In recent decades, we have seen significant progress in achieving gender equality and advancing human rights. However, this progress has sparked a coordinated and growing backlash that threatens to undermine the hard-won gains made by women. Anti-gender movements are mobilizing to restrict the rights of women, LGBTQIA+ communities, and other marginalized groups. This backlash appears in various forms, such as attacks on reproductive rights and attempts to undermine democratic governance and civil liberties. Alarmingly, these movements are gaining traction and a veneer of legitimacy at an increasing rate.

But this is not the full story.

Across the globe, movements for equality are rising with equal determination. Feminist networks, LGBTQIA+ advocates, youth coalitions, progressive policymakers, and grassroots organizers are pushing back, creating alliances, defending rights, and reimagining a more inclusive future. Their work reminds us that progress is not linear but persistent.

Backlash Unfiltered: a podcast pushing forward rights and equality

This is a podcast series by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), launched as part of our ongoing commitment to gender justice and inclusive development. 

As an autonomous UN research institute since 1963, UNRISD focuses on the social dimensions of development—examining power, politics, and equity through interdisciplinary research and global partnerships. Our mission is to support transformative change by placing inclusion and justice at the heart of sustainable development.

Through grounded, in-depth conversations with leading scholars, activists, and policymakers, this series explores the rise of anti-gender movements, the historical and geopolitical forces behind them, and how they are reshaping institutions and public discourse, with significant global repercussions on social development.

More importantly, this series is not just about understanding the backlash—it is about resilience, reimagining a more just future, and inspiring new strategies for coalition-building and progressive action.

Launched on 8 March 2025, International Women’s Day, the podcast releases new episodes monthly. The first three episodes reveal how these movements operate, adapt, gain influence, and that now advocates are pushing forward for a more just and inclusive future.

Pulling back the curtain Episode 1: Networks of Power

Dr Ayesha Khan, Senior Research Fellow at ODI Global, traces how once-marginal conservative actors have coalesced into transnational coalitions with media platforms, legal tools, and international influence. These are not fringe actors—they’re shaping policies from within. What she describes as an “unholy alliance” of evangelical leaders, autocratic regimes, and political entrepreneurs that now operates with cohesion, funding, and strategic intent.

Episode 2: Language as a Strategy

Researcher Haley McEwen describes how anti-gender movements have refined their messaging—replacing overtly religious rhetoric with what she calls “secular-sounding arguments.” They frame exclusion through the language of science, health, and education to mask discrimination as reasoned policy. Gender studies are painted as ideological extremism. Diversity becomes a threat. Freedom is weaponized against the most vulnerable. Their tactics are not just subtle—they’re deliberate co-optations of the very vocabulary of justice and equality.

Episode 3: Following the Money

Neil Datta, Executive Director of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, reveals the financial landscape behind anti-gender movements. His research reveals that, over a single decade, hundreds of millions of dollars were funneled into anti-gender campaigns across Europe alone. The estimate he shares — “at least 700 million dollars” — is striking. These are not isolated efforts—they are highly organized, transnational campaigns that draft laws, amend constitutions, and redefine democratic norms. They are reshaping the debate on gender as a threat to traditional values, national identity, and social order. In short, it’s being reframed as dangerous.

Inside the system

What makes this backlash especially dangerous is that it is no longer operating from the sidelines. As Khan explains, many of its leading actors now hold positions of institutional power—crafting policies, reshaping laws, and influencing global declarations. Declarations like the Geneva Consensus, endorsed by 40 states that oppose access to abortion, demonstrate how language around health, dignity, and family can be repurposed to restrict reproductive rights and undermine justice.

Around the world, resistance is vibrant and on the rise. Civil society organizations are actively monitoring these changes. Journalists are uncovering disinformation, and feminist movements are reclaiming their space and language. Women in the Global South, who have long faced structural challenges, are leading with their experience, creativity, and courage.

A key takeaway from this podcast series is that gender should be treated as a central concern in public policy. This approach should be grounded in evidence, responsive to inequality, and integrated into institutional design. This means we must defend not only the principles but also the procedures that uphold them. The task ahead is not just to raise our voices but to act more strategically. We need to harness our collective power and set aside our siloed approaches. It’s essential to bolster solidarity and develop a coordinated strategy for advocacy and action.

What Backlash Unfiltered brings to the conversation

What Backlash Unfiltered provides is more than just analysis; it offers clarity:

• It educates by exploring the historical and strategic roots of the backlash, showing how it is not random, solely religiously motivated, or fragmented. It is deliberate, politically and economically driven, and alarmingly coherent.

• It analyzes the consequences by tracing the actors, following the money and how these regressive movements are reshaping the meaning of rights, democracy, and justice, affecting social development and civic space.

• It is inspiring by listening and amplifying the voices of those who have been sounding the alarm for decades—researchers, advocates, feminist networks, LGBTQIA+ leaders, and grassroots organizers, particularly from the Global South. Their history, characterized by endurance, solidarity, and political insight, is more essential than ever.

This involves more than just identifying threats. It’s about developing collective responses—not reactive but proactive. Not symbolic, but strategic. Not temporary, but sustained.

In a world where rights are being unraveled, not through loud proclamations, but quiet policies and carefully chosen words, Backlash Unfiltered helps us stay alert — not only to what’s at stake, but also to what we still have the power to achieve.

A call to action

The backlash is real, but so is the momentum for equality.

Listen to Backlash Unfiltered. Share it with your community. Use it in classrooms, workshops, and policy discussions. Support those on the front lines. Challenge disinformation. Elevate diverse voices. Reclaim the narrative.

Because in the end, defending human rights is not about holding the line, it’s about redrawing it, together. 

Listen to the podcast: unrisd.org/backlash-unfiltered