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This paper explores current contestations of women's rights and the implications thereof for international legislation. While contestation over women's rights is a far from new phenomenon, over the past two decades opposition to gender equality has become better organized at the transnational level, mobilizing a dispersed set of state and non-state actors, and is becoming more successful in halting the progress of women's rights. I argue that the position of oppositional actors vis-à-vis women rights activism appears to be strengthened by two recent political developments: democratic backsliding and the closure of civic space. Some preliminary findings show how these interrelated developments lead to an erosion of women's rights at the national level. Governments use low key tactics to dismantle institutional and implementation arrangements and sideline women's organisations. Next, I explore the implications of these developments for gender equality norms at the national and international level. The active strategy of counter norming adopted by conservative and religious state and non-state actors, designed to circumvent and also undermine Western norms, is increasingly successful. In addition to this, the threatened position of domestic actors monitoring compliance of international treaties, makes the chances of backsliding on international commitments much higher.

Abstract: This paper applies a political process approach to analyze existing evaluations of gender mainstreaming (GM) efforts by (non) governmental agencies in Dutch development cooperation. This analytical framework looks both into structural elements (in terms of political/organization opportunities) and agency (in terms of mobilizing actor constellations and strategic framing) to explain how and why, despite the wide and rapid adoption of GM policies and practices, it has been a trajectory of progress and setbacks. Looking at mainstreaming as a political process reveals how politics affects every level, phase and space involved in the mainstreaming process and as such, makes GM an ongoing struggle. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

De vrouwenbewegingen tegen seksueel geweld die midden jaren '70 in Nederland en begin jaren '80 in Spanje opkwamen, vertonen opvallende overeenkomsten.