Toxic masculinity and the rollback of women’s rights

This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the Beijing declaration on women. I remember that year; post cold war, there was a sense of optimism, of the world coming together to right some wrongs, and end some injustices.

The United Nations resolution promoted a set of principles concerning the equality of men and women. Of course with hindsight that optimism looks a bit misguided; there was also a war raging in former Yugoslavia, and in 1994 the world stood by as genocide took place in Rwanda.

Inside Geneva

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But the big UN conferences of the 1990s – the earth summit in 1992, the conference on social development in 1994, and then the Beijing conference on women led many of us to think the world was on a better, fairer, path. For women in particular, Beijing’s commitments to gender equality, to empowering women and girls and improving their access to health and education, was a moment full of promise.

“That was such an incredible moment,” remembers Lata Narayanaswamy, who is associate Professor in the Politics of Global Development at the University of Leeds.

“Years and years in the making…to make this case at the UN in 1995, to say that actually enough is enough… women are half of humanity and we have to be better.”

Rollback

There’s no doubt that Beijing led to real effort, and real results. Around the world, millions more girls are attending, and finishing, school. Maternal mortality has dropped significantly. Governments that once dismissed domestic violence as a “private family matter”, are paying real attention to it, prosecuting perpetrators.

But more recently, we are seeing a rollback. In the United States, President Donald Trump recently welcomed martial arts star Conor McGregor, a man convicted of rape by a civil court in Ireland, to the Oval Office. At the same time, at Trump’s behest, Elon Musk’s “DOGE” (Department of Government Efficiency) has been busily cutting US overseas aid, and the programmes receiving the most savage cuts appear to be the ones that support women and girls. UN agencies have been asked to ensure their work does not contain elements of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Over in Russia, President Vladimir Putin sets great store by “traditional family values”, reviving the “mother heroine” medal for women who have more than ten children, with women now encouraged to prioritise having a family over education and career. And, Leandra Bias of the University of Bern reminds us, one of Moscow’s justifications for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine was to protect traditional values from European “decadence.”

Here in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Volker Turk, says he is concerned about  “the resurgence in some quarters of toxic ideas about masculinity and efforts to glorify gender stereotypes, especially among young men.”

What’s the connection?

Narayanaswamy and Bias are our guests on Inside Geneva this week as we to try to unpick what all this means, and what role the UN might have in defending women’s rights. Narayanaswamy has recently co-authored a report for Oxfam International’s Gender Justice campaign, called “Personal to Powerful: Holding the line for gender justice in the face of growing anti-rights movements.” (https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/personal-powerful-holding-line-gender-justice-face-growing-anti-rights-movementsExternal link)

Bias has a book out shortly, Under authoritarian eyes: Feminist Solidarity and Resistance in Russia and Serbia. Both our experts agree that we are seeing worrying developments when it comes to gender equality but, Narayanaswamy cautions, we should see them in context.

“There’s a danger that we see this as something new” she says. “That’s what worries me about the language of toxic masculinity. It’s like, my God, we didn’t know this was coming. But it’s actually just a continuity of how violence and patriarchy combine to justify certain expressions of masculinity.”

+ Are initiatives to combat gender-based violence having an impact?

What we should be very alert to, argues Bias, is the way some regimes, Russia for example, are using their version of masculinity to justify their own authoritarian systems.

“They view the international system in what I call competing masculinities,” she tells Inside Geneva. “We are the tough guys. We are the proper nations, while look at Europe, they have been completely emasculated and therefore they are not a model to aspire to. Therefore, democracy is also not a model to aspire to. And what is left then is the antithesis: authoritarianism.”

Financial crisis

Narayanaswamy traces some of the developments back to the global financial crisis of 2008, suggesting that the instability then allowed “more bold articulations” of authoritarian agendas, where “traditional family values” became a “go-to solution to restore that sense of lost stability. If we could just go back to being regular, normal…actually everything will be fine.”

That narrative, although not based in any kind of fact, can be attractive to young white men, says Narayanaswamy, because “if you’re used to being on top, then equality can feel very unequal.”

Almost two decades after the financial crisis, the instability is back, with a vengeance, with wars in the middle east, in Ukraine, Sudan, and tensions rising between India and Pakistan. Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten a trade war which could put prices up for millions of us. In Europe governments are cutting not just overseas aid, but domestic social support programmes, in order to ramp up defence spending.

No wonder we feel insecure, no wonder some turn backwards to a “traditional” (but also mythical) past where everything was more stable, and everything stayed in its place, including women.

But the chilling sight of a convicted rapist shaking hands with the President of the United States in the Oval Office, the removal of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) strategies from American businesses and universities, the Russian propaganda celebrating women who renounce education and career to have big families, combined with the increasingly brutal repression of the LGBTQ community (in Russia, but there are worrying signs in the US now too), should tell us that a return to “traditional values” is not a return to comforting stability.

Taking someone else’s rights away – to equality, opportunity, respect, or safety – won’t give the rest of us better, safer, lives. But it will create the conditions for authoritarian leaders to keep on chipping away at the rights of all of us.

So what do we do about it? Can the UN do anything other than express concern? How do we reclaim the optimism and commitment of Beijing in 1995. Inside Geneva doesn’t have all the answers, but we do have a great discussion for you!

What is your opinion? Join the debate:

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