This contribution was made during the panel Anti-racism, Feminism, and Civil Rights in the Struggle Against Fascism at the 1st INTERNATIONAL ANTI-FASCIST CONFERENCE FOR THE SOVEREIGNTY OF PEOPLES held in Porto Alegre, Brazil from 26th-29th March 2026
Since the beginning of this century, we have seen the rise of far-right, authoritarian, theocratic forces, which are radicalizing towards fascism if not already fascist.
This poses a danger to the entire planet: we have witnessed the wars unleashed by Russia in Ukraine through its imperialist invasion; Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people, which has intensified since October 2023 although it has been ongoing for decades; the war in Sudan; the war waged jointly by the US and Israel against Iran and Lebanon, which is also causing great loss of life among the population, even targeting children’s schools; we have seen Trump’s bellicose actions and threats in Venezuela, against Cuba, against Greenland, and his war against his own people and migrants.
This far right is openly characterized by its racism, but also by its sexism, these are not separate spheres or ideologies but intrinsic to the far right’s ideology.
These forces in government are introducing a profound and systemic shift in dealing with gender issues, placing the regulation of women’s bodies and the heteronormative family at the heart of their national agendas, based on a few common principles:
• That women must devote themselves to the family, and not hold leadership positions in society.
• That motherhood is a duty to the nation, and not a choice.
• That “national values” entail excluding those who represent “the other” – such as immigrants, Muslims and people of colour, or ideas perceived as coming from elsewhere
Fundamentally, the far right is developing a project and an ideology that opposes gender as a social and cultural construct of the individual, as free determination of gender identity and the recognition of gendered socialization. It advocates the naturalization of gender and opposes all freedoms in this area, going so far as to launch a frontal attack on the social sciences and research, whilst deploying political transphobia and anti-feminism.
This is put into practice in governmental policies restricting the right to abortion, for example overturning Roe vs Wade in the US, cutting any form of overseas aid that could fund abortion or pro-family polices such as in Victor Obraban’s Hungary or Giorgia Meloni’s Italy – privileges for mothers of large families, and of course anti-LGBTQI policies
At the same time they are implementing social policies in matters of wages, job security and public services that undermine people’s ability to live decent lives, bring up families with access to health, education, housing…
Conversely, a diverse group comprising right-wing nationalist political parties, neoliberals claim to defend women’s rights. This exploitation and co-optation of feminist themes by anti-Islamic and xenophobic campaigns is termed “femonationalism” by we as feminist theorists. They demonstrate, particularly in the European context, that by portraying Muslim men as a threat to Western societies and as oppressors of women, and by emphasising the need to save Muslim and migrant women, these groups use gender equality to justify their racist rhetoric and policies, as well as imperialist interventions in Afghanistan and Iran. This practice also serves an economic function. Neoliberal policies on civic integration and feminist groups channel Muslim and non-Western migrant women into the domestic and care sectors, which are characterized by segregation, whilst claiming to promote their emancipation.
The links between racism, feminism and the way in which non-Western women are exploited for various political and economic ends are evident.
They are waging murderous wars that are killing hundreds of thousands of people, including children and devastating huge areas in countries such as Ukraine and Palestine and developing the exploitation of national resources, taking over the territories and water resources of indigenous peoples to build wasteful projects, such as data centres for Tik Tok as I saw in my recent visit to the Anacé people in Ceara.
In this context, women’s resistance to the murderous policies of imperialists is to keep life going, to organise daily life in their communities.
I am thinking of the school teachers in Ukraine who teach in underground bunkers to protect their pupils from Russian attacks, when there is electricity for lighting. Who cannot let the children go up to the canteen to eat when there is an air raid warning. Who are organising to support the families that have been displaced by the war, families who have soldiers killed and wounded, and the women who themselves are front line soldiers fighting the Russian imperialist invasion whose goal is to eliminate the existence of Ukraine of a sovereign nation. And at the same time opposing the neo-liberal and anti-labour policies of their own government.
Women in Palestine in the devastation of the genocidal war are continuing to care for their families and for each other. Life continues, including new life - babies are born into horrific conditions of no water, no food, no health.
Women in Minneapolis in the US have been at the forefront of organising the neighbourhood solidarity against the raids by ICE – surveillance operation to warn of approaching raids, bringing food to families too frightened to leave their homes.
In Iran the 2022 women’s movement for basic rights and against enforced hijab wearing was a continuation and a boost to the ongoing struggle of the Iranian people against their regime which has been so bloodily repressed.
In countries around the world women organize in militant ways in support of all women’s rights, knowing that it is the defence of the rights of most exploited and oppressed – for example racialized and ethnic minorities - that we truly defend the rights of all women, and as women organized to lead that fight we have a strategic role to play in resistance.
And that we have to learn from each other internationally to understand the full meaning of our central demands such as women’s right to control our own bodies, which poses different and specific questions in different countries and cultures. And knowing that the victory for women in one country is a victory and strengthens the fight for all of us.
These processes of social reproduction are crucial to the continuance of human society and are very largely undertaken by women. The daily acts of continuing life individually and as a society are also daily acts of resistance to the fascist and imperialist forces that are trying to determine who has the right to live and die, who has the right to live in what territory.
Women have much to lose from the ascendance of far-right, authoritarian, theocratic, fascist forces world wide. The anti-fascist, anti-imperialist fight is thus crucial for women.
But women’s resistance in all forms in conferences, in marches, in fighting arms in hand when necessary, but above all in ensuring that human life and society continue is also crucial.
The ecological catastrophe and the fascists and imperialists are both existential threats – we have to defeat them both. If human society no longer exists, we cannot build socialism.
As our Iranian sisters say : Woman Life Freedom - jin, jîyan, azadî .
29 March 2026