If you ever get the feeling that, when it comes to women's rights, we are going backwards, there is a good reason for that – we often do. Because human rights have slowly evolved over many centuries, we tend to assume that things just naturally improve over time, and will never again be as bad as they once were.
But if last year's resurgence of the global far right has taught us anything, it's that this concept of linear social progress is pure fantasy. Rights are not granted automatically with the passage of time; they are bitterly fought for and won, and can be taken away almost without warning.
![The masks of Donald Trump and the Russian President Vladimir Putin on a world map.](/web/20170126072900im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/y/5/s/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gty4hl.png/1485301469234.jpg)
This week, Russia is on the verge of passing a bill that will decriminalise domestic violence except in cases of rape, and where it causes serious bodily harm. This seems a remarkable step backward in a country where 40 per cent of violent crime is already committed in family environments, and where more than 9000 women were killed in domestic violence incidents in 2013 alone.
How could such an overtly unjust and misogynistic law possibly pass?
Quite simply – because there is always a danger that zealous religious conservatives will be appeased by politicians that, driven by their own agendas, are willing to use the rights of women as a bargaining chip: something that can be negotiated, traded away, and betrayed.
The Russian bill has been spearheaded by ultra-conservative MP, Yelena Mizulina, demonstrating once again how patriarchy is all too often policed by women who bafflingly appear to view themselves as an exception to the gender stereotype they seek to impose on other women.
While it's easy to assume that all these politicians explicitly hate women, the truth is perhaps even more frightening – they see women as expendable.
We have seen firsthand what happens when people are willing to gamble with the rights of others as US President Trump swept to power on the back of an overtly racist and sexist platform. Sure, not everyone who voted for Trump is overtly and hatefully racist, they just happen to be all too willing to jeopardise the rights of racial minorities in the hope their own demands are met.
![Yelena Mizulina (L), is the ultra-conservative Russian MP behind the bill.](/web/20170126072900im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/x/0/c/q/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gty4hl.png/1485301469234.jpg)
Likewise, many of those Russian politicians may not personally hit their wives or even condone such behaviour – they just happen to be prepared to indulge those that do. Meanwhile, for the Yelena Mizulinas of the world, adherence to so-called "traditional family values" is a single-minded obsession, one on which they will not budge.
To put it another way: restricting women's rights means more to Mizulina than protecting them does to the other predominantly male politicians in the parliament. This is the nature of political negotiations; each side knows they can't get everything they want, so they have their non-negotiables and those they are willing to concede.
![US President Donald Trump signs an executive order reinstating the gag rule prohibiting receivers of aid from discussing ...](/web/20170126072900im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/x/p/w/s/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gty4hl.png/1485326147379.jpg)
All too often, it is the rights of women that are conceded.
In one of his first acts as President, Donald Trump this week signed an executive order reinstating the gag rule prohibiting aid agencies that receive US funds from even discussing abortion with the women they support.
This move was entirely expected – the gag rule has been overturned and reinstated every time the White House has changed hands since it was created by Republican president Ronald Reagan in 1984. Nonetheless, it deftly demonstrates not only how western governments are a far greater threat to the rights of people outside their own countries, but just how much powerful men regard women's bodies as mere political tools.
This is something women in Afghanistan are all too aware of. The fall of the Taliban shortly after the US invasion in 2001, was meant to herald a new era in women's rights. Certainly, great inroads were made, such as a 25 per cent quota for women in parliament. However, within a few short years, president Hamid Kharzai proved himself willing to bargain away women's lives and bodies to appease his own country's conservatives. Among other concessions, Hamid introduced the Shia Personal Status Law, regulating the lives of the country's Shia population and granting almost complete control of a woman's life to her husband.
Do not think Australia is immune to this ambivalence politicians have for the rights of women. As recently as 2013, then-premier of Victoria Denis Napthine kowtowed to conservative Christian evangelical MP Geoff Shaw to allow a conscience vote on abortion reforms.
This followed previous attacks on reproductive rights from politicians such as Family First's Steven Fielding and the Democratic Labor Party's John Madigan..
As Amy Gray wrote for Fairfax at the time, "The comparative short-term benefit of mollifying rogue politicians such as Shaw could have a long-term impact on a woman's right to make choices concerning her body – because when the first 'small' foothold in personal rights is taken, it's easier to erode the rest."
It is not only those who openly want to restrict the rights of women that pose a risk to us, it also those predominantly male politicians who simply don't care enough about issues that are little more than abstract concepts to them.
Combine this ambivalence with the obsession of the the patriarchal fundamentalists of the world – whether they subscribe to a Christian, Muslim, or other expression of patriarchy – and we have a situation where women's rights will never be completely safe.
It is important to know exactly what we are up against.
As I have written previously, religious fundamentalists of all stripes work together behind the scenes to impose anti-women and anti-LGBTI laws across the world wherever possible. As we head into this new year and new age of uncertainty, more than ever, we have to instil in our political representatives that women's rights are not a bargaining chip that can be sacrificed for their own political agendas.
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