Invisible Nation: Why Authoritarians Fear & Target Women and Democracy

In this vHopeful Conversation for International Women’s Day, Vanessa Hope speaks with authors Anna Malaika Tubbs (The Three Mothers, Erased) and Soraya Chemaly (Rage Becomes Her, The Resilience Myth, All We Want Is Everything) about why authoritarians fear and target women and democracy, and how American patriarchy is rooted in the country’s founding. They trace how Black women and mothers have long been cast as “foils” to the system even as they drive the deepest democratic change, unpack the intimate link between unequal family dynamics and strongman politics, and connect petromasculinity, militarism, and today’s wars for resources to the policing of women’s bodies and reproduction. The conversation also explores the radicalizing role of technology for young men versus the leadership of young women across social movements, considers what it means to dismantle male supremacy in practice, and ends with a hopeful vision: recognizing that we are already part of a multi‑generational struggle to build real democracy, learning from global feminist gains, and imagining institutions and constitutions that finally vest power in all the people. Get full access to Dream of a Better World at vanessahope.substack.com/subscribe