To save DE&I, we need Feminist Leadership

Editor’s Note: This op-ed is authored by Sophia Seawell, who leads FAIR SHARE’s international Feminist Leadership work and resource mobilisation, and is a jury member for the Flame of Solidarity Award at the 2025 Wedu Women’s Leadership Awards. 

There’s a lot of talk about backlash on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&) initiatives in the workplace – and less conversation about how we can resist it. After all, these anti-rights movements are well-funded and well-coordinated, so we need to be strategic too. And Feminist Leadership can provide us with a path forward.

While the most extreme anti-DE&I measures have been introduced in the U.S, unfortunately, it would be naïve to think of this as a U.S. problem. How things unfold there is often a canary in the coalmine, a warning sign for things to come elsewhere. For example, a Bloomberg analysis found that “Mentions of DEI in earnings calls for Europe’s stock market index […] have been steadily falling since hitting a high of 71 mentions in Q1 2021, shortly after the murder of George Floyd.”

It’s true that the social impact sector works differently than the public or private sector, but we also know that we are not immune to the forces shaping the rest of society – reflected in the fact that we haven’t achieved gender equity in the sector. On top of that, in an already resource-scarce environment, the USAID and other public funding cuts over the last year have left the sector scrambling – and we know that when capacity is low, DE&I is often the first to go.

“We know that when capacity is low, DE&I is often the first to go.”

You might be thinking: is DE&I really worth saving? Many have treated it as a box-ticking exercise, doing the bare minimum to maintain good optics but never diving deeper into the real work, the hard work, of critical self-reflection (individually and structurally). But DE&I is worth defending not only because it can have a positive impact when done intentionally and intersectionally, but also because the current backlash represents something bigger: a backlash on feminism at large. And this is precisely where Feminist Leadership comes in.

There are many definitions of Feminist Leadership, but it can be broadly described as a practice that emerged from feminist movements in the Global Majority to challenge traditional, hierarchical forms of leadership, organising and collaboration. Feminist Leadership can be practised at the individual level (how do I hold power, and how can I use it to best serve others?) as well as the institutional level (how do our policies and structures reflect our values?). Critical self-reflection, sharing power, accountability, transparency, and collective care are often mentioned in tandem with Feminist Leadership.

“Courage, creativity and collaboration are particularly relevant amidst the anti-feminist, anti-DE&I backlash.”

Three more key principles of Feminist Leadership are particularly relevant amidst the anti-feminist, anti-DE&I backlash:

Courage: Feminist Leadership is not about doing what’s popular or convenient but rather doing what’s right. Even in moments of societal pressure, our commitment to disrupting power and challenging oppression in all its forms guides our actions and decisions.

Creativity: While our purpose is clear, the path to liberation is not always straightforward. Continuing feminist work when the political tides are against us may sometimes require getting creative, and finding covert, strategic or even counter-intuitive means towards our ends.

Collaboration: it won’t be enough to deal with the DE&I backlash as individual organisations; to survive and push back against this movement,  we need a movement of our own. We need to share our questions, challenges, learnings and ideas with one another. It’s easier to be brave together.

“Feminist Leadership reminds us that traditional, risk-averse, top-down structures are exactly what got us here.”

Precisely in moments of crisis is when Feminist Leadership can serve us best; while reverting to traditional, risk-averse, top-down modes of decision-making and management may seem safest, Feminist Leadership reminds us that these structures are exactly what got us here.

So if the DE&I backlash hasn’t hit you yet, now is the time to prepare for it, to strengthen and future-proof those efforts, to ensure your community and stakeholders understand the value of this work – but also to be real about what wasn’t working, and why. With the tools of Feminist Leadership, we can not only protect DE&I, but reimagine and reconfigure it into a tool that truly serves our feminist visions of feminist workplaces – and a more feminist world.

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