| Summary/Abstract |
The article observes that women's rights politics in the United Nations are caught in full-scale polarization between feminist and conservative non-governmental organizations (NGOs), particularly visible in their fights over institutional spaces and language. It then sets out to elucidate the process by which this polarization came about. It first ties it to specific reasons for which conservative NGOs entered the UN; namely, their intent to halt and reverse the progress of women's rights. Next, the article observes that this intent has given birth to a specific style of conservative NGOs' advocacy: backlash advocacy. This advocacy differs from regular advocacy in that it does not target only UN decision-makers, but also a rival NGO group and its normative record. Polarization results from feminist NGOs' defensively reciprocating this attack. The article contributes to the literature on international organization (IO)–NGO relations by specifying why conservative NGOs, considered unlikely IO utilizers, end up actively using the UN and by showing that this diversification in NGOs' utilization of the UN can have detrimental rather than positive institutional effects. The article also invites feminist NGOs to be more aware of the political dynamic that now entraps them, and to tailor their future strategies accordingly.
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