In September 2024, Equipop warned about the "international shockwave" that Trump's re-election would cause, particularly for women's rights. One year after his inauguration at the White House, these warnings have been largely confirmed, with a backlash unprecedented in its speed and brutality. Dismantling of USAID, diplomatic offensives at the UN...
All these decisions have a dramatic impact on women's health and rights around the world, including in France, where politicians are calling for the Trumpist approach to be emulated. Trump's ongoing anti-gender attacks were also the first step in a broader agenda that is now undermining democracies, multilateralism, and international law. In this context, countries such as France, which advocate feminist diplomacy, have a crucial and urgent role to play.
A backlash that affects us all
During his first term, Donald Trump had already attacked women's rights in a particularly aggressive manner, as evidenced, for example, by the outcry in 2019 over the United States' opposition to a Security Council resolution on the care of women victims of violence and war crimes, on the pretext that it was contrary to US anti-abortion policy. By appointing conservative, anti-choice judges to the Supreme Court, Donald Trump also methodically planned and contributed significantly to the overturning of the Roe v. Wade ruling, ending the right to abortion at the federal level.
With his second term, Trump has reached a new milestone: establishing the White House Faith Office; censoring the mere use of the word "woman" in health research; banning the US administration from mentioning "World AIDS Day"... Not only were these measures even more violent than during Trump's first term, but they also paved the way for other, broader attacks on other pillars of democracy, such as the right to health, privacy, information, access to knowledge and science... The numerous recent bilateral agreements on global health signed with several African countries illustrate how the United States is taking advantage of the dismantling of international aid to force partner states to adopt reactionary positions that are openly hostile to human rights.
The backlash orchestrated by Trump is unprecedented in several respects, in terms of its speed and brutality. But the underlying dynamic is not new: attacks on women's rights are almost always precursors to the advent of authoritarian and anti-democratic regimes. And very often, they do not provoke widespread public and political outrage until all individual, associative, civic, and political freedoms have been lost.
This is all the more worrying given that Donald Trump's actions are encouraging other leaders around the world to abandon the defense of women's and LGBTQIA+ rights. By positioning himself as the leader of a truly reactionary international movement, Trump is uniting actors who are diametrically opposed to each other but who are joining forces for the worse when it comes to attacking women's rights. While public development aid funding is collapsing in all countries traditionally committed to international solidarity, anti-rights movements are organizing on a transnational scale and are extremely well funded.
Feminist movements, a shield against reactionary internationalism
Donald Trump's hatred of feminist movements is no coincidence. These movements are among the first to stand up against his retrograde policies and challenge the patriarchal and macho order on which he bases his actions and worldview. They are an essential counterweight that holds governments accountable, brings cases before UN agencies when international law is violated, and rallies crowds around the world to shed light on issues that are often ignored, such as gender-based and sexual violence, and to advance democracy more broadly. Because they are often on the front lines of major contemporary crises—climate change, armed conflict, and health crises—women and feminist activists occupy a central position in understanding and resolving the challenges of the 21st century.
To be able to stand up to these challenges, feminist movements need much more than symbolic recognition: they need sustainable funding that is commensurate with the issues they are addressing. Upcoming national and international deadlines offer a decisive opportunity to reinvest in multilateral spaces and rethink the modalities of collective action.
For France, the challenge is all the more crucial as it must align its ambitions with the recent adoption of its strategy for feminist diplomacy, which affirms the need to promote gender equality in all its external actions. France must fully embrace this leadership role, particularly during its presidency of the G7. In a context marked both by national uncertainties—with the rise of the far right and the upcoming elections—and by multilateral crises, France must provoke a collective political awakening to put an end to the stunned silence in the face of Trump and take action.
