Leta Hong Fincher

Opinion | This International Women’s Day, support liberal democracy by defending women’s rights against authoritarianism

From China to Russia and Hungary, there is a very clear overlap between the embrace of strongman rule and the erosion of women’s rights

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Leta Hong Fincher

Published: 3:00am, 8 Mar 2019Updated: 4:55am, 8 Mar 2019

Democracies around the world are grappling with the global rise of authoritarian rulers such as Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and Xi Jinping of China.

The first public hearing of the US House Intelligence Committee under the Democratic Party majority on February 26 dealt with the threat of rising authoritarianism and warned that liberal democracies are facing their most serious crisis in decades.

Left unsaid at the hearing was a discussion of one of the most potent weapons democracies have to check the power of autocrats: feminism.

Anyone concerned about the rise of the “strongman” should pay attention to how feminist activists in China are posing an unprecedented challenge to the patriarchal, authoritarian state.

The “Feminist Five” (clockwise from top left): Li Tingting, Wu Rongrong, Zheng Churan, Wei Tingting and Wang Man, who were taken into custody shortly before International Women's Day in 2015 as they were preparing to hand out leaflets about sexual harassment on public transport in Beijing. Photo: AFP/EyePress

This International Women’s Day marks the fourth anniversary of the Chinese government’s detention of five young women who became known as the “Feminist Five”.