There is a tendency to talk about women in power as questions of representation: How many women un governments or serve in parliaments or Congress? When will the United States finally elect a woman president?
Linda Robinson thinks we are missing the bigger story. In her new book, Women in Power: Fighting for Democracy in an Age of Authoritarianism, Robinson, a senior fellow and director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that two troubling trends are converging. Democracy has been losing ground around the world, while decades of progress bringing women into political leadership have stalled – and that, she argues, is not a coincidence.
In our Cosmopolitics conversation, Robinson identified three forces hitting women particularly hard: the rise of a more paternalistic strain of authoritarianism that seeks to push women back toward traditional roles; the normalization of violent misogyny; and a digital ecosystem — increasingly turbocharged by artificial intelligence — that makes it easier to target women with sexualized attacks, threats and disinformation.
But Women in Power isn’t just a book about what is happening to women. It’s about what women are doing in response.
Robinson takes us to some of the world’s most vulnerable democracies, where women have found themselves facing some of the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders. Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen stood up to pressure from Xi Jinping. Estonia’s Kaja Kallas and Moldova’s Maia Sandu confronted Vladimir Putin and Russian efforts to weaken their countries from within.
Sandu told Robinson something that stayed with me: Moldovans didn’t elect her because she was a woman. They elected her because they thought she was honest. In a country plagued by corruption and outside interference, she represented something different. And, Robinson argues, that pattern repeats itself: women emerging from movements demanding reform and then broadening the coalitions supporting them.
Then there is Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who demonstrates another kind of power. The leader of a tiny Caribbean nation, Mottley has managed to force some of the world’s biggest financial institutions to rethink how vulnerable countries deal with debt and climate disasters. Her influence doesn’t come from military or economic might, but from ideas, persistence and an ability to build coalitions.
The backlash can be brutal. Former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin was subjected to gendered attacks while leading her country into NATO. Death threats against New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern tripled during her final two years in office. Women politicians increasingly face sexualized deepfakes and other forms of digital abuse largely unique in their intensity and character.
The United States has had women serve as vice president, secretary of state, congressional leaders, governors and generals, yet has never elected a woman president. Now Robinson sees a broader struggle over women’s place in public life, including inside the U.S. military. She was particularly blunt about the removal of senior women under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, arguing the effects on the leadership pipeline could last for years.
Meanwhile, after 80 years and nine men, the United Nations is choosing another secretary-general, with several highly qualified women in contention.
Robinson is careful not to argue that women are inherently better leaders, or even necessarily democratic ones. Women can be authoritarians too. Her argument is more interesting than that.
At a moment when authoritarian movements are challenging democratic institutions, some of the most compelling examples of resistance are coming from women who have learned how to build coalitions, strengthen their societies and exercise power even when the odds are stacked against them.
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