Gender, democracy and neoconservative anti-gender movement

The anti-gender movement is a social and political neoconservative movement that emerged in Europe in the early 2010s and has since spread worldwide. It opposes gender theory, feminism, and gender equality policies, claiming that they are harmful to society. It attracts diverse actors, from religious organizations and groups to radical right-wing parties, nationalist organizations, and groups of concerned citizens. The ""symbolic glue"" (Kováts & Põim, 2015) that holds these actors together is the idea of ""gender ideology,"" which acts as a kind of ""discourse coalition"" (Edenborg, 2021) that allows actors with different ideological, philosophical, and religious views to act through shared narratives. In Europe, the anti-gender movement emerged during the economic crisis, severe austerity measures, and the resulting increase in social inequalities. This further fuelled general dissatisfaction with the political and economic situation and, in particular, with the political and economic elites. The austerity measures were not the main trigger for the movement, but they greatly helped it, as the leaders of the movement successfully created the identity of the majority as oppressed vis-à-vis the corrupt elites. Today, the anti-gender mobilizations are intertwined with the current wave of right-wing populism, which has adopted a concept of ""gender ideology"" that shares some ideological structures with right-wing populist ideology. A key gap in existing research on anti-gender movements and the associated struggles for a new cultural and political hegemony is threefold: There is a lack of relevant empirical studies analyzing the reasons why the anti-gender movement was so attractive that it was able to attract large masses to its activities. Still lacking is a comprehensive structural and empirically grounded explanation of the causes and factors that contributed to its successes and its appeal among the general population. To this end, we will draw on a four-level understanding of the anti-gender movement associated with four crises that have contributed to its success following current theoretical debates about the anti-gender movement: the crisis of liberal democracy and the problems caused by neoliberalism, the crisis of masculinity, the crisis of equality, and the crisis of knowledge (epistemic crisis). In the field of anti-gender studies, most of the current research focuses on the (critical) analysis of frames within anti-gender discourse in different national contexts. However, our research (Kuhar, 2017; Kuhar & Pajnik, 2020) shows that the alleged threat of ""gender"" (as an empty signifier) is translated into short messages that incite fear, create moral panic and a sense of threat, but also play on simplistic essentialist notions of what is normal and natural. The proposed project will empirically test this hypothesis using the concepts of the ""politics of fear"" (Wodak, 2015) and ""affective governmentality"" (Sauer & Penz, 2017). Finally, the field of research on the anti-gender movement is dominated by political science and sociological studies, while legal analyzes are lacking. This research aims to fill this gap by providing a legal and sociological analysis of the past practices of anti-gender actors, such as citizens' initiatives, amicus briefs, and other forms of strategic litigation. The intersectional legal and sociological analysis is necessary because ""strategic litigation"" and the strategic use of the concept of ""human rights"" in national and transnational struggles against gender is one of the key strategies of this movement. Our main thesis is that the anti-gender movement strategically reinforces the uncertainties associated with the fundamental ontological questions of humanity, including gender, while offering a reassuring and strategically formulated response to current political, economic, social, and cultural changes that are seen as ""crises.""