On September 25, 2025, FSI Senior Fellow Claire Adida presented her team’s research at a CDDRL Research Seminar Series talk under the title, “Overcoming Barriers to Women’s Political Participation: Evidence from Nigeria.” The seminar addressed a central paradox in global politics: although women’s legal formal right to vote is nearly universal, deep gender gaps remain in informal forms of political participation, such as contacting a local government official or attending a community meeting. This lack of engagement means women’s voices are underrepresented in governance and policies are less likely to reflect their priorities. This is particularly salient in hybrid democracies, where informal political participation may matter more than casting a vote.

Adida situated the study in the context of Nigeria, a large and diverse democracy that remains heavily patriarchal. Surveys highlight these disparities starkly: nearly half of Nigerian men believe men make better leaders than women; two in five women report never discussing politics with friends or family; and women are consistently less likely than men to attend meetings or contact community leaders. Against this backdrop, the project tested interventions designed to reduce barriers that discourage women’s participation.

The research team identified three categories of constraints: resource-based (a lack of time, skills, or information), norms-based (social expectations that women should remain outside the public sphere), and psychological (feelings of disempowerment and doubt about one’s capacity to create change). The study focused on the last two. To explore these, the team partnered with ActionAid Nigeria to conduct a randomized control trial (RCT) across 450 rural wards in three southwestern states. Local leaders identified groups of economically active women, aged 21 to 50, who were permitted by their spouses to join.

All communities began with an informational session on local governance. Beyond that, two types of training were introduced. The first, targeted at women, consisted of five sessions over five months designed to build leadership, organizing, and advocacy skills. These emphasized group-based learning and aimed to foster collective efficacy — the belief that a group can act together to achieve change. The second, targeted at men, encouraged husbands to act as allies in supporting women’s participation. After the initial informational session, communities were randomly assigned to no longer receive further training, to receive the 5 sessions of women’s training, or to receive the 5 sessions of women’s training and the 5 sessions of men’s training.

The findings were striking. Women’s trainings had clear positive effects: participants were more likely to engage in politics, attend meetings, and contact local leaders. The quality of their participation also improved, suggesting greater confidence and effectiveness. There was also evidence that these women’s trainings activated collective and self-efficacy, lending credence to the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA), a framework explaining how a sense of shared identity, group-based injustice, and group efficacy build political engagement. By contrast, men’s trainings produced modest results. They did not increase women’s participation beyond the women’s trainings and, in some cases, had small negative effects, such as on grant applications. Still, men’s trainings reduced opposition to women’s involvement, improved beliefs about women in leadership, and increased perceptions of more permissive community norms, even if they did not translate into an increase in women’s political participation.

Adida noted that these limited effects may reflect “ceiling effects” — many men in the sample were already relatively supportive compared to national averages, or lower attendance rates. It is also possible that changes in men’s attitudes take longer to manifest in behavior. The seminar concluded that advocacy trainings for women show strong promise in boosting participation, while efforts to reshape patriarchal norms among men may require longer-term strategies.

When it comes to managing the administrative tasks that are required to run a home and raise a family, women bear the brunt of the responsibility. According to one study of women in the United States, mothers take on 7 out of 10 so-called mental load tasks, which range from planning meals to scheduling activities for children.

All that extra work takes a toll, including on society: Women who carry more mental load are less interested in national politics (men who carry more mental load also report less political interest, but fewer men are in that position).

Read the full story in the Stanford Report.

Sheryl Sandberg, former Chief Operating Officer of Meta and founder of LeanIn.org — an NGO dedicated to empowering women and girls — told a Stanford audience that the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and sexual violence against women drew her back to the spotlight with a message for the world:

“What is at stake is actually important for all of humanity,” she said at a Nov. 19 film screening of her documentary, Screams Before Silence. The event was hosted by the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program, housed at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Hillel at Stanford.

The film included eyewitness accounts from released hostages, survivors, and first responders. During the Hamas attacks on Israeli towns and at the Nova Music Festival, women and girls were raped, assaulted, mutilated, and killed. Released hostages have revealed that Israeli captives in Gaza have also been sexually assaulted.

Yet, as Sandberg noted, the atrocities have received little scrutiny or attention from human rights and feminist groups, international organizations, and others. Some denialists have even said Hamas’ sexual violence never took place or that it was invented by Israel itself — an echo of 9/11 denialism and antisemitic conspiracy theories. So, Sandberg undertook the challenge of creating a 60-minute documentary, which has now registered almost three million YouTube views while also being screened around the world.

‘Make people see this’

Sandberg interviewed survivors and witnesses and survivors and traveled to the site of the Nova Music Festival, where 364, mostly young revelers, were murdered in the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. She viewed hundreds of photos of dead bodies of women who displayed clear signs of sexual abuse and harm.

She noted that even war has rules of law and that what she discovered while making the film was often incomprehensible, tragic, and heartbreaking.

Rape should never be used as an act of war, she said, and silence is complicity. “We know we have to keep fighting and trying to make people see this.”
 

Mona Tajali, a scholar of gender and politics, has been a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law since 2023. Her research interests include women’s political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey, as well as the institutionalization of women’s rights in semi- or non-democratic contexts. This fall, Tajali brings her extensive expertise to Stanford's undergraduates through a new course, FEMGEN 202: Global Feminisms. Tajali previously designed and taught this course as an associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College, a historically women’s liberal arts college in Atlanta.

"Global Feminisms" is designed to explore the diverse and often conflicting ways in which feminists around the world advocate for gender equality. The course promises to provide students with an interdisciplinary framework to critically engage with feminist theories and practices on a global scale. Rather than merely surveying the various feminist movements, FEMGEN 202 aims to equip students with the analytical tools to understand and research feminist activism across different cultural and political contexts.

The course begins with foundational concepts such as intersectionality, othering, and postcolonial feminism. These concepts are crucial for understanding the historical power dynamics and hierarchies that have shaped feminist discourses, particularly in non-Western contexts. Tajali’s course also delves into the complexities of religiously inspired forms of feminism, including Islamic feminism, challenging students to think beyond traditional Western feminist paradigms.

Tajali’s course is particularly timely as the global feminist movement continues to navigate the challenges of building solidarity across borders. Students will be encouraged to consider how feminists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives can work together to address common concerns, despite sometimes having opposing views on how best to improve the status of women.

Tajali’s academic journey has been marked by a deep commitment to understanding and advancing women’s rights in complex political contexts. Tajali is the author of several significant works, including Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both of which are accessible as open-access publications. Her co-edited volume, Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), was also published this year, applying a gendered lens to the study of national constitutions of several Muslim countries. Her research has been further published in both academic and popular outlets, among them the Middle East Journal, Politics & Gender, The Conversation, and The Washington Post.

Beyond her academic contributions, Tajali has been an active participant in transnational feminist networks. She is a long-term collaborator with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), a global solidarity network that advocates for women’s rights in Muslim contexts. Since 2019, she has also served on the executive board of WLUML, further bridging the gap between academia and grassroots activism, and currently directs their Transformative Feminist Leadership Institute.

As Tajali brings her expertise to Stanford this fall, students will have the unique opportunity to engage with global feminist issues through the lens of a scholar deeply immersed in both academic research and practical advocacy. "Global Feminisms" promises to be a transformative course that not only broadens students’ understanding of feminism worldwide but also prepares them to contribute thoughtfully to the ongoing global conversation about gender equality.