The UN Gender Wars: A Comparative Study of Feminist and Anti-Feminist NGOs at the UN

Over the last two decades, gender equality and women's rights, which have made slow yet steady progress in the UN, have faced severe attacks from anti-feminist NGOs, which are increasingly organizing transnationally and mobilizing within IOs. This attack has resulted in two opposing NGO networks at the UN with radically different views on gender equality and women's rights. On one side, progressive and feminist NGOs advocate for women's rights and gender equality. Conversely, anti-feminist NGOs promote traditional gender roles and family values, opposing women's reproductive rights, with the right to abortion being their primary target. This dynamic has been captured in the literature through concepts such as norm spoiling, counter-norming, and backlash advocacy. However, few studies have compared these two groups by examining their perceptions of each other, the UN, and the policy narratives they advance in their operations, including their interplay. Considering that such a comparison can shed light on the future of NGO-UN relations amid right-wing backlash, including its impact on gender equality and women's rights, in this paper, we analyze over 33,000 documents downloaded from 11 feminist and 10 anti-feminist NOGs websites, all available content as of early 2022. Our analysis employs various text-analysis techniques, including sentiment analysis, semantic role labeling, and automated narrative analysis.