To describe the geopolitics of the worst since 2015 is to tell a story of misogyny as a political ideology at scale. This is no more clearly embodied than in the words and actions of former US President Donald Trump, but he was just one among a whole wave of authoritarians riding misogyny to power and then using the state to do violence against women — and anyone or anything perceived as feminine.

Last week, we took a close look at a paper examining how a far right party advanced its misogynistic agenda through alliances with center-right parties against the perceived excesses of a liberal state. This week, we’re taking a closer look at how the specific misogynist beliefs of a given party leader can bend and build an authoritarian coalition within democracy to subvert them.

In “The Misogyny of Authoritarians in Contemporary Democracies,” Nitasha Kaul examines the speech and policies of a swath of leaders across the globe, all of whom exemplify misogyny in rhetoric and action despite coming from a wide variety of religious and ethnic backgrounds. Kaul specifically examined Trump, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The list alone likely conjures a sense memory of some off-putting speech or tweet, utterances that made the misogyny clear.

What is equally compelling from an academic understanding of the “how” of misogyny for power are the examples of proactive policies, done in the name of women, especially girls and children. It is in this space, where misogynist leaders lean heavily on the work of the state, that we see some of the more sweeping policies done in the name of restoring an imagined past to the present.

Prime Minister Modi launched the “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” (“Save the daughter, Educate the daughter”) scheme in 2015 “to address the declining child sex ratio in India and “change mindsets regarding the girl child,”” wrote Kaul. Despite rhetorical promises of a sweeping government initiative, Kaul continues, “Four years later, data released by the government showed that its main aim was publicity: over 56 percent of the funds allocated under the scheme from 2014 to 2019 were spent on 'media related activities.'” Therefore, for Modi, the program worked to demonstrate his government as rooted in a proactive paternalism, despite the majority of the funding going to awareness of the campaign, rather than concrete action beyond it. This curated image of Modi as a strong protetor, in both domestic policy and in matters of war, allowed Modi to retain office in the February 2019 election, despite high unemployment creating a favorable climate to vote incumbents out.

Ultimately, writes Kaul, misogyny in power should be seen as its own political project, one through which right-wing authoritarians “gain political legitimacy by weaponizing misogyny in the figures of their leaders, in the projects they build, and in the policies that they execute.”

Treating misogyny as an ideology, rather than merely an attitude that fills the void of other political failures, makes the mechanisms by which it operates more obvious. Because as much as reactionary politics claims the mantle of an ideal and biologically determined past, the ideology is a modern phenomena, designed to shape and constrain the future.

Issam A. Adwan mourned the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces. Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American journalist, dies from a gunshot wound in the side of her head, shot there where her helmet and armor didn’t cover by the military whose violence she was documenting, “press” clearly embalzoned on her armor. Her killing, which Adwan rightly notes was appallingly covered in passive voice by many major papers, was followed by an Israeli police assault on her funeral procession. Writes Adwan, “It’s time for accountability — and the first step is correcting the headlines worldwide.”

Michael Fox observed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign for presidency in Brazil. Lula, who had been jailed on corruption charges while running against Brazil’s now-sitting president Bolsonaro in 2018’s election, is now free to run again, and is building a left-center coalition to try and unseat Bolsonaro. “We want to return so that no one ever dares to challenge democracy again,” Lula said at a May 7 march in São Paulo. “And for fascism to go back to the sewers of history, where it should never have left.” The campaign is pulling well, but getting and taking office will require the current occupant to respect democracy enough to allow a transfer of power.

Chhavi Sachdev interviewed Dr. Suchitra Dalvie, co-founder and coordinator of the Asia Safe Abortion Partnership, about the strengths and limits of India’s abortion law. The law, originally passed in 1971, was recently amended to expand legal coverage of abortions outside of marriage. The change expanded a legal right to in-clinic and surgical abortion for some. But as Dalvie noted, “A lot of women genuinely believe that all abortions are illegal,” which can be understood as a side-effect of public campaigns arguing against sex determination abortions. Even as abortion by pills are widesread and largely safe, the assumption that what is being done is illegal carries risk.

Retorts, illustrated

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Top Pun

Look on my Works, ye Fluffy, and despair!