Right-wing extremist and populist movements are launching an unprecedented assault on democracies, using democratic mechanisms themselves to dismantle the very system that brought them to office. It’s through those words that Silke Steinhilber introduced WIDE+ ‘s webinar on 18 June 2025 “Under Threat in Europe: Democracy, Feminisms and Women’s Rights”. This webinar brought together feminist speakers: scholars and activists from Poland, Hungary, and Germany to examine the ongoing attacks on democratic institutions and freedoms of democratic institutions across Europe. Through those testimonies, one chilling conclusion rose: the dwindling of democratic institutions and the march towards controlling and autocratic ones and the commitment of feminists to build just, inclusive democratic alternatives.
Three inspiring and alarming presentations were given by three brilliant speakers :
- Christa Wichterich: a feminist scholar-activist and journalist focused on gender and women’s issues. She has taught in Kassel, Vienna and Basel and is a member of WIDE+, working to defend democratic and feminist spaces in Europe.
- Antonina Lewandowska: a sociologist and reproductive rights advocate in Poland. She coordinates national advocacy at the Foundation for Women and Family Planning and researches abortion laws at the University of Warsaw.
- Melani Barlai: a political scientist at Andrássy University in Budapest and co-founder of Democracy and Electoral Watchdogs. Her work focuses on authoritarianism and democratic backsliding in Europe.
They underlined a troubling pattern of democratically elected governments using legal and institutional frameworks to dismantle the very foundations of democracy, particularly targeting women’s and LGBTQI+ rights, academic freedom, and civil society.
Each of the speakers highlighted the current situation in their country emphasizing the democratic erosion of institutions.
Poland
In Poland, Antonina Lewandowska traced how democracy can erode from within. The first major turning point came in October 2020, when the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that abortion in the case of fetal malformation was unconstitutional. This ruling—delivered by a body stacked with politically appointed, legally contested judges—effectively implemented an almost total ban on abortion. Antonina recounted the day the verdict was announced:
“I broke down crying… because I knew what that would mean.”
Her office was immediately overwhelmed with desperate phone calls from women and families. That day, and many since, she was forced to counsel those affected without answers or legal clarity. The case she recalled of a woman seeking a termination at 31 weeks exemplified the life-altering impact of this legal shift.
This moment was not isolated. Rather, it was the result of a longer trajectory of democratic backsliding, whereby a legally elected government used seemingly legitimate mechanisms—particularly the judiciary—to implement regressive policies with minimal political accountability. Feminist movements had long warned that the weakening of judicial independence would eventually strike at reproductive rights. They were right.
Despite the electoral victory of Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition in 2023, many feminists did not celebrate unreservedly. As Antonina noted, expectations were quickly tempered:
“Hold your horses… you’ll see, it’s not going to be that great.”
Indeed, the new government, comprising a fragile coalition of 11 parties, has been unable to pass meaningful reforms. The President, backed by far-right forces, has used his veto powers to block change, including on abortion rights. With liberal promises left unmet, public frustration has grown, paving the way for the recent presidential win by a far-right candidate even more extreme than PiS.
At the heart of this conflict lies control over bodily autonomy. Feminist activists like Antonina emphasize that abortion is not just a political issue, it’s been politicized, used as a symbolic battlefield in a broader struggle over who controls women’s bodies and lives:
“Abortion itself is not political—it’s politicized. It’s about agency, family, privacy, and healthcare.”
Facing both institutional deadlock and public disillusionment, Polish feminists are turning to micropolitics: community education, storytelling, and tools like the Abortion Advocacy Academy, where activists teach others how to speak to loved ones about reproductive rights. As trust in institutions collapses, feminists are building new forms of civic connection—one conversation at a time.
Hungary
Melani Barlai’s intervention on Hungary focused on the country’s transformation since 2010, when Viktor Orbán’s government began implementing what political scientists term “autocratic legalism”, the use of legal tools to dismantle liberal democratic institutions from within. The example of Hungary stands for a development toward autocracy that other countries are also going through. At the same time, conservative Hungarian actors are engaged in promoting antifeminist fundamentalism elsewhere in Europe and globally.
Melanie was clear: Hungary is no longer a functioning liberal democracy. The regime has entrenched executive power, weakened checks and balances, and suppressed pluralism. The government has achieved this not through military coups or overt violence, but through systematic legal and cultural engineering.
At the center of this process is gender. As Melanie explained, in Hungary:
“Gender has become more than an object of policy, it is a metaphor for a broader set of perceived threats to the moral, social, and national order.”
Gender studies have been banned, LGBTQI+ rights rolled back, and Pride events suppressed. These measures are not incidental, they serve a symbolic function. By casting feminists, queer communities, and “gender ideology” as enemies of the nation, the Orbán government forges a shared identity around traditional family, nationalism, and patriarchal authority.
This “symbolic glue,” as Melani cited Andrea Petös metaphor, binds together Hungary’s illiberal regime. Gender is both the target and the tool of this authoritarian consolidation.
She also emphasized that freedom of expression poses a threat to such regimes:
“It’s dangerous, not only because it allows critique, but because it threatens the ideological coherence of the dominant elite.”
Resistance in Hungary is still active, though increasingly local and decentralized. As space for mass mobilization narrows, activists turn to micropolitics: local community events, public dialogues, and artistic interventions that challenge dominant narratives from within.
While Hungary is often portrayed as an exceptional case, Melanie emphasized the need to see it as part of a wider European trend, a “hard case” of democratic backsliding, but one that illuminates how gender and culture wars are central to authoritarian governance.
Germany
Christa Wichterich highlighted Germany’s slow but serious cultural shift, led by the rise of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Over the past decade, the AfD has transformed the political climate, particularly by attacking migration, feminism and “genderism”.
A key indicator of this authoritarian drift is the targeting of gender-sensitive language. Once widely adopted across universities and public institutions to reflect gender diversity, such language is now being banned in states like Bavaria and next year Berlin. Christa explained how these bans are legitimized under the guise of “public accessibility,” but they reflect a deeper rejection of feminist and queer visibility.
Since the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, a new layer of repression has emerged. Pro-Palestinian activism, much of it feminist, queer, and anti-racist in character, has been labelled antisemitic. High-profile scholars such as Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser were disinvited from events or had speaking roles cancelled based on their past political statements.
“The most significant impact of these policies is intimidation, a chilling effect on academic and civil discourse.”
This strategy is not limited to individual silencing and has a lasting impact on civil societies. The AfD has called for the defunding of gender studies altogether, questioning their scientific legitimacy and public value. Simultaneously, research funding is being redirected toward technology, AI, and security, fields aligned with neoliberal and militaristic priorities.
The feminist response, Christa argued, must not be merely defensive. She called for a “rebellious defense” of gender studies, one that exposes and resists misogyny, transphobia, and racism, and links academic freedom to broader democratic struggles.
Like Hungary and Poland, the right in Germany uses gender not just as a policy domain, but as a symbolic weapon, a way to redraw boundaries to determine and cancel, questioning who belongs, who is visible, and who has a voice.
The webinar closed with a collective reflection on the need to go beyond defending old models of liberal democracy. Instead, it called for building inclusive, care-centered, and socially and economically just alternatives rooted in intersectional feminist principles. Antonina stated: “We need to appeal to the personal : How do we help your grandmother afford her medicine? Your father get sick leave? That’s where the real political conversation starts.” On that basis, then, feminists, are already leading efforts to bridge political divides, engage communities at a grassroots level, and defend critical spaces for thought and dissent.
Written by: Maëlann Yvin. Maëlann is a Master’s student at Sciences Po Lille where she works in human rights violations, especially regarding refugee and education rights violations and how they intersect. She is currently a volunteer at WIDE+, where she is involved in advocating for both fights.