Building Feminist Movements in an Era of Backlash

International Women’s Day reminds us that feminist movements are still organizing despite rising backlash.

Every year on International Women’s Day, the world pauses to reflect on progress toward gender equality. But the 2026 moment feels particularly urgent.

According to the United Nations, women and girls currently have just 64 percent of the legal rights of men worldwide. Justice systems are under strain due to conflict, political instability, and weakening rule of law.

In nearly 70 percent of surveyed countries, women face more barriers accessing justice than men. Millions cannot afford legal support, are not believed when they report harm, or face systems that simply fail to protect them.

For the 676 million women and girls living within 50 kilometres of active conflict zones, justice systems are often absent altogether.

As the United Nations notes in its International Women’s Day campaign, “Women’s rights mean nothing if we cannot defend them.”

Feminist Movements Are Built Through Collective Action

Here in Canada, these realities make the purpose of International Women’s Day clearer than ever. Celebrating progress matters, but so does acknowledging that real change doesn’t happen without feminist movements and organizing.

Even in moments of backlash, that work continues.

Feminist movements have always grown through collective effort. They emerge when people come together to share experiences, challenge injustice, and build strategies for change.

This can take many forms:

• organizing conversations in local communities
• advocating for safer workplaces
• building coalitions across advocacy groups
• mobilizing supporters online
• pushing for policy reform within institutions

But none of this happens in isolation. Movement-building has always depended on shared knowledge, shared tools, and shared commitment.

When activists, organizers, and community leaders can learn from one another, movements become stronger and more resilient.

In a time when anti-feminist narratives are growing louder, that kind of collaboration becomes even more essential.

Why Practical Tools Matter

That’s where organizations like the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW-ICREF) come in.

CRIAW-ICREF recently released a set of Action Guides designed to support feminist organizing in Canada.

These resources were created to help advocates and organizations navigate a challenging environment where movements are facing both backlash and resource constraints.

The guides are designed to help feminists:

• convene meaningful conversations
• strengthen intersectional solidarity across communities
• advocate for institutional and policy change

Rather than remaining purely academic, these resources translate feminist research into practical tools for organizing.

Because research only becomes powerful when it moves into the hands of the people doing the work.

What the Guides Focus On

The Action Guides highlight several areas that are essential to building strong and sustainable movements.

Convening Feminist Conversations

Social change often begins with conversation. The guides provide strategies for bringing people together to discuss social issues, reflect on shared experiences, and mobilize communities around collective goals. These conversations help transform individual concerns into collective awareness and action.

Intersectional Solidarity

Modern feminist movements recognize that gender equality cannot be separated from other struggles for justice.

The guides emphasize intersectionality, acknowledging how race, class, disability, sexuality, immigration status, and other identities shape women’s experiences.

Strong movements build alliances across these differences rather than ignoring them.

Institutional Change

Feminist organizing also takes place within systems — governments, workplaces, educational institutions, and other public structures.

The guides help advocates think through strategies for pushing for policy change and accountability within these institutions, ensuring that progress becomes structural rather than temporary.

Countering Anti-Feminism

Many anti-feminist narratives rely on a simple idea: that advancing women’s rights somehow threatens others. But equality has never worked that way.

When women gain access to education, economic opportunity, healthcare, and legal protection, entire communities benefit. Stronger legal systems, safer workplaces, and fairer policies improve outcomes for everyone.

As UN Women points out in its 2026 International Women’s Day campaign, rights only matter when they can be defended. Around the world, women and girls still have just 64 percent of the legal rights of men, and millions face barriers accessing justice.

Feminist movements push back against these realities. Not by taking opportunity away from others, but by expanding it.

The Role of Feminist Research

Organizations like CRIAW-ICREF play a critical role in feminist movements because they help generate the knowledge that drives advocacy forward.

Their work includes documenting women’s lived experiences, analyzing structural inequalities, and developing frameworks that guide organizing and policy change.

But research alone means very little if it stays on a shelf. It only becomes powerful when it is translated into tools that activists, organizations, and communities can actually use.

The Action Guides show how feminist research can move beyond academic spaces and into the hands of people organizing, advocating, and building movements on the ground.

Which is exactly what this moment demands.

Looking Ahead

International Women’s Day often highlights the milestones feminist movements have achieved. But it also reminds us that progress is never guaranteed.

Every generation faces new challenges to the rights and protections that earlier movements fought to secure.

Despite backlash, feminist movements continue to organize, collaborate, and push for change. They challenge the narratives that limit opportunity and create space for more just systems to emerge.

History has shown that collective action can reshape what once seemed impossible. And it can do so again.

Explore the Guides

If you’re part of a community organization, advocacy group, or simply someone interested in strengthening feminist movements, the CRIAW-ICREF Action Guides offer practical starting points.

You can:

• download the guides
• use them to host conversations in your community
• apply them in organizing spaces
• share them with your networks

Justice does not happen automatically. As the United Nations reminds us this International Women’s Day, rights only become real when they can be defended.

And that work continues through feminist movements, shared knowledge, and the people willing to organize for change.