{"id":450,"date":"2026-03-18T09:41:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T09:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gold-tapir-911468.hostingersite.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/democracy-needs-women-feminist-leadership-in-times-of-shrinking-enabling-environments-for-civil-society\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T13:27:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T13:27:20","slug":"democracy-needs-women-feminist-leadership-in-times-of-shrinking-enabling-environments-for-civil-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/democracy-needs-women-feminist-leadership-in-times-of-shrinking-enabling-environments-for-civil-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy needs women: Feminist leadership in times of shrinking enabling environments for civil society"},"content":{"rendered":"
Women advocate for equal participation and inclusion in Tanzanian society at Dar es Salaam\u2019s Mchikichini market. Image from UN Women\u2019s Flickr. License CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At a time when democratic backsliding is no longer an abstract warning but a lived reality across continents, feminist leaders are quietly \u2014 and often at personal risk \u2014 holding the line.<\/p>\n

From election monitoring in Tanzania to newsroom reform in Cameroon, from challenging toxic masculinities to confronting the power of digital platforms, women and feminist allies are defending the enabling environment for civil society in ways that reveal a critical truth: democracy is not gender-neutral, and when women\u2019s participation is restricted, democracy itself weakens.<\/p>\n

An enabling environment for civil society is the foundation, not a footnote<\/h4>\n

In Tanzania, feminist advocate Martina Kabisama<\/a> has spent years working at the intersection of women\u2019s political participation and social protection. For her, the link between democracy and gender justice is structural. \u201cYou cannot advance gender justice where civic space is restricted,\u201d she argues.<\/p>\n

Kabisama\u2019s work underscores a reality often overlooked in global policy debates: women\u2019s political participation does not begin at the ballot box. It begins with safety, economic security, and the ability to organize.<\/p>\n

When women lack access to social protection systems \u2014 income support, legal protections, basic services \u2014 they are effectively excluded from civic life<\/a>. Economic precarity limits mobility. It silences dissent. It narrows participation to those who can afford it.<\/p>\n

In contexts where the enabling environment for civil society is shrinking, whether \u2014 through restrictive laws, surveillance, or informal intimidation, \u2014 women activists are often the first to feel the pressure. In China, members of The Feminist Five<\/a> were detained in 2015 simply for planning a public campaign against sexual harassment on public transport, a move widely seen as an attempt to silence feminist organizing.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Moroccan blogger and human rights defender Saida El Alami has faced repeated arrests <\/a>linked to her online criticism of authorities and advocacy for political detainees. Online spaces can also become sites of coordinated attacks: Brazilian journalist Patr\u00edcia Campos Mello faced a major harassment campaign <\/a>after reporting on election disinformation, including threats and sexualised smear campaigns amplified by political actors.<\/p>\n

Across parts of East Africa, women have taken leading roles in election observation, community mediation, and civic education \u2014 not as symbolic participants, but as architects of democratic accountability.<\/p>\n

For Kabisama Martina, feminist leadership is not about representation alone. It is about transforming power structures so that democracy works for those historically excluded from it.<\/p>\n

Media narratives and the politics of masculinity<\/h4>\n

In Cameroon, journalist and media executive Beau-Bernard Fonka Mutta<\/a> approaches democracy from another angle: the cultural narratives that shape who is seen as legitimate in public life.<\/p>\n

Raised in an environment where boys were taught not to cry, not to show vulnerability, and to equate masculinity with dominance, Mutta reflects critically on how these norms spill into politics and media. \u201cSociety imposes on us what a man should be,\u201d he says. You should not show emotion. You should be strong. Brave. Dominant.\u201d<\/p>\n

These expectations do not remain confined to private life. They influence leadership styles, political discourse, and even newsroom cultures.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember a top executive at our news agency saying that whenever he wants to discuss serious issues, he makes sure just men are at the table because women are not intelligent. Their job, according to him, is to be pretty and on air; the brainstorming is reserved for men,\u201d Beau-Bernard recounts. \u201cI remember asking myself where I was and with what sort of people I was dealing with because I know many super intelligent women.\u201d<\/p>\n

When dominance is normalized as strength, dialogue becomes weakness. When aggression is coded as authority, democratic debate narrows.<\/p>\n

MuttaBeau-Bernard identifies as a feminist African man \u2014 a position that challenges the idea that gender justice is a \u201cwomen\u2019s issue.\u201d For him, healthy masculinity means rejecting violence, embracing emotional literacy, and supporting women\u2019s leadership not as a concession but as a democratic necessity.<\/p>\n

The media plays a decisive role here. Newsrooms can either reproduce harmful stereotypes \u2014 portraying women as secondary, emotional, or unfit for leadership \u2014 or actively dismantle them.<\/p>\n

Journalism, Mutta argues, must interrogate the narratives it amplifies. Because the media does not simply report on democracy, it shapes the conditions under which democracy functions.<\/p>\n

Digital power and democratic risk<\/b><\/h4>\n

If traditional civic space is shrinking, digital space offers both opportunity and new danger.<\/p>\n

Cameroonian journalist and media leader Evelyn Mengue A Koung<\/a>, recently appointed the first woman and youngest Central Director for Television at the country\u2019s national broadcaster, sees the digital era as double-edged.<\/p>\n

On one hand, social media platforms allow women, even those in remote villages, to bypass traditional gatekeepers and tell their own stories. Digital tools can amplify marginalized voices, create networks of solidarity, and put local struggles on the international scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom your smartphone, you can make yourself known to the world,\u201d Kounge explains.<\/p>\n

But the same platforms can quickly and easily become tools of silencing.<\/p>\n

Cyberharassment, coordinated disinformation campaigns, and algorithmic bias disproportionately target women in public life. A single false rumour can take years to repair. Online abuse pushes women out of political and media spaces \u2014 effectively shrinking democratic participation through digital violence.<\/p>\n

Koung also raises concerns about agenda-setting power. Tech giants and content aggregators increasingly determine what is visible, what trends, and what disappears.<\/p>\n

In this environment, democratic discourse can be distorted \u2014 not by overt censorship, but by attention economies that privilege sensationalism over substance.<\/p>\n

According to her, public interest media must reclaim its ethical responsibility: to elevate overlooked social issues, to protect marginalized voices, and to resist becoming passive conduits for algorithm-driven narratives.<\/p>\n

Digital governance, then, is not just a tech issue \u2014 it is a democratic one.<\/p>\n

Democracy is not gender neutral<\/b><\/h4>\n

Taken together, these stories reveal a shared pattern: feminists are not only participating in democracy, but they are also sustaining it.<\/p>\n

They are monitoring elections when trust erodes. They are advocating for social protection systems that enable civic participation<\/a>. They are reforming media institutions from within. They are confronting toxic gender norms that normalize domination over dialogue<\/a>. They are challenging online violence that seeks to silence them.<\/a><\/p>\n

Yet their work unfolds in increasingly hostile environments: shrinking enabling environments, rising authoritarian tendencies, digital repression, and cultural backlash.<\/p>\n

The erosion of women\u2019s rights to organize, speak, and lead is not collateral damage. It is an early warning sign of democratic decline. When women are pushed out of public life, \u2013 whether through legal restrictions, economic exclusion, media stereotypes or online harassment, \u2013 democratic institutions lose legitimacy and resilience.<\/p>\n

Conversely, when feminist leadership expands, democracy deepens.<\/a> It becomes more accountable, inclusive, and participatory<\/a>. Women\u2019s civic participation is not about political correctness but about democratic survival.<\/p>\n

As these leaders demonstrate, democracy does not defend itself. Women are defending it \u2014 in courtrooms, in classrooms, in newsrooms, in digital spaces, and in communities.<\/p>\n

The question is whether institutions will meet them with protection, resources and recognition, \u2014 or continue to treat their work as peripheral. In times of shrinking civic space, one truth remains constant: without women, democracy erodes \u2014 both offline and online.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Forus <\/a><\/h3>\n

is an innovative global network working on civic space, the Agenda 2030, financing for sustainable development, capacity development and much more. It gathers 68 National NGO Platforms and 7 Regional Coalitions from Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Pacific, together representing over 22 000 organisations.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a time when democratic backsliding is no longer an abstract warning but a lived reality across continents, feminist leaders are quietly \u2014 and often at personal risk \u2014 holding the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-article","8":"category-latest-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":487,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450\/revisions\/487"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}