Women’s Rights and Democracy Are Inextricably Linked

This article by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is published by Brennan Center for Justice. Here is an exerpt:

Last fall, the United States was included for the first time on the annual list of back­slid­ing demo­cra­cies published by the Inter­na­tional Insti­tute for Demo­cracy and Elect­oral Assist­ance. Broadly defined as those exhib­it­ing “gradual but signi­fic­ant weak­en­ing of checks on govern­ment and civil liber­ties, ” back­slid­ing demo­cra­cies are meas­ured by categor­ies includ­ing repres­ent­at­ive govern­ment, impar­tial admin­is­tra­tion, and parti­cip­at­ory engage­ment. The European think tank repor­ted that the United States shows signi­fic­ant lapses in effect­ive legis­lat­ive bodies and freedoms of expres­sion and assembly.

Around the same time, a sweep­ing abor­tion ban went into effect in Texas and inquir­ies about its correl­a­tion to our back­slid­ing demo­cracy were raised. The New York Times was among several news organ­iz­a­tions report­ing that such a descent is precisely when “curbs on women’s rights tend to accel­er­ate.”

However, there has been notably little discourse about the converse of this propos­i­tion: that Amer­ica’s long­stand­ing and abysmal record on myriad gender equity mark­ers has been the true harbinger for our down­graded status. Accord­ing to a United Nations report, the traject­ory of “de-demo­crat­iz­a­tion” is rarely analyzed initially through the distinct lens of gender equity and there are insuf­fi­cient efforts to system­at­ic­ally exam­ine the current implic­a­tions.

Read the full article here.