Women Rising: Women’s Political Mobilization and Activism in Central Asia

The collapse of communism had a dramatic impact on women in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Contrary to the hopes for women’s political and economic empowerment, women’s rights have suffered a grim setback in all Central Asian states, as reported in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Reports from 2006-2023. The setback affected all areas of women’s life: in addition to gender inequalities on the labour market, women’s voice in politics declined and women’s autonomy was undermined as a result of an economic crisis and the revival of traditional values and gender stereotypes. Still, it would be misleading to view women as passive and voiceless victims of the post-Soviet transition. In fact, women in Central Asia have proven to be resilient and innovative in the strategies used to challenge and counter the men-dominated political, economic and social structures of post-Soviet states. Over time different forms of women’s mobilization emerged in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan witnessed the rise of women-led NGOs and CSOs during the 1990s, followed by the onset of regular socioeconomic protests organized by women activists in urban centers and the development of a genuine feminist movement. In Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, women demonstrated lower levels of independent political activism but were actively engaged in various internationally funded projects dealing with issues of gender violence and social justice. The paper offers a comparative analysis of women’s political and social mobilization in four Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Autocracies often encourage and promote women's political participation as a way to coopt them into the system and boost legitimacy of the regime both at home and internationally. And while such top-down approach to promoting gender equality can sometimes yield positive results, fundamentally it does not change much in the male-dominated political and socioeconomic structures of authoritarian states. To transform the patriarchal power structures characteristic for authoritarian states, a continuous bottom-up pressure on state institutions is required. History shows that women’s collective action and the fight for women’s rights can become a powerful weapon against patriarchal authoritarianism (Chenoweth and Marks, 2022). This paper discusses the origins and the varieties of women’s political and social activism in the four Central Asian republics since the early 1990s, paying particular attention to the developments in the last decade. The paper explores how the changing political, cultural and socioeconomic environment contributed to different levels and forms of women’s mobilization across Central Asian republics. It argues that several factors, including differences in the levels of economic development and political openness, as well as different government approaches to gender equality contributed to the emergence of different forms of women’s activism in Central Asia. In addition, the rising popularity of social media platforms helped some women’s groups to exert faster and more effective pressure on Central Asian governments. The paper relies on quantitative and qualitative data, including semi-structured interviews with women activists, conducted by the author between 2020 and 2024.