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In some cases, setbacks in one country are prompting progress in others. After witnessing the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the French government adopted a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a national right to abortion. And after Sweden reversed its feminist foreign policy, the Spanish parliament voted to enshrine Spain’s version in its development cooperation law.
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I find that the women’s rights movement is doing a bad job of telling the story of (and learning from) our victories. Because our wins are often less far-reaching or sensational than some of the high-profile setbacks, they are less likely to receive media coverage. This is a tragedy, because it means our narrative of social change is incomplete: We believe defeat to be final, when in fact the resistance is alive and well and effective. It’s our duty to tell those stories and to learn from them, too.
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That’s why the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative is launching a global repository of the world’s progressive victories for women’s rights. We’ve gathered groundbreaking policies on everything from abortion to feminist foreign policy, including archived texts that conservative governments have tried to disappear. We’ve crowdsourced policy briefs and advocacy resources and analyses of progressive victories in dozens of countries and amassed more than 600 resources in 16 languages. And now, our repository is open for policymakers, advocates, academics, and individuals from all over the world to continue to upload their resources and help us tell the successful story of the global feminist movement.
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