Democracy needs women: Feminist leadership in times of shrinking enabling environments for civil society

Feminists are not only participating in democracy, but they are also sustaining it

Originally published on Global Voices

By Clarisse Sih and Bibbi Abruzzini

At a time when democratic backsliding is no longer an abstract warning but a lived reality across continents, feminist leaders are quietly — and often at personal risk — holding the line. 

From election monitoring in Tanzania to newsroom reform in Cameroon, from challenging toxic masculinities to confronting the power of digital platforms, women and feminist allies are defending the enabling environment for civil society in ways that reveal a critical truth: democracy is not gender-neutral, and when women’s participation is restricted, democracy itself weakens. 

An enabling environment for civil society is the foundation, not a footnote

In Tanzania, feminist advocate Martina Kabisama has spent years working at the intersection of women’s political participation and social protection. For her, the link between democracy and gender justice is structural. “You cannot advance gender justice where civic space is restricted,” she argues. 

Kabisama’s work underscores a reality often overlooked in global policy debates: women’s political participation does not begin at the ballot box. It begins with safety, economic security, and the ability to organize. 

When women lack access to social protection systems — income support, legal protections, basic services — they are effectively excluded from civic life. Economic precarity limits mobility. It silences dissent. It narrows participation to those who can afford it. 

In contexts where the enabling environment for civil society is shrinking, whether — through restrictive laws, surveillance, or informal intimidation, — women activists are often the first to feel the pressure. In China, members of The Feminist Five were detained in 2015 simply for planning a public campaign against sexual harassment on public transport, a move widely seen as an attempt to silence feminist organizing. 

Similarly, Moroccan blogger and human rights defender Saida El Alami has faced repeated arrests linked to her online criticism of authorities and advocacy for political detainees. Online spaces can also become sites of coordinated attacks: Brazilian journalist Patrícia Campos Mello faced a major harassment campaign after reporting on election disinformation, including threats and sexualised smear campaigns amplified by political actors.

Across parts of East Africa, women have taken leading roles in election observation, community mediation, and civic education — not as symbolic participants, but as architects of democratic accountability. 

For Kabisama Martina, feminist leadership is not about representation alone. It is about transforming power structures so that democracy works for those historically excluded from it.  

Media narratives and the politics of masculinity 

In Cameroon, journalist and media executive Beau-Bernard Fonka Mutta approaches democracy from another angle: the cultural narratives that shape who is seen as legitimate in public life. 

Raised in an environment where boys were taught not to cry, not to show vulnerability, and to equate masculinity with dominance, Mutta reflects critically on how these norms spill into politics and media.  “Society imposes on us what a man should be,” he says. You should not show emotion. You should be strong. Brave. Dominant.”

These expectations do not remain confined to private life. They influence leadership styles, political discourse, and even newsroom cultures. 

“I remember a top executive at our news agency saying that whenever he wants to discuss serious issues, he makes sure just men are at the table because women are not intelligent. Their job, according to him, is to be pretty and on air; the brainstorming is reserved for men,” Beau-Bernard recounts. “I remember asking myself where I was and with what sort of people I was dealing with because I know many super intelligent women.”

When dominance is normalized as strength, dialogue becomes weakness. When aggression is coded as authority, democratic debate narrows. 

MuttaBeau-Bernard identifies as a feminist African man — a position that challenges the idea that gender justice is a “women’s issue.” For him, healthy masculinity means rejecting violence, embracing emotional literacy, and supporting women’s leadership not as a concession but as a democratic necessity. 

The media plays a decisive role here. Newsrooms can either reproduce harmful stereotypes — portraying women as secondary, emotional, or unfit for leadership — or actively dismantle them. 

Journalism, Mutta argues, must interrogate the narratives it amplifies. Because the media does not simply report on democracy, it shapes the conditions under which democracy functions.

Digital power and democratic risk

If traditional civic space is shrinking, digital space offers both opportunity and new danger. 

Cameroonian journalist and media leader Evelyn Mengue A Koung, recently appointed the first woman and youngest Central Director for Television at the country’s national broadcaster, sees the digital era as double-edged.  

On one hand, social media platforms allow women, even those in remote villages, to bypass traditional gatekeepers and tell their own stories. Digital tools can amplify marginalized voices, create networks of solidarity, and put local struggles on the international scene.

“From your smartphone, you can make yourself known to the world,” Kounge explains. 

But the same platforms can quickly and easily become tools of silencing. 

Cyberharassment, coordinated disinformation campaigns, and algorithmic bias disproportionately target women in public life. A single false rumour can take years to repair. Online abuse pushes women out of political and media spaces — effectively shrinking democratic participation through digital violence. 

Koung also raises concerns about agenda-setting power. Tech giants and content aggregators increasingly determine what is visible, what trends, and what disappears. 

In this environment, democratic discourse can be distorted — not by overt censorship, but by attention economies that privilege sensationalism over substance. 

According to her, public interest media must reclaim its ethical responsibility: to elevate overlooked social issues, to protect marginalized voices, and to resist becoming passive conduits for algorithm-driven narratives. 

Digital governance, then, is not just a tech issue — it is a democratic one. 

Democracy is not gender neutral

Taken together, these stories reveal a shared pattern: feminists are not only participating in democracy, but they are also sustaining it. 

They are monitoring elections when trust erodes. They are advocating for social protection systems that enable civic participation. They are reforming media institutions from within. They are confronting toxic gender norms that normalize domination over dialogue. They are challenging online violence that seeks to silence them. 

Yet their work unfolds in increasingly hostile environments: shrinking enabling environments, rising authoritarian tendencies, digital repression, and cultural backlash. 

The erosion of women’s rights to organize, speak, and lead is not collateral damage. It is an early warning sign of democratic decline. When women are pushed out of public life, – whether through legal restrictions, economic exclusion, media stereotypes or online harassment, – democratic institutions lose legitimacy and resilience. 

Conversely, when feminist leadership expands, democracy deepens. It becomes more accountable, inclusive, and participatory. Women’s civic participation is not about political correctness but about democratic survival.   

As these leaders demonstrate, democracy does not defend itself. Women are defending it — in courtrooms, in classrooms, in newsrooms, in digital spaces, and in communities.

The question is whether institutions will meet them with protection, resources and recognition, — or continue to treat their work as peripheral. In times of shrinking civic space, one truth remains constant: without women, democracy erodes — both offline and online.