A History of Resistance: Global Women's Movements

A History of Resistance: Global Women's Movements is written in white with some text in yellow. Two cut out images of women protesting in Iran and Sudan are on the opposite side of the text. Spark & Co. is written in white text, in a blue box, in the left hand corner. The background is a faded pink.

From organising against sexual violence in India, to racialised trans women leading on housing rights in the US, we explore global women-led movements for International Women's Day. 

Trigger warning: mentions of racism, state violence, sexual violence and mentions of rape. Take care when reading. 

Māori women campaigning for the right to vote

“At the heart of the Māori women’s movement were concerns about the well-being of Māori, the loss of land, and restrictions on Maori women’s rights to own land imposed by European laws,” New Zealand History writes.

Because of the enforcing of Western power structures such as gender roles, women were no longer seen in positions of power. In a colonial era, they had to find ways to campaign for their rights.

During the late 1800s, Māori women were integral to gaining the right to vote. 

Newspaper writers penned pieces on women’s voting rights in the 1860s and 70s, as well as other issues affecting their communities. The movement gained more momentum in the 1880s with Māori women-led groups and organisations forming. 

In 1893, New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote in elections. The bill was passed by the Liberal Party and also included Māori communities in its law. 

The movement inspired many Māori women to continue campaigning for the right to sit in office and parliamentary positions. 

But during the period of campaigning for the right to vote, “within the suffrage movement, Māori women were racially oppressed, having to sign agreements that they would never take on their ancestral sacred markings”. This happened “if they wished to join the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which spearheaded the suffrage movement,” writes indigenous advocate Tina Ngata.

It’s important to recognise the influence of Māori women who played a crucial part to gaining the right to vote, on top of facing abuse from other parts of the white-washed suffrage movement. 

If you want to support Māori women, you can:

Organising against sexual violence in India 

Across generations, women in India have gathered in their thousands to protest against sexual violence.

In 1972, the sexual abuse of a teenage girl by police in Mathura “created an uproar on a national scale,” Feminist India said. It was reportedly the first time that groups organised a country-wide scale movement. 

Decades of activism in India has seen women and marginalised gendered  communities continuing to advocate for survivors. Anti-rape laws have changed because of local activism. But sexual violence continues to remain a huge issue. 

Dalit women, who have been discriminated against because of their caste, face class-based struggles when advocating for their rights as survivors. 

“Government data shows that reported cases of rape of Dalit women increased by 50 percent% between 2014 and 2019”, the BBC stated.  “Studies show that most cases of rape of Dalit women go unreported. Lack of support from the family and reluctance on the part of the police to register complaints against upper caste men are common barriers.”

Dalit activists like Manjula Pradeep are working to support women in the community to understand their rights and seek justice.

If you would like to support women in India, you can:

Women in the UK protesting against domestic violence and police violence

Feminist movements in the UK have transformed since the early 1900s, now advocating for more intersectionality.

At the time, the suffrage movement - which ignored the contributions of racialised women, disabled communities and other people experiencing marginalisation - organised to gain the right to vote. But this didn’t include all women when laws first passed in 1918, focusing on middle-class people like Emmeline Pankhurst. Young and working class women “which very likely included a majority of [racialised] women” won the right to vote ten years later in 1928. 

Now, the rights of women and genders experiencing marginalisation have shifted to other issues, with grassroots groups and organisations leading the fight against domestic and police violence. 

As reported by domestic violence charity Refuge, “two women are killed a week by a current or former partner in England and Wales.”

Sisters Uncut are an intersectional feminist collective “taking direct action for domestic violence services”. They organise protests, campaigns and run training sessions for the community, like self-defense classes. 

In 2022, they set off 1,000 rape alarms at Charing Cross police station on the anniversary of the murder of Sarah Everard. 

Speaking about the action, they said: “One year ago today, the police waited until sunset to brutalise us at Clapham Common. Today, we waited until sunset to detonate 1,000 rape alarms at Charing Cross station”.

Other groups campaigning against violence women experience include Sistah Space, a community-led non-profit “created to bridge the gap in domestic abuse services for African heritage women and girls.” 

Their campaign, Valerie’s Law, aims to “make specialist training mandatory for all police and other government agencies that support black women and girls affected by domestic abuse.” The bill is named after Valerie Forde, “who was murdered together with her 23-month-old daughter Jahzara by her ex-partner” in 2014.

A petition, signed by over 106,000 people, was debated in Parliament  in March 2022. The campaign is ongoing in a bid to bring the bill into law. 

If you want to support women in the UK, you can:

Women-led resistance in Iran

For over a century, the Iranian women’s movement has been instrumental in changing laws and advocating for women’s rights. 

Because of women organising, many victories were gained - like the right to vote in 1963. Women-led groups advocating on a number of different issues were founded throughout this era as well.

But after the 1979 Iranian revolution, the rights that women had fought hard for were removed. 

Under a new government rule, led by the Islamic Republic of Iran, many laws that restricted and discriminated against women were introduced. Much like the years before though, women in Iran remained undeterred in their calls for justice and fundamental rights. 

This still echoes in the new movement of Iranian women activists. The death of Mahsa Jina Amin in 2022, who died in custody after facing police brutality, led to worldwide protests and support for women in Iran. 

If you want to support women in Iran, you can:

Racialised trans women in the US leading housing on rights

In the US, racialised trans women have been at the forefront of advocating for housing for their communities.

Trans activists Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera founded STAR [Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries] in 1970. The group was the first trans racialised women and sex worker-led organisation in the US. They were “dedicated to sheltering young transgender individuals who were shunned by their families.” 

Marsha and Sylvie paid rent for STAR’s space through their own sex work, when others - including in the LGBTQIA+ community - wouldn’t support them.

50 years on, trans people continue to experience homelessness, particularly for racialised communities ``almost as deeply as it did during the Stonewall era”, wrote Raquel Willis for Vogue.

“One in five transgender people has experienced homelessness at some point in their lives”, Willis added.

Since STAR, multiple trans women-led organisations work across the US, supporting trans people impacted by homelessness. 

My Sistah’s House in Memphis is one of these groups.  Founded by Kayla Rena Gore and Illyahnna C. Wattshall, two trans racialised women, who originally used their homes as shelter for trans people.  This grew into an organisation which has “become a pillar in its community, focusing on an array of services, including housing access, identification-document changes, bail support, and career coaching.”

Ceyenne Doroshow, a trans activist who has been campaigning in her community for decades, raised $1 million in under a week during the Covid-19 pandemic. She worked alongside other groups in New York, mobilising people for a vital cause. 

The money “will support the establishment of housing, social services, and health care clinics for transgender [racialised people] in New York City.”

And she’s still dreaming big for trans women, telling GQ: “I've been considering buying property upstate so I can start a farm,” she tells me. “I would love to see a trans-owned farmers market, a distillery run by trans girls. They're all just dreams, but the dreams are starting to manifest and happen.”

If you want to support trans women in the US, you can:

Burmese women protesting against Myanmar's military coup

In Myanmar, women have adopted many roles in the country’s resistance against the government.  Under previous military junta [“a military group that rules a country after taking power by force”] union organising was banned until 2011, so movements formed in other ways.  

This has included “tak[ing] up arms on the frontlines of battles to defend their freedom” to “supporting the country’s various opposition movements with food, funds, and resources.”

After the start of the most recent military coup in 2021, thousands went out to protest. Around 60 percent of the people protesting were women.  

Burmese women are instrumental in the history of Myanmar activism. Working class movements are part of that too, like women garment workers inspiring others to protest. And unionising has been key to their organising. 

“As women, we are the most at risk under the military but however large or small, our place is in the revolution,” said teacher Daisy during the first wave of military coup protests.

Note: It’s important to know that “since the military's coup on February 1, 2021, the political, economic, and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar has only grown more dire, with reports indicating nearly 3,000 killed, nearly 17,000 detained, and more than 1.5 million displaced.”  

There is also an ongoing persecution of Rohingya people in Myanmar.

If you want to support women in Myanmar, you can:

Sudanese women at the frontlines of the revolution

Since President al-Bashir came to power, women in Sudan have been at the forefront of activism in the country.

From different class and ethnic backgrounds, many different women organised together to resist the regime they were living under. This resistance happened “as early as 1993” with groups created to raise awareness and advocate for their rights as women. 

In 2019, a revolution took over Sudan with a military coup overthrowing President al-Bashir’s 30-year rule. Women were once again front and centre of the fight against the regime.  They organised themselves into “the largest women’s rights coalition in history, ‘MANSAM.’”

They participated in demonstrations while others helped to cook protestors meals and asked restaurants to donate food. 

Sudanese women were leading protests by “occupying the streets in the face of arrest, sexual assault, teargas, live bullets and harassment by security agents.” 

Primary school teacher Khalda Saber, who was encouraging people she met to join the protests, said: 

“I was telling them that there is nothing to lose, compared with what we have already lost. I was telling them that we have to take to the streets, demonstrate and express our rejection to what’s happening.”

Four years on, Sudanese women haven’t stopped organising in a post-revolution world and carry on fighting for their rights. 

While we remember this history, we’re reminded from activist Ruya Hassan: 

"Everyone romanticised the Sudanese revolution. They presented a Hollywood version of what was happening. We were quickly disillusioned." 

If you want to support women in Sudan, you can:

Want to learn more about resistance movements throughout history?

This piece was written by Spark & Co.'s Digital Marketing and Support Lead, Cherokee Seebalack (They/Them).