The Istanbul Convention does not apply to Istanbul, nor does it apply to any other part of Turkey. In 2021, Tayyip Erdoğan, one of the several institutionalised dictators in the world, decreed its annulment in Turkey. Ironically, it was opened for signatures at Istanbul in 2011 and Turkey was the first country to sign it the next year and then it became the first and the only country to  withdraw from it. “The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence,” as it is formally called, is the first multi-national effort to place the rights of women at par with human rights. It is no surprise that the least democratic regimes in Europe including Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland have not joined the Convention.

On March 8, 2023, the International Women’s Day, permission to hold a March in Istanbul was denied. Nevertheless, women turned up in large numbers and were tear-gassed by the police. Erdoğan has survived by fanning religious bigotry in rural areas with steps like revoking the ban on the hijab in public places, converting the Hagia Sophia to a mosque again and annulling the Istanbul Convention. Yet, he is not alone; dictators all over the world and in all ages have used ideological fervour, religious or irreligious, to create otherness and fear to cement their position as the saviour. Since most of the religions are male-centric, adulation of patriarchy and promotion of male chauvinism are handy tools for bringing more men on the streets in favour of the dictator and for suppressing pro-democracy movements.

Recent anti-hijab protests in Iran and the continued oppression of women, including denial of education, in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan have once again highlighted the virtual impossibility of sustaining women’s rights in theocracies. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Yemen and similar Islamic states continue to let patriarchy prevail over the human rights of women. Russia’s Orthodox Church has played a huge role in suppressing women’s rights with its head Kirill, who carries the pompous title of “Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia,” proclaiming feminism to be a dangerous phenomenon conferring pseudo-freedom outside marriage and family. He said, “Man turns his sight outward, he should work, make money. While a woman is always focused inwards towards her children, her home.” He is a close ally of the male-chauvinistic Putin and is the keystone that sustains Putin’s dictatorship.

Communist dictatorships are no different in spite of pious declarations to the contrary. Lenin had said soon after the Communist Revolution in Russia, “One of the primary tasks of the Soviet Republic is to abolish all restrictions on women’s rights.” He declared success in March 1921, saying that in Soviet Russia, no trace was left of any inequality between men and women under the law. Yet, in a research paper in 1971, Alice Schuster found that in the USSR, 90 per cent of swineherds, poultry workers and milking personnel were women and only 20 per cent of women were in some administrative or agricultural work. Even in the Communist Party, only 20 per cent of the members were women with virtually no representation in the higher echelons of the party. No woman ever headed a Warsaw Pact country or any other Communist-ruled country including Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Nicaragua and Nepal. In India, Communists ruled the states of West Bengal and Kerala for decades but did not choose a woman to head their government.

In the 102 years since the formation of its Communist Party, China has not had a woman leader at the helm of the Party or of the government since Mao came to power in 1949 and proclaimed “Women hold up half the sky.” In spite of 74 years of Communist rule, China continues to be a patriarchal society with domestic violence, work place sexual harassment and assault in public places against women being widespread and the system’s response  has remained lackadaisical. On June 10, 2022, at a restaurant in Tangshan, nine gangsters demanded sexual favours from women diners. They beat up three of them to pulp when they resisted, with other diners remaining mute spectators. Even as the whole incident was recorded through ubiquitous surveillance cameras, the party-controlled media made light of the incident, calling it a fair fight. The All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF), an official umbrella organisation “to protect women’s rights and interests” recognises the derogatory term sheng nü or the “leftover women”, similar to sheng cai or leftover food. It is defined as women who are not able to get married till the age of 27 years and the ACWF called such women “yellowed pearls” advising them to migrate to rural areas and marry a farmer since an urban man will not marry them!

Male chauvinism is so entrenched in the Chinese Communist Party that it has been fighting for the last few years what its controlled media calls a “masculinity crisis.” In 2021, the party brass gave a call to “prevent the feminization of male youth” and suggested greater emphasis on sports and physical education. The party diagnosis of the issue put the blame on there being more female instructors in physical education and it recommended hiring more male instructors. For the said feminization, in addition to female teachers, the party blamed the culture where pop stars with pierced ears influence male students.

Patriarchy and male chauvinism seem to influence language too. One’s own country is called “motherland” or “fatherland”, the latter being the favourite coinage of Hitler. On the other hand, in India, there is a hoary tradition of calling it the former. In the Sanskrit proverb “Janani janmabhumishcha swargaadapi gariyasi”, the country of birth is bracketed with the mother who gives birth. In recent times, some persons have objected to the use of the phrase “Bharat Mata ” in schools on religious grounds. It may be coincidental that in that religion’s practice, women’s rights are often curtailed. Putin has been, of late, using the word Fatherland, while traditionally, the Russian form was Motherland. As a thumb rule, liberal democracies promote respect and equality for women and are more likely to use “motherland”. Theocracies, Dictatorships and totalitarian ideologies promote patriarchy, a subservient image of women and the use of “fatherland.” Myanmar is a case in point. Democracy threw up a woman leader, Aung San Suu kyi. On the other hand, the military dictatorship has assiduously promoted patriarchy. It is not sheer coincidence that military rule is always accompanied by credible allegations of rape and occupying armies have used rape as a tool of war.

Indira Gandhi, Bandaranaike, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel and many other women rose to power in democracies and numerous women broke the glass ceiling in the corporate world. The oppression of women and the denial of equal opportunity to them seem to be inseparably linked to the lack of democracy. If democracies want the seeds of democracy to germinate and thrive in countries like Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, they should strive to support women’s rights in these countries.