Two questions to end 2024
What were the biggest and most overlooked stories in women's rights this year?
Almost exactly 12 months ago, I sent out the final edition of The Backlash for 2023. The newsletter was a year old then. It was a strange time, three months on from Hamas’ 7th October attack and three months into the war in Gaza.
I am sending this final edition of 2024 from Larnaca in Cyprus, where we are meeting my in-laws for a long awaited reunion. We didn’t want to take our daughters to visit them in Israel because of the war(s). I second-guessed myself about this continuously, but I felt vindicated in the decision this week, as the Houthis in Yemen have been firing rockets at Israel much of the time that we have been here.
After the war started, for a while I found it difficult to write this newsletter. Compared with what was happening in Palestine and Israel, the backlash against feminism seemed almost theoretical. The death toll in Gaza at the time of writing is nearly 45,400. The official number of people wounded is 107,803 and there are still 100 hostages in Gaza. At times it has felt strange spending time on this, rather than watching and knowing and maybe speaking out about what is happening there. But I try to remind myself that what this newsletter covers matters too, and that, in many ways, these things are connected.
Many times this past year I have thought of the gendered nature of all of this violent conflict. Josie Glausiusz, one of the contributors to this end-of-year post (see below), alerted me to the term “geopolitical manhood”, as a reference to the ability of states “to intimidate each other…. and limit each other’s power”. In a recent newsletter, I linked to a UN news report that in 2023, reports of conflict-related sexual violence were up 50 per cent on the previous year. Men and boys can be victims of this of course, but the victims are overwhelmingly women and girls and the perpetrators are overwhelmingly men.
Ending the year, I wanted to reflect on what’s been big and what’s been overlooked (inspired in no small part by one of my new favourite podcasts, Carys Afoko and Gary Younge’s Over the Top and Under the Radar). So for the final edition of The Backlash in 2024, I asked some of the writers and thinkers that I admire two questions: what was the biggest women’s rights story of the year? And what is the story not enough people have been talking about?
Their answers are below—and thank you for reading and/or subscribing to this newsletter. It means everything to share this obsession with others.
Wishing you a happy new year,
Alona
Marie Le Conte, journalist and author
What has been the biggest story of 2024 in women's rights?
It has to be the trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s husband, without question. The case itself forced people to acknowledge that there are no monsters hiding in the night—your postman, your neighbour and your local journalist may, if given the chance, do unspeakable things to a woman. Perhaps most importantly, though, Pelicot herself showed a level of bravery and grace which I found hard to even comprehend. Her refusal to feel ashamed and her multiple comments aimed at women across the world were more touching than words can say. She is, in my view, one of the most important figures of 21st century feminism so far.
And what is the story not enough people have been talking about?
I’ve been trying to keep an eye on the, shall we say, mixed situation in China. Something seems to be brewing there. Over the summer, a young woman accused her PhD supervisor of sexually harassing her; her post about it went viral, and the man was eventually fired from both the university and from the Chinese Communist Party. Countless women then shared their own experiences of campus harassment online. It was a poignant moment, but change in this area has been glacial in the People’s Republic. Earlier this year, a female journalist who reported on the nascent Chinese MeToo movement was jailed for five years for “inciting state subversion”. Elsewhere, men accused of harassment or assault often sue their victims for defamation. The bravery of the women currently trying to fight back is awe-inspiring.
Minna Salami, author and social critic
What has been the biggest story of 2024 in women's rights?
We are living in an age where women’s rights are facing a great backlash due to the rise of authoritarianism and populism, and this frames my response. Women are losing rights across the globe. In my forthcoming book Can Feminism Be African? I address what I refer to as “Populist Anti-Western Nativism”, or PAWN, describing how the populist turn in Africa is conflating anti-western critiques with entrenched patriarchal views. In this light, the biggest story of 2024 in women’s rights has been the continued feminist responses against the backlash, exemplified by the work of people like Naomi Klein, Leta Hong Fischer, Myriam François, Jayati Ghosh, and this very blog, “The Backlash”. These efforts, across every corner of the world, showcase how feminist networks are theorising, mobilising and imagining new possible worlds.
And what is the story not enough people have been talking about?
My response to this question follows in the same vein. In capitalist and individualist society, feminist work at large does not get the engagement it ought to have. While key individual feminist news stories like Gisèle Pelicot’s unforgettable bravery, a black woman running for the United States presidency or the tragic mass suicide of Sudanese women to avoid rape have rightly gained media attention, we haven’t sufficiently contextualised and theorised these news stories within a feminist framework for societal transformation. Feminism, as a political philosophy, continues to enable both individual and collective progress for women worldwide. My hope for 2025 is that we return to an enlivened engagement with this seed of women’s rights, recognising its revolutionary potential to impact peoples and societies in very important ways.
Josie Glausiusz, journalist and editor
What has been the biggest story of 2024 in women's rights?
The election of authoritarians in the United States, Argentina and Georgia leaves me rather dispirited about the future of women’s rights. For example, Argentina’s ruling administration aims to repeal the law which provides women with the right to access safe and legal abortion.
If I were to pick one inspiring story it would be the victory by Swiss women "climate seniors" at the European Court of Human Rights, who argued that the Swiss government’s inadequate response to climate change was harming their right to life and health. Surprise! The Swiss parliament then voted to reject the ECHR’s ruling.
And what is the story not enough people have been talking about?
War is a feminist issue. The United Nations reported that Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces are responsible for committing sexual violence on a large scale—including rape, gang rape, sexual exploitation and enforced marriages. Violations of women’s rights during war time also include inadequate or no access to period products, contraceptive pills or clean water, as has been reported in Gaza. Many women in Gaza have been forced to give birth in traumatic, unhygienic and undignified conditions. In Israel, there has been a “sharp increase” in domestic violence against women during the war. Unfortunately, these women are often shamed into silence and go untreated.
Sian Norris, journalist and author
What has been the biggest story of 2024 in women's rights?
The biggest story for women this year in my view was the re-election of Donald Trump. It tells us so much about the global backlash against women's rights. A man proven to be a rapist in a civil suit was elected for a second time to be the most powerful leader in the world. His record regarding violence against women did not prove to be a barrier to his popularity. Further, his election means the threat to abortion in the United States is even greater than in 2016, with a nationwide ban on abortion now much more likely. Once the ban comes in, there will be attacks on contraception next. And it's not just a ban. Under Trump, the global gag rule will return, the anti-abortion movement globally will be further emboldened, women will be forced to remain in violent homes, forced to have children they don't want to have, forced out of education and work, forced into poverty. This is a tragedy that we have yet to understand and see the full impact of—although we know thanks to ProPublica reporting that women in the US are dying as a result of existing, state-by-state abortion bans.
I believe, and it is a belief that is not popular, that Trump's win is indicative of how men will vote to preserve patriarchy because they benefit from patriarchy. Men benefit from women's oppression—that's what male privilege means and that's what class-based oppression means. It didn't matter that everything Trump stands for is harmful to women, men voted for him anyway because patriarchy not only harms men (as the saying goes) it benefits men.
And what is the story not enough people have been talking about?
I include myself in this, but the story we are not talking about is the scale of men's violence against women and girls in Sudan. The civil war in Sudan is desperately underreported but what we have learnt from brave journalists and the women themselves is that rape is being used as a weapon of war, and that women are taking their own lives as a result of the vast mass sexual violence taking place. What I have heard and read is just unbearable but we cannot and must not look away. We have to platform women's voices from the region and listen to their stories, as terrifying as they are. As I say, I include myself in not talking about Sudan enough and I need to do more to research this awful war and to listen to the women impacted by it.
Francesca Donner, founder and editor of The Persistent
What has been the biggest story of 2024 in women's rights?
There were so many women’s rights (or erosion of women’s rights) stories in 2024, your question feels like a game of pick your poison. But in the end for me, it’s less of a story and more of a theme. And that theme is silencing.
We’ve seen the very literal silencing of women—attempts by the Taliban to prevent Afghan women from speaking, singing and laughing. We’ve seen a steady drumbeat of femicide and violence toward women—Kenya, the United Kingdom, Australia to name a handful—which of course is using power to silence in the most awful ways imaginable. We have seen the systemic drugging and abuse of women in mass rape cases (Pelicot being a prime and obvious example), stealing her voice completely, as if consent were never hers to give. We’ve witnessed attempts to silence through online hate: A horrible slogan peaked post-presidential election which is, “your body, my choice”—the implication being of course, that you don’t have a say in how your body will be used.
Looking ahead, perhaps 2025 will be the year of the un-silencing. We saw green shoots of that when Gisèle Pelicot refused to allow dozens of rapists to hide behind a curtain of anonymity. The shame changed sides, yes, but it could never have done that if she hadn’t spoken up. Thank goodness she did.
Finally, I can’t close out the year without noting that the United States came *this close* to having a woman president in the White House.
The Persistent is a (very highly recommended!—TB) twice-weekly newsletter examining politics, economics, business, art and culture through a women’s lens
Which stories did we miss? Let me know in the comments or by responding to this email. Thank you for reading. See you in 2025.