Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 May 2025
Calls to restrict women’s rights are a most effective rallying cry for right-wing populists and religious conservatives in their surprisingly successful attack on the foundations of liberal democracy. Populist leaders across the world use the aggrandizement of patriarchy and the opposition to women’s rights as the engine of a right-wing populist revolution. The success of the populist attack on women’s rights in liberal societies, together with decisions such as the American Dobbs decision, has confirmed feminist warnings regarding the flawed protection of women’s rights in liberal societies, which have hitherto been rejected by most liberals as unfounded and alarmist. The book claims that to understand the success of the religio-populist attack on women’s rights in liberal democracies, and its centrality to the success of right-wing populism, it is necessary to acknowledge and understand the patriarchal nature of liberalism and liberal societies. The introduction defines patriarchy and explains its connections to liberalism, religion, and populism, and the contemporary threat it poses to both women’s rights and liberal democracy. It then sets out the outline of the book.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.