Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian leaders view women’s rights as a direct threat to their grip on power, arguing that the global rollback of democracy cannot be separated from the repression of women.
“I can say from personal experience that Putin is threatened by strong women,” Clinton wrote in a social media post linking to a new essay published in Foreign Affairs. “He and his fellow autocrats have reason to fear us: Defending women’s rights and combating authoritarianism is the same fight.”
I can say from personal experience that Putin is threatened by strong women.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 19, 2026
As I argue in a new piece in @ForeignAffairs, he and his fellow autocrats have reason to fear us:
Defending women's rights and combating authoritarianism is the same fight. https://t.co/lQBwUuovfy pic.twitter.com/Cyr2hoOeJ8
In the essay, Clinton contends that autocracies now outnumber democracies worldwide and that nearly three-quarters of the global population lives under authoritarian rule. Over the past decade, she writes, leaders in China and Russia have consolidated control, fragile democracies such as Hungary and Turkey have drifted toward illiberalism, and coups in parts of Africa have toppled elected governments. Even in the United States, she argues, the rule of law has weakened amid rising threats of authoritarianism.
At the center of that global shift, Clinton identifies what she calls a crucial but often overlooked factor: the systematic persecution of women. Across regions and political systems, she writes, women have historically been at the forefront of democratic movements, and authoritarian leaders respond by targeting them as a means of consolidating power. Ignoring attacks on women’s rights, she argues, allows democratic erosion to accelerate.
Clinton points to her 1995 declaration at the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing that “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights,” a statement that underscored women’s role in the democratic movements that followed the end of the Cold War. From labor activism in Poland and civic movements in East Germany and Hungary to women-led mobilizations in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, she writes that women were central to political transformations that dismantled dictatorships and expanded democratic participation.
Today, she argues, women’s rights serve as an early warning signal of democratic decline. Authoritarian regimes hollow out institutions, criminalize dissent and concentrate power, often while simultaneously restricting women’s access to education, employment and political life. This repression, she writes, is both ideological and tactical: it reinforces patriarchal narratives about “traditional values” while weakening civic participation that could challenge entrenched power.
Clinton describes Afghanistan under the Taliban as an extreme example, noting that after retaking control in 2021 the group barred girls from secondary education, excluded women from universities and most employment, and removed them from public life. She argues that although the Taliban’s brutality may appear exceptional, similar patterns are visible elsewhere.
In Russia, she writes, Putin has promoted a vision of women primarily as mothers and caregivers, rolled back protections against domestic violence and cast liberal gender equality initiatives as foreign threats. She argues that such messaging is designed to bolster a patriarchal nationalist ideology and to insulate his rule from perceived internal and external challenges. Putin’s actions at home and abroad, including his invasion of Ukraine, she suggests, reflect insecurity as much as strength.
Clinton also highlights Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko, where opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was dismissed as a “housewife” before being forced into exile after a disputed election. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has promoted what he calls “illiberal democracy,” embraced pronatalist policies and framed abortion restrictions as defenses of national identity. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew from an international convention aimed at combating violence against women and has urged women to prioritize motherhood over careers.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, Clinton writes, the government has silenced feminist activists, tightened control over online discourse and encouraged women to return to traditional family roles as the country faces demographic challenges. She cites reports of coercive birth control measures and repression of Uyghur women in Xinjiang as part of a broader effort to reinforce state authority.
Clinton argues that even established democracies are not immune. In the United States, she points to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade and political rhetoric promoting pronatalist policies as examples of how women’s autonomy can become politicized. When women’s rights are treated as conditional, she writes, democratic norms weaken.
Beyond ideology, Clinton describes the repression of women as a deliberate political strategy. Research shows that mass movements with significant female participation are more likely to succeed and produce more durable democratic outcomes, she notes, giving authoritarian regimes an incentive to sideline female leaders. From Uganda and Liberia to the Philippines, women activists and journalists have faced intimidation, legal harassment, online abuse and violence.
She references Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, who has spoken about the weaponization of social media to target women journalists, and describes digital smear campaigns aimed at figures such as Yulia Navalnaya in Russia and protesters in Iran. Technology, Clinton argues, has amplified regimes’ ability to silence and intimidate women beyond national borders.
The erosion of women’s rights, she writes, weakens democratic institutions by discouraging political participation and narrowing the public sphere. Addressing that trend requires sustained investment in women’s leadership, protection of reproductive rights, elimination of gender-based violence and coalition-building among governments and civil society groups.
Clinton points to international frameworks such as the Women, Peace, and Security agenda and highlights examples where women’s participation strengthened democratic resilience, including peace processes in Northern Ireland and Colombia and expanded political representation in Rwanda and Namibia.
The lesson, she argues, is that women’s full participation is not a peripheral issue but a central pillar of democratic stability. “Women’s rights are still human rights,” Clinton writes, and authoritarian leaders recognize that empowering women threatens systems built on exclusion and concentrated power.
