Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment

This book aims to make sense of political developments towards more gender conservative populist movements from a feminist perspective, analyzing both ultraconservative campaigns against gender, which started around 2010, and the mass feminist mobilizations responding to them since 2016.

This book charts the new phase of global struggles around gender equality and sexual democracy: the ultraconservative mobilization against "gender ideology" and feminist efforts to counteract it. It argues that anti-gender campaigns, which emerged around 2010 in Europe, are not a simple continuation of the anti-feminist backlash dating back to the 1970s, but part of a new political configuration. Opposition to "gender" has become a key element of the rise of right-wing populism, which successfully harnesses the anxiety, shame and anger caused by neoliberalism and threatens to destroy liberal democracy. *Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment offers a novel conceptualization of the relationship between the ultraconservative anti-gender movement and right-wing populist parties, examining the opportunistic synergy* between these actors. The authors map the anti-gender campaigns as a global movement, putting the Polish case in a comparative perspective. They show that the anti-gender rhetoric is best understood as a reactionary critique of neoliberalism as a socio-cultural formation. The book also studies the recent wave of feminist mass mobilizations, viewing the transnational revolt of women as a left populist movement.

This is an important study for those doing research in politics, cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies and sociology. It will also be useful for activists and policy makers.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com , has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Autorentext

Agnieszka Graff is Associate Professor at the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw. She is a feminist activist and public intellectual. Her articles on gender in Polish and U.S. culture have appeared in Public Culture, Signs, European Journal of Women's Studies, Feminist Studies and East European Politics and Societies. She has authored five books of feminist essays in Polish, among them wiat bez kobiet (World without Women, 2001, anniversary edition 2021) and Matka feministka (Mother and Feminist, 2014, Spanish edition 2021). She coedited the Spring 2019 theme issue of Signs "Gender and the rise of the global right."

Elbieta Korolczuk is Associate Professor at Södertörn University in Stockholm and at the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw. She is a sociologist, commentator and women's and human rights activist. Her research interests involve gender, social movements, civil society and politics of reproduction. Her recent publications include two edited volumes: Civil Society Revisited: Lessons from Poland (co-edited with Kerstin Jacobsson, 2017) and Rebellious Parents: Parental Movements in Central-Eastern Europe and Russia (co-edited with Katalin Fábián, 2017), as well as the coauthored volume Bunt kobiet. Czarne Protesty i Strajki Kobiet (Women's Rebellion. Black Protests and Women's Strikes, 2019, with Beata Kowalska, Jennifer Ramme and Claudia Snochowska-Gonzalez).

Inhalt

Introduction: the demonization of "gender" and the crisis of democracy 1 Gender, anti-gender and right-wing populism: recasting the debate 2 Mapping the anti-gender campaigns as a global movement: from religious trend to political struggle 3 Worse than communism and Nazism put together: Poland's anti-gender campaigns in a comparative perspective 4 Gender as Ebola from Brussels: the uses and abuses of the anti-colonial frame 5 Anxious parents and children in danger: the family as a refuge from neoliberalism 6 Counteracting anti-gender movements: toward a populist feminism? Conclusion: gender in the populist moment