Bodily autonomy is inextricably linked to the integrity and durability of the body politic—with threats to one reinforcing threats to the other.
This essay is part of a Women & Democracy package focused on who’s funding the women and LGBTQ people on the frontlines of democracy. We’re manifesting a new era for philanthropy—one that centers feminism. The need is real: Funding for women and girls amounts to less than 2 percent of all philanthropic giving; for women of color, it’s less than 1 percent. Explore the “Feminist Philanthropy Is Essential to Democracy” collection.
When people consider what it means to be a democracy on the decline, plot points of the recent film Civil War come to mind: a U.S. president who disregards the Constitution to nab a third term. Crackdowns on dissent and the media. Leaders using the military to break up public demonstrations.
While that is, of course, representative of growing authoritarianism, recent history suggests that rollbacks on bodily autonomy and reproductive freedoms are also flashing red lights for would-be regimes.
Elected authoritarians undermine the rule of law by positioning themselves as defenders of traditional values, spreading misinformation, and stacking the judiciary with their political allies.
- In Hungary, Viktor Orbán has prioritized bans on gender studies and school materials deemed “LGBTQ propaganda.”
- In Brazil, former President Bolsonaro attacked the press, sabotaged voting systems, and repeatedly clashed with the judiciary; under his leadership, Brazilian lawmakers introduced dozens of bills to restrict abortion.
The standing of the United States among modern democracies also has continued to ebb. The capture of the federal courts and installation of a supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court not only sounded the death knell for Roe v. Wade but ushered in the chaotic judicial aftermath we are now experiencing—with not one but two abortion cases back on the Court’s docket this term.
The anti-democratic through-line points toward fissures in other aspects of free and fair representation. A majority (67 percent) of Americans who live in states where abortion is banned want the procedure to be legal; that can only be seen as an abject failure of democratic systems and structures. This is further reflected in states where abortion has been on the ballot (going six-for-six); people overwhelmingly voted to restore abortion rights where gerrymandered legislatures would have otherwise passed and enforced bans. Moreover, the introduction of nearly 400 anti-trans bills in state legislatures across the country hardly reflects the priorities and will of the majority of voters.
Reproductive rights do not exist in a vacuum. Bodily autonomy is inextricably linked to the integrity and durability of the body politic—with threats to one reinforcing threats to the other. Targeting women leaders like Maria Ressa and Suyen Barahona, has proved a powerful political tool for illiberal leaders, a bargaining chip that not only helps them gain power but consolidate and maintain it.
For Trump and Bolsonaro, anti-abortion stances enabled them to forge alliances with evangelical Christians, which helped to elect them. Trump, now the presumptive nominee, has bragged about his role in overturning Roe, even as he attempts to distance himself from some of the most damaging new state bills (or in the case of Arizona, renewed from 1864).
Seeking to court evangelical voters, he recently told TIME Magazine that he wouldn’t commit to saying whether states could monitor or punish women who have abortions.
“Misogyny and authoritarianism are not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills,” writes Harvard Kennedy School’s (and Ms. contributor) Erica Chenoweth. In other words, leveraging these in tandem is a key tactic in the authoritarian playbook.
“Aspiring autocrats and patriarchal authoritarians have good reason to fear women’s political participation. [F]ully free, politically active women are a threat to authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders—and so those leaders have a strategic reason to be sexist,” Chenowith writes.
In the United States, philanthropic support for democracy and for girls, women, and LGBTQ people encompasses a tiny fraction of total investment dollars. So how do we ensure that this nexus is addressed and adequately supported?
In our respective roles—as head of the U.S. program for Open Society Foundations and a feminist advocate and writer—we’ve got some ideas.
First, pro-democracy funders simply must be deliberate and full-throated—in word and deed—that the fight for robust democratic structures and gender justice is one and the same. This simply means elevating these connections wherever and whenever one has influence whether it is in the media or the corridors of power. Raise your voice boldly.
This also entails determining where reproductive and LGBTQ rights are on the line, mapping it with states fighting for voting rights and representation, and investing at the intersection of the two issues. For those supporting direct democracy initiatives in 2024—whether it is Florida’s abortion ballot measure or fair maps in Ohio—it means funding those efforts not just for a single win, but to harness momentum in those communities and coalitions that builds lasting democratic reforms.
Here’s the main takeaway—so well-articulated by our colleague Pamela Shifman, president of the Democracy Alliance: “The struggle for democracy and for gender, racial and economic justice is one fight. It’s our fight.”
Think investing in women is essential to democracy? We do too. Sign up for our daily or weekly emails to hear from (and join!) the feminist philanthropists funding the future. (We heard alliteration is back in style.) Or go back to the essay collection.
