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Gender as ‘Ebola from Brussels’: The Anti-colonial Frame and the Rise of Illiberal Populism
Abstract
This article analyzes antigenderism as a coherent ideological construction consciously and effectively used by right-wing and religious fundamentalists worldwide. In what follows we examine the basic tenets of antigenderism, shedding light on how it contributes to the contemporary transnational resurgence of illiberal populism. We argue that today’s global Right, while selectively borrowing from liberal-Left and feminist discourses, is in fact constructing a new universalism, an illiberal one, that replaces individual rights with rights of the family as a basic societal unit and depicts religious conservatives as an embattled minority. The article focuses on anticolonial frame, which has evolved into a powerful metaphor for the arrogance of Western liberal elites, a discursive device divorced from actual colonial history, which is why it has worked in countries such as Poland. The conservative version of anticolonialism simply equates gender egalitarianism with colonization and often compares it with twentieth-century totalitarianisms and global terrorism, or even the deadly Ebola virus. We argue that this version of the anticolonial frame works in the service of illiberal populism by demonizing global elites and claiming to come to the defense of ordinary people worldwide.
... We recognise the complexities and variations of anti-gender, anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ discourses and policies addressed by the contributors to this volume. 2 Here, we are inspired by Elżbieta Korolczuk and Agnieszka Graff's (2018) notion of anti-genderism and Meredith Weiss and Michael Bosia's (2013) understanding of political homophobia (see also Ayoub and Stoeckl 2024) to denote the mobilisations opposing gender equality, LGBTQ rights and a range of other connected themes that are 'moralised' through similar patterns, including sex education, Gender Studies and queer intimacy. ...
... Globally, we have seen anti-genderism and homophobic attitudes and policies taken up by a range of politicians, movements and activists on the illiberal to extreme-right spectrum (Altman and Symons 2016;Gevisser 2020;Korolczuk and Graff 2018;Weiss and Bosia 2013). The particular strain of right-wing politics in which we are interested is characterised by the shift from individual rights to a focus on traditions, religion and the family as the basic societal unit, while LGBTQ rights and gender-equality policies are interpreted as a new phase of 'global colonialism' (Korolczuk and Graff 2018, p. 815). ...
Resisting Far-Right Politics provides an empirically grounded exploration of different case studies on anti-LGBTQ and anti-gender mobilizations of the far-right in Europe and the Middle East. The contributions engage with multilayered histories of gender and sexuality politics that connect the Middle East and Europe, informed by histories of colonialism, racism, and border controls. A second underlying objective of this volume is to contribute to decolonized knowledge production by de-centering Europe and simultaneously de-exceptionalizing the Middle East. The contributors commit to respecting the heterogeneity and complexity of these regions by focusing on grounded and life experiences. Ultimately, this volume illustrates a conceptualization of the broad spectrum of. far-right politics and queer feminist critiques as manifested in a wide array ofding academia, politics, and everyday lives.
... Frequent targets were members of the LGBTQIA+ minority and activists, gender studies scholars, and feminist activists. The main narrative of the far-right's discursive strategy emphasised the need to protect the "traditional family" and the "silent majority" from attacks and oppression by radical "genderists" as well as to establish a defence against Western decadence (Graff & Korolczuk, 2018;Svatoňová, 2021). Often, these narratives were influenced by tropes that originated in pro-Russian online spaces and constructed the idea that the citizens of European countries were under the threat of a "great replacement" (Önnerfors & Krouwel, 2021). ...
The chapter provides an outline of the development of the Czech far-right from the end of 1980s to the year 2020, a period during which the Czech grassroots far-right scene changed in terms of ideology, organizational structure, and repertoires of action. We will focus primarily on far-right social movements, but political parties and musical subcultures will be included as well, as they not only interacted but also substantially overlapped. To underline both internal differences in far-right movements and the milieus and external conditions for their development, we identify three far-right activism waves. We will analyze each of them from two points of view: (1) how did the structure of political opportunities (approach of political elite, media, police, civil society, and targeted populations) change during the period and (2) how did various far-right milieus transform internally in terms of their ideology, organizational structure, and form of activities. These two questions will be interconnected by our analysis of how the development of various far-right movements and their interaction with political opportunities created path-dependency.
This book chapter scrutinizes divergent attitudes toward human rights universality, focusing on women’s rights, particularly in combating violence against women. It reveals cracks at both the international and pan-European levels. Moreover, the chapter illustrates that the European Union is not immune to such fractures. Tensions emerge, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, regarding the Istanbul Convention, reflecting a broader debate on universalistic versus traditional values, as well as on the appropriate governance level to address violence against women.
This chapter explains the emergence and trajectory of anti-gender politics in Turkey leading to the withdrawal from the İstanbul Convention in March 2021. I start with an overview of the transformations of gender politics in the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) 20 years of rule by proposing an explanation in three episodes. The chapter focuses on the third, and most current episode, in which we have been witnessing the conflictual co-occurrence of anti-gender movements and a deepening crisis of patriarchal authoritarianism. I argue that the emergence of the movements focused on withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention from around 2019 should be seen as a symptom of this crisis, revealing how a crisis of masculinity and growing male resentment have played a critical role in the emergence of the anti-gender movements. I mostly draw on the concept of ‘masculinist restoration’ proposed by Deniz Kandiyoti to suggest that it takes us beyond the concept of backlash and requires us to consider both the undermining of patriarchal structures and the problem of authoritarian governance as reaction formation boosted by the crisis of (neo)liberal democracy. I conclude with some thoughts regarding the implications of the Turkish case for wider transnational anti-gender politics.
This special issue brings articles discussing experience of LGBTQ+ people in the region of former socialist Europe as situated in a framework formed by institu-tional, legislative, and ideological regimes, covering several East- and Southeast European societies (Poland, the GDR, Socialist Yugoslavia, Serbia, North Mace-donia, Bulgaria), and spanning the socialist period, the transformations of the 1990s, the post-socialism era, and the present-day reality. The authors dwell on different modes of cultural production (television, cinema, literature), expose multiple hegemonic gazes on the history of LBGTQ+ activism and the hegemonic nature of discourses related thereto, as well as point to the ways LBGTQ+ experi-ences are dependent on social affects shaped by the historically accumulated and institutionalized hegemonic regimes. In its entirety, this issue poses an import-ant question regarding the nature and possibilities of agency and autonomy of LGBTQ+ people as individuals and communities, but also as historical subjects. The editors of this special issue highlight the experience of LGBTQ+ people in the region of former socialist Europe as a productive category, enabling navigation through different temporal frames and complex power relations, while simulta-neously avoiding the dangers of stereotyping and generalization. The experience brings together subjective and collective dimensions and helps follow the discrete histories and phenomena across spatial and temporal divisions.
In this article, we deliver an empirical analysis of far-right visualisations of womanhood on US Telegram channels. Previous studies show that the far right, which increasingly engages in misogynist, anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rhetoric, and opposition to feminism, is marked by the growing involvement of women in the roles of political leaders. Such engagement by women within the far right causes an ‘image problem’, as it makes the traditional gender image of wifely submission less convincing. Our analysis of images of womanhood shared on US far-right Telegram channels shows how far-right images of ‘approved’ performances of womanhood include transgressive gender performances of hegemonic femininity that are in conflict with conservative representations of womanhood in traditional nationalist ideology. Our findings also show how hateful images of liberal, non-binary and minority women serve as a tool for the construction of a variety of ‘approved’ far-right identity images of hegemonic femininity.
This article contributes to recent research on norms by highlighting the normative agency of non-Western, local recipients of global norms and the plurality of local responses to global norm diffusion. Bringing together insights from norm research and feminist scholarship, this study explores the reception of the global norm on violence against women (the anti-VAW norm) in Turkey, a Muslim majority country, over the past three decades. The study uncovers three different approaches to the global anti-VAW norm adopted by civil societal actors: adoption/compliance, contestation, and rejection. The analysis reveals that the global anti-VAW norm that seeks to unsettle established patriarchal gender hierarchies faces significant resistance in local contexts. The study thus emphasizes the importance of domestic normative frameworks that condition local responses to global norm diffusion.
Creating a positive classroom experience for students can be a challenge, especially when teaching a contested topic such as gender studies. Teaching and learning gender is teaching and learning against the grain, which can lead to feelings of comfort and discomfort among students. The objective is to capture different manifestations of dis/comfort and transformation within the classroom by presenting a case based on gender studies. The study builds on course evaluations collected between 2009 and 2019. The findings reveal three appearances of dis/comfort: inexplicit manifestations, explicit manifestations, and a transformation stage in which the experienced dis/comfort operates as a steppingstone leading to possible change through affective dissonance. We suggest that discomfort can be mitigated by openly discussing resistance and by giving students more autonomy over course assessment and lecture content but without watering down the curricula. Thus, it is possible to navigate transformation and reduce compliancy with the ruling regime.
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