海角大神

European women have long pondered why the US has failed to pick a female president.

Sometimes the question carries with it a note of smugness. After all, Angela Merkel has been leading Germany for more than a decade, while Theresa May became British prime minister this summer, 37 years after Margaret Thatcher broke that barrier. Iceland just elected 30 women to its parliament of 63 members, far surpassing the US on gender representation.

Yet the defeat of Hillary Clinton, who pollsters had predicted would finally break the most impenetrable of glass ceilings, has stung European women and feminist movements more personally: it is being viewed as a threat to their own movements and gains.

鈥淭his is not just America鈥檚 problem,鈥� stated the聽Women鈥檚 Equality Party in Britain.

That is sparking a continental 鈥減ro-lash,鈥� as opposed to backlash, much like the one that US authors Maggie Ellis Chotas and聽Betsy聽Polk have noted in the US. Europeans are trying to talk about new ways to reach out and talk with one another, about issues from income and gender equality to truth-telling in politics and media. Those conversations are taking new urgency: Trump鈥檚 victory comes as Europe is seeing a resurgence of populism and conservatism that is also dividing societies here.

鈥淚f anything, we鈥檙e more committed than ever and more ready than ever to step up the fight for women鈥檚 rights and gender equality,鈥� says聽Emily Usher Shrair, program manager at the European Women鈥檚 Lobby in Brussels.

Her organization, for example, just launched the 鈥溾�� to 鈥渆nsure that women鈥檚 leadership is given the funding it deserves and that there isn鈥檛 a sense of feeling disheartened that the glass ceiling wasn鈥檛 broken,鈥� Ms. Shrair says.聽

Meanwhile, Brita聽Fernandez聽Schmidt, the executive director of Women for Women International UK, says her staff sat down on Monday to a meeting and immediately asked, 鈥淥K, right, what are we going to do? This is not going to be business as usual.鈥�

One immediate idea: a livestream Facebook panel featuring 25 men debating the subject of women鈥檚 empowerment.聽She is also chairing a panel on feminist foreign policy for the first Women's Equality Party Conference to be held next week in Manchester. She says she had assumed Clinton鈥檚 triumph would lead the discussion, but now they are forced to 鈥渞eevaluate鈥� to understand what the election results mean globally.

More women on stage

Clinton鈥檚 loss comes just as more women leaders have occupied prominent stages. While neither Ms. May nor Ms. Merkel have necessarily led on women鈥檚 empowerment, had Clinton won, she would have joined them at the table of the G7, a powerful symbol. Barcelona, Madrid, and Rome are today all led by women mayors, while Nicola Sturgeon is the first minister in Scotland. France鈥檚 Christine Lagarde heads the International Monetary Fund.

Jessica Smith, a PhD candidate in gender and political leadership at Birkbeck, University of聽London, says that the results in the US show how easily progress can be rolled back.聽

鈥淲hen we talk about the gap, the pay gap or gap in representation, saying a girl has to wait X amount of years before she is paid the same, we are always assuming the rate of growth will continue,鈥� she says. 鈥淭he scary thing about the US election, it emphasizes that these things can go backwards.鈥澛�

To be sure, Clinton鈥檚 loss was about far more than gender. With white, working-class women backing Trump, it underlined what was perhaps her bigger challenge: lack of confidence in, and even disgust for, mainstream politics.

鈥淚 think the debate about Hillary Clinton hasn鈥檛 been about being male or female, but rather being part of the establishment,鈥� says Margreth L眉nenborg, a professor at the Free University of Berlin who researches gender in the public sphere.

For some, it鈥檚 even being viewed as a learning moment for feminism itself. 聽Jan Fleischhauer, an editor and columnist at Germany鈥檚 Spiegel Online, says the appeal of Trump among "angry white women鈥� 鈥� not just 鈥渁ngry white men鈥� 鈥� shows a lack of broad appeal for a feminism he says focuses too heavily around cultural issues.

鈥淚鈥檝e always thought that feminism to some extent took the wrong direction because it caters to a very specific niche of women who are very highly educated,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hese are issues that have a very high value to college students, but the moment you step out of a campus and go to a supermarket or a McDonald's and talk to people who work there, they have more pressing issues that they want to see addressed.鈥�

What speaks loudest

Despite alienation and disenchantment felt by men and women on both sides of the Atlantic, the fact that Trump won amid blatant displays of sexism and misogyny is what represents the biggest risk for many 鈥� and speaks loudest to where women actually stand today.

鈥淲e are always talking about racism holding people back, but you can see there is sexism, too,鈥� says Naomi Baxter, a young Brit who works in the tax office of Manchester.

And there is also a worrying acceptance by the larger society of sexism, says May Serrano,聽a feminist who runs the group 鈥淚mperfect Women鈥� in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao. 鈥淚 think [Trump鈥檚 victory] has brought to light many thoughts that continue to exist, but that you can鈥檛 say out loud because it has been politically incorrect,鈥� she says.

Beyond the symbolism and rhetoric, many fear Trump鈥檚 victory could have more direct impacts on the fight for equality around the world, especially if American aid to worldwide and sexual reproductive health is cut under a Trump administration.聽

Things could shift at home, too, as right-wing politics shifts the agenda. The governing Law and Justice party in Poland has sparked massive protests in efforts to clamp down on abortion. In the rhetoric of many other parties, more fixated on EU membership or immigration, many observers detect an anti-feminist agenda, says Ulrike Herwerth, from the German Women鈥檚 Council.

Chantal Louis, editor at EMMA, a German feminist magazine, asked in a recent article: 鈥淲hy is it so important to look at this development in the US?鈥� and wrote, 鈥淔irstly, because there are a lot of increasingly angry men in Germany.鈥澛�

Later, she says in an interview, 鈥淲e fear that the victory of Donald Trump will change the climate of equal rights, also for us in Germany. We fear that men who reject equal rights of men and women will now feel like their claims are backed by popular demand.鈥�

That could lead, for example, to less support for state-funded childcare options in Germany.

Ms. Schmidt says it is important to analyze what happened.聽鈥淏ut we mustn鈥檛 do that at the cost of looking forward,鈥� she says.

Trump鈥檚 election and Britain鈥檚 choice to leave the EU serve as a wake-up about the binary choices politics is offering.

鈥淢y question is whether, instead of focusing on one political candidate or party politics, it is more important to actually connect at the human level, with each of us taking the responsibility to talk about the issues that are close to us, instead of focusing on agendas,鈥� Schmidt says.

She adds: 鈥淚n envisioning an equal and just future 鈥� it is really important that we try and move away from the hatred, bitterness, and anger.鈥�