A new world order? What do political and cultural changes in the world mean for VAWG?
Series Four, Joining the Dots: International Conversations to End Violence Against Women
The world is far from calm, stable or at peace. Perhaps it was never thus.
Yet each time and each set of catastrophes or disruption unfolds in a different landscape – political, social, legal, economic, cultural and activist.
Women in Afghanistan, for example, knew some freedoms, then the restrictions of the Taliban who were subsequently removed only to find their way back again in 2021. Restrictions on women were further tightened in 2024 to include the prohibition of women training in the medical field including midwifery. Now those women cannot study or take up work outside their homes, their voices cannot be heard in public nor is sight of them permitted – windows through they might be seen are to be blocked up. While South Korea saw massive democratic mobilisation and institutional action against its national leader, the country is also home to a very successful organisational method through which men who suspect a women of feminism can effectively have her removed from her job, potentially ruining her career. The country hosts a significant gender pay gap, low birth rates and the feminist 4B movement which rejects dating, marriage, children and sex – with men.
The world, especially but not only women, also watched in shock and in awe as the Pelicot trial for a man’s rape project progressed and concluded in France. Many who are unfamiliar with this area of abuse were shocked that drug- facilitated rape happens, at how many ordinary men will participate in such abuse. Many were in awe at the determination of Gisele Pelicot, having subjected to countless such rapes by her husband and other men he engaged to join him. Her insistence that “shame must change sides” gave public voice to the hopes harboured of millions of women across the world over many generations. What impact, if any, might Gisele’s experience and efforts have?
2024 saw general elections in more than 60 countries, affecting two billion voters – around a quarter of the world’s population. Some results are likely to have direct impacts on VAWG – its funding, priorities, policy approaches and the ways in which it is excused, supported or contested.
Many elections have focused minds – for example those in Russia and India – but one in particular has captured the attention and concerns of people across the world. A year before his re-election, President Trump was described as posing the “biggest danger to the world in 2024” – in terms of a values free, primarily transactional and human rights negligent approach to his work, including in global affairs. Many men who have rallied around President Trump have been not merely unapologetic but positively buoyant in their project explicitly to exert control over women: “your body, my choice” has become a rallying call for men. Is this the ‘revenge of the patriarchy’? What should we anticipate in terms of armed conflicts in the world?
What does all this mean for women and for our work to end violence?
The Joining the Dots series of international conversations that we have hosted in CWASU provide a place in which to connect, to reflect, to share hopes and ideas of what we might do. In 2025 we turn to profound political changes that enable, inhibit or otherwise impact on our work to end violence against women. What will be the effect of these global dynamics, geopolitics and cultural shifts on our ambitions and strategies to end violence against women and girls?
Our 2025 series of Joining the Dots will address this theme.
Session one: Thursday 13th Feb, 17.00-18.30 GMT.
Session Two: Friday 4th April, 15.00-16.30 GMT
Session Three: Wednesday 9th April, 17.00-18.30 GMT
Session Four: Friday 23rd May, 17.00-18.30 GMT