International Women's Rights Progress Under Attack?

From an IR perspective, Chapter 14 by Conny Roggeband assesses whether gender equality norms—expanded and strengthened in the 1990s—have changed due to opposition to treaty law and countermobilization. Roggeband traces changes in legal norms surrounding the promotion of gender equality at the international and national level. Drawing on social movement theory, she analyses how democratic backsliding, diminishing civic space on the one hand, and access to the platforms of the UN on the other, create favourable conditions for severe countermobilization dynamics. She finds that a decline in the legal status of women’s norms is not yet clearly discernible. However, there are strong indications that the legally protected value of gender equality is losing its social validity.