presence remains relatively weak on pivotal issues such as environmental justice, feminist economics, arms control, international trade, public debt, elections, and others that end up shaping our world without a meaningful feminist voice. As a result of this absence, anti-feminist and anti-rights discourses have been able to infest the vacuum.

In attempts to counter this tide, the term "sisterhood" is sometimes overused. It has become a concept enshringing the division between "who is with us" and "who is against us," turning it into a closed club rather than a broad space for building alliances and intersections with other movements. Sisterhood, at its core, should be based on a belief in core principles, not on a closed circle of relationships. Hence, the importance of abandoning competitiveness and patriarchal organizing methods. Instead, the concept of "sisterhood"must be transformed into an inclusive emblem of solidarity, encouraging specialization in multiple fields and the integration of feminist visions to present an alternative proposal for a better world governed by justice and equality.

Reclaiming Feminist Pluralism

In light of the rise of anti-feminist movements, there is an urgent need to rethink the methods used in feminist organizing, not only to confront external challenges, but also to address the divisions and tensions hindering collective action from within. Diversity is part of the fabric of feminist activism. But how feminists engage with diversity will determine the ability of the movement to sustain and build broader alliances. What is needed today is a feminist practice that embraces diversity, is based on clear political principles, and transcends elitism and authoritarianism as methods and practices. This would provide space for the evolution of new forms of organizing that are capable of expanding and adapting to confront the anti-feminist backlash, without compromising their core message.

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.