International Women’s Day 2024 canvas at the Spanish Parliament. Photo courtesy of Javier Perez Montes via Unsplash
On 7 April 2026, the Spanish government approved a draft constitutional reform aimed at safeguarding the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy across the national territory, alongside new measures to strengthen action against gender-based violence. Spain is not the first European country to move in this direction. France recently constitutionalized the “guaranteed freedom” to access abortion, while countries such as Slovenia have long protected reproductive autonomy through constitutional provisions. These initiatives reflect growing concerns that abortion rights cannot be taken for granted, even where they have long been legally recognized.
The rise of anti-gender and anti-abortion actors across Europe has intensified fears that future right-wing governments could restrict access to abortion and reproductive healthcare. The overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States demonstrated how rights once considered consolidated may become politically reversible. In this context, constitutional and rule-making initiatives seek to provide stronger and longer-term protections against democratic and institutional rollback.
The Spanish case can therefore be understood as a feminist institutional response: an attempt to use institutional and constitutional mechanisms to defend gender equality and reproductive autonomy against anti-gender politics and democratic backsliding.
The CCINDLE project has examined precisely these dynamics, exploring how institutions are not only targets of anti-gender threats, but also crucial sites where feminist resistance and counter-strategies can emerge. To explore these dynamics, we relied on the voices of their protagonists, interviewing MPs and other political and institutional actors, and analyzing parliamentary debates. As our results show, feminist actors working within institutions continuously negotiate, resist, and reshape political agendas under increasingly polarized condition through a variety of strategies.
One important strategy we identified is rule-making. Through legal reforms, constitutional initiatives, equality legislation, and procedural changes, feminist institutional actors seek to strengthen protections and embed gender equality norms more deeply within democratic governance structures. The Spanish proposal fits within this broader pattern of institutional responses that attempt not only to react to backlash, but also to reinforce democratic guarantees proactively.
At the same time, our results show that feminist institutional responses extend far beyond formal law-making. Coalition-building emerges as another crucial strategy. Feminist actors inside institutions often work together with civil society organizations, advocacy groups, academics, and transnational networks in order to build broader political alliances capable of resisting anti-gender mobilization. These collaborations become particularly important in polarized contexts where feminist actors face institutional isolation or increasing political hostility.
Feminists supporters marching at the 2019 8M protest in Astoria, Spain
The research also highlights the central role of feminist expertise and knowledge production. Anti-gender actors frequently attack not only rights themselves, but also the legitimacy of gender studies, equality data, and feminist forms of knowledge. In response, feminist institutional actors mobilize research, evidence, monitoring practices, and expert networks to defend the democratic legitimacy of gender equality policies and counter misinformation and moral panic narratives.
Finally, our interviewees have highlighted the importance of everyday pragmatic resistance.
Feminist responses do not occur only through major reforms or highly visible political moments. They also take shape through routine administrative work, procedural negotiations, informal advocacy, and small-scale practices. Importantly, these responses do not always involve direct confrontation or explicit engagement with anti-gender actors. In some cases, feminist institutional response may also operate through strategic silence, non-response, delay, avoidance, or other forms of micro-resistance that seek to contain, deflect, or minimize anti-gender interventions within institutional settings. These less visible practices are often essential to sustaining feminist politics within institutional settings.
Together, these strategies demonstrate that feminist institutional responses are multifaceted and operate across different scales of governance and political action.
The Spanish case is significant because it illustrates how rather than merely defending existing rights, feminist institutional actors may attempt to reinforce democratic protections precisely when anti-gender mobilization seeks to weaken them.
The findings of the CCINDLE project ultimately show that feminist response to anti-gender politics does not take place only through grassroots mobilizations and social movements. Feminist actors working within institutions also play a crucial role in defending rights, resisting democratic rollback, and advancing gender equality from inside political and institutional arenas. Whether through rule-making, coalition-building, knowledge production, or everyday pragmatic engagement, feminist engagement within institutions remains a key site of democratic resistance in contemporary Europe.
Authors: Anastasia Barone and Emanuela Lombardo, Scuola Normale Superiore. 11th June 2026