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Gendered violence and misogyny are widespread and of a growing concern to democracy worldwide. It enables authoritarian regimes to stay in power, and it challenges democratic values. Women and minority genders suffer from systemic exclusion, discrimination, and violence in many aspects of political, social, and economic life. More and more, patriarchal and masculinist tendencies in politics and society are being exposed and addressed by feminist thought and research. Misogyny is shown to be used as a political strategy by authoritarian leaders. Political opponents are discarded as ‘feminine’ and demonised as being irrational, inferior or dangerous to the nation. These categorisations have electoral appeal and lead people to consider them a rightful legitimisation of violence. Militarised and militant masculinity is analysed as a radical and identitarian attempt of authoritarian regimes to gain power or to stay in power. ‘Consent’ has become an exemplary battlefield where patriarchy and authoritarianism fight democratic accomplishments: attacked on the basis of so claimed political irrelevance or for being a mere obstacle. In short, the perils and detrimental consequences of patriarchal power are disclosed in this session. An urgent appeal is made to politicians and the public to open our eyes for masculinist views leading to subjugation of marginalised populations and to information warfare, physical violence or economic pressures against women and minority genders.
Invited speakers
Nitasha Kaul is Chair Professor of Politics, International Relations and Critical Interdisciplinary Studies, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) at the University of Westminster in London. A multidisciplinary academic, economist, novelist, and public intellectual, she is the author of over 150 publications, including several books -- Imagining Economics Otherwise (Routledge, 2007), Man-Asian Literary Prize shortlisted Residue (Rupa, 2014), Future Tense (Harper Collins India, 2020), Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak? (co-edited; Kali for Women Press, 2020), and Contemporary Colonialities: Kurds and Kashmiris (co-edited; University of Westminster Press, 2025). Her work spans several disciplines, and concerns themes relating to democracy, authoritarianism, transnational repression, misogyny, political economy, technology/AI, Indian politics, right-wing nationalism, feminist and postcolonial critiques, small states, Himalayan geopolitics, feminist and postcolonial critiques, Kashmir, Kerala, Bhutan. She is the recipient of multiple research grants and awards for her research and writing across genres and disciplines, and her interventions on politics, democracy, gender, and human rights have appeared in major international radio, televisual, and print media around the world. All her work is archived at https://westminster.academia.edu/NitashaKaul/CurriculumVitae. She is on X at x.com/NitashaKaul
Stephanie Lamy is a researcher and doctoral candidate at the Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique (ISP), Université Paris Nanterre, where her thesis examines the intersection of data, security, and women’s rights in Chad. She is also co-founder of Danaïdes, an NGO delivering technology to civil society organisations in complex environments. Her focus is on the political implications of cybersecurity, digital commons governance, and she is leading research that explores the role of decentralised autonomous organizations (DAOs) in civic engagement. Formerly the Secretary General of Internet Sans Frontières, she has worked extensively on freedom of expression and digital rights. She is the author of Agora Toxica (2022) and La Terreur Masculiniste (2024), on political disinformation and the securitisation of gender.
Host
Laura Fournier is a Doctoral Researcher and Teaching Assistant at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on affirmative action with regard to ethnicity in African constitutions. It centralises around African philosophies’ views on the existence of such state policies to remedy past injustices related to ethnicity.