A woman’s right to make decisions about her own body should be self-evident. While such access has long been taken for granted, only in a few countries around the world is this right enshrined in law. In the context of reproductive freedom, the wire coat-hanger thus holds a brutal symbolic power: It stands for the denial of legal, safe, and unrestricted access to abortion. Patriarchy manifests itself in the criminalization of abortions as in few other legal situations, insofar as restrictions on the right to bodily self-determination by means of criminal law do not serve the ostensible protection of life, but the exercise of power in an effort to subjugate women by reducing them to their bodies. Recent setbacks —such as the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade— are thus part of a broader backlash against women’s rights, linked to the rise of far-right extremism, which professes to be “the will of God.”
Today, we can see misogyny almost everywhere, including in new forms of violence such as cyberbullying. Evidently, feminist progress and male violence seemingly occur concurrently: the more equal women are, the more hatred and violence against them increase (the so-called feminist paradox). Indeed, rising levels of misogynistic violence are by no means restricted to non-secular societies—ostensible havens of gender equality are likewise affected. The belittling of femicides or the gruesome online fantasies of killing women has become increasingly popular. Questioning male dominance is considered – not by all, but by a growing number of men – as the loss of privileges and social control. The subjugation of women, reducing them to their bodies through acts of sexualized violence, seemingly restores a balance often perceived as the natural order. Toxic masculinity is making patriarchy our future—and not only our past. How do we assess such a return to an era believed to be long gone?
Abortion encapsulates issues about the role of women in society, as well as the impact of pro-natalist and religious stakeholders in public and political life. While feminists have been fighting for reproductive rights for more than a century, the rise of religious and far-right movements has put them under even greater pressure. This project thus considers abortion rights as a red thread through which to investigate the backlash against feminism culminating in an ever-increasing onslaught of misogynistic violence. The historical trajectory of abortion access reveals how reproductive biases are aligned along the axes of class, race, ethnicity, and gender in order for the reproduction of certain groups to be valued while that of others is denigrated. Medical science and public health institutions have transformed traditional, domestic knowledge. How is this received by local communities? How do different knowledge systems recognize the autonomy of women? Through an epistemological approach to abortion, this project ultimately illustrates the connections between misogyny, authoritarianism and right-wing extremism.