2023 – the year ahead for feminism
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Only have a minute to read this newsletter? Here it is in brief:
✊ There are battles and victories ahead for the rights of women and gender-diverse people in 2023.
🔮 Here’s what’s on the horizon, from protests in Iran to elections in Nigeria, a new era for Brazil and a post-Roe v Wade abortion landscape in the US.
📣 Join us next week for an in-depth discussion of the year ahead in feminism at our live webinar.
Read on for more. And if you want to be up-to-date on feminism worldwide, follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
It is hard to think of a more significant year for women’s rights globally than 2022. From the women-led uprising in Iran to the decimation of reproductive rights in the US, the staggering victories of Latin America’s “green wave” of abortion rights activists and the gendered fallout of the war in Ukraine, the shifts were seismic. With each supreme court ruling, behind each snap decision of an authoritarian leader, the fates of millions of women and gender-diverse people were altered – their choices expanded or constrained, their futures transformed.
If last year was a reminder that the tug of war between those who wish to upend the patriarchy and those trying to enforce it with greater brutality is ever-more fierce, what will 2023 bring?
Our eyes will remain on Iran, where the mass protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police continue, despite the very real risk of protesters being sentenced to death. Previous protests have flared and ultimately been put down by the regime but this latest movement, gathered around the Kurdish slogan ‘Women, Life, Freedom’, has proved remarkably resilient so far and it is clear that many of those who are now standing up against the Islamic Republic feel they have little to lose.
In Afghanistan, women and girls are being further erased from public life with each passing month. In the last week of 2022, the Taliban banned women from working with NGOs, an edict that will make the delivery of aid to a population facing a severe humanitarian crisis all but impossible. The reason given by the Taliban for this latest restriction will be familiar to the women and girls of Iran: “serious complaints regarding the non-observance of the Islamic hijab”. Women are banned from travelling without a male guardian and from attending university, while girls are prohibited from attending secondary school. A brave few are protesting these obscene assaults on their liberties as best they can. They need our support in 2023.
The post-Roe v Wade landscape of the United States continues to take shape. Many states that have tried enacted abortion bans after the supreme court overturned the ruling that protected abortion rights in the country are still fighting it out in the courts. Others have succeeded in heavily restricting abortion already. As predicted, access to any kind of reproductive or maternal healthcare including and beyond abortion has been badly affected in many states. This story of one Black woman's experience of an untreated miscarriage is typical of the way doctors can respond to abortion bans by withdrawing basic healthcare from pregnant people. But reproductive justice networks are responding to new restrictions by expanding access in states where abortion is still available, and a recent decision to sell abortion pills in pharmacies may also help.
The LGBTQIA+ community in the US faced a wave of hostility in 2022, which sadly looks set to continue. The American Civil Liberties Union has identified hundreds of bills around the country which are designed to target the rights of trans and non-binary people, at the same time as books about gender and sexuality are being banned in schools and LGBTQIA+ spaces are subject to far-right attacks.
Brazil’s new president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office on January 1, providing hope for a new era after four years under hardline misogynist Jair Bolsonaro. Journalist Mariana Fagundes, who profiled some of the young, queer and working class women of colour who ran for office in last year’s election for the Impact newsletter, says Lula’s inauguration “is the representation of diversity taking power.”
The passage from a retrograde period, in which women had no voice other than as wives, to a moment in which we rediscovered our leading role was marked by the delivery of the presidential sash to the new president by a group composed of a Black woman, an Indigenous leader, a factory worker, a disabled person, a teacher, a female worker and a child from the favela.
Elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, there is hope that the “green wave” will continue to bring abortion rights to millions.
My colleague Agustina Ordoqui has been following these developments closely. Here’s what she’s looking out for in 2023:
The restarting of the constituent process in Chile and the possibility of including sexual and reproductive rights in the new constitution will be one of the fights. Another will be for more Mexican states to pass laws to align with the supreme court decision, which in September 2021 declared that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. States such as Puebla and Nayarit are close to achieving this.
Seeing Venezuelan colleagues collecting signatures to bring a citizen's proposal to the National Assembly on abortion is also motivating. The Latin American feminist movement is strong and organised. I am confident that there will be good news for the region in 2023 as a result of many of these efforts.
The supreme court in India could make two vital decisions in 2023. In February, the court will hear arguments on the criminalisation of marital rape. The Indian Penal Code currently states that sex within a marriage cannot be rape. The court last year defined marital rape as rape in a separate ruling that extended abortion rights to married women, but stopped short of criminalising it.
The court is also considering a case to legalise same-sex marriage brought by four gay couples. India decriminalised gay sex in 2018 but the country does not recognise same-sex marriages or civil unions, denying LGBT couples the right to adopt children together, inherit property from one another or make important medical decisions.
Feminists in Sierra Leone hope to see abortion legislation passed this year. President Julius Maada Bio made waves last year when he announced his support for a bill to decriminalise abortion at the Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights. The Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Act was due to go to parliament for approval at the end of last year, but has yet to be passed.
Meanwhile, calls for Morocco to decriminalise abortion will continue. In 2022, “Meriem”, a 14-year-old girl, died following a clandestine termination, galvanising a wave of protests against the law prohibiting abortion in most circumstances. Abortion has long been taboo in Morocco but a new generation of young feminists is demanding a change to the status quo. We can expect to hear more from them in 2023.
Nigeria votes in a general election in February, and nearly half as many women are running for office compared to 2019, making up only 10% of all candidates. Nigeria has one of the lowest rates of women’s political participation in the world, and feminist activists have been demanding greater representation at all levels of government.
In Europe, Malta will hold a final parliamentary vote to allow doctors to provide life-saving care to pregnant people, the first move to loosen the world’s strictest abortion ban. Advocates hope this will be an initial step on the path to eventually making abortion available on the island.
In February, the French senate will consider a bill to enshrine abortion in the constitution – if the conservative-dominated upper house approves the bill, it will need to go to a referendum in order to become law. And Polish feminist activist Justyna Wydrzyńska will stand trial this week for providing a woman with abortion pills. Wydrzyńska says she gave the woman the medication because she was reaching the end of the safe gestational limit for their use, and was experiencing domestic violence. Wydrzyńska’s trial has been repeatedly adjourned after witnesses failed to appear in court.
In good news for trans people, gender self-identification will come into effect in Scotland and New Zealand this year. These laws remove the requirement for people to have proof of medical treatment in order to affirm their gender. In Scotland, trans people will be able to legally change gender from the age of 16. The New Zealand law will come into effect automatically in June, while the Scottish bill still requires royal assent.
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And as a crazy football fan I’ll be getting up in the middle of the night to cheer on my teams at the women’s World Cup which will be held in Australia and New Zealand in July and August (go England, Australia and France!). This will be the first World Cup since the dominant US women’s team won a historic equal pay deal to that of their under-performing male counterparts. Australia, Brazil, England, Ireland, South Africa and Spain have also struck recent equal pay agreements for international football competitions. But the winners will not receive even a tenth of the same riches as victorious men’s teams. While Argentina won $42 million for winning the men’s World Cup last year, the prize for the 2019 women’s competition, won by the USA, was $4 million.
As with any year, 2023 will be replete with victories and setbacks for the rights and freedoms of women and gender-diverse people. And if the challenges are great, history shows that our power to overcome them is too. The key, as always, is to pay attention.
I will leave you with the words of my colleague Mythili Sampathkumar, who illustrates our feature articles every month:
In 2023, I find some cautious, optimistic comfort in feeling there will be more opportunities to be intersectional, lift the unheard voices, and find a measure of solidarity.
What you can do in 2023
Iran: Share the stories of people detained by the Iranian regime on social media wherever you can.
Afghanistan: Read and share the accounts of women living under Taliban rule on Rukshana Media and the Zan Times.
Poland: Support abortion activist Justyna Wydrzyńska’s work by donating to Abortion Without Borders.
US: Donate to an abortion fund. Volunteer for or donate to the Trevor Project to support LGBTQIA+ rights.
Join us for a live discussion of women’s rights in 2023
We’ll be talking about some of the predictions in this newsletter and more thoughts about 2023 in a live webinar featuring Impact team members Megan Clement and Agustina Ordoqui and our panel of experts including Pontsho Pilane and Ana P. Santos.
Excellent as always!