Right-wing movements in Europe are characterized primarily by two themes, namely immigration and traditional family models, or, in a broader sense, gender issues. Gender-issues as well as a strong opposition to feminism and feminist ideas have been strongly included in the discourse by all actors Europe-wide. Recent events in Poland, the only country in the European Union to deprive its citizens of a legal right to abortion, are but one example. While Polish women's organizations are mobilizing against such setbacks, many women can be found in the leadership of right-wing parties across Europe. How to explain it that women are in the forefront of right-wing parties and movements? A detailed analysis is provided by Professor Julia Roth from Bielefeld University and PD Dr Gabriele Dietze, independent researcher, in their book, which we talked to them about in our L.I.S.A.Interview.
"Neoliberal climate marked by the economization and precarization of the social"
L.I.S.A.: Professor Roth, PD Dr Dietze, both of you are working in the field of gender studies for a long time. You quite recently published a book on "Right-Wing populism and Gender". How did right-wing populism come into this picture?
Prof. Roth: The answer is somewhat obvious: We were worried about the increasing right-wing populist tendencies that could be observed in many places, starting with the election of Victor Orbán in Hungary, the AfD (Alternative for Germany) and Pegida in Germany, the conservative and right-wing turn in Poland, and the elections of Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, to name but a few. It was striking how strongly all of these actors included gender topics into their discourses, and how rapidly gender issues and simultaneously a harsh opposition to feminism, LGBTQI-activism and gender studies approaches gained center stage. The debates about the right to free and legal abortion or marriage for all are just but two examples. From feminist perspectives, these phenomena were first predominantly described as mere "backlashes", promoting ideals of the past. Taking a closer look at the workings of such discourses and their particular dynamics, we found that things are more complex: gender and gender topics (such as women's and LGBTQI rights, sex-education of children or the role and function of families) seemingly served another function within the discourses of what we call the "right-wing populist complex": apparently, gender serves as a sort of meta-language, arena and affective bridge in order to catapult topics such as demography, anti-immigration sentiments, distributive measures like social welfare into the public arena. All this we saw happening in a setting of an increasingly neoliberal climate marked by the economization and precarization of many spheres of life and the social. That's why we brought all the scholars we knew who were individually working on the topic (and related topics) together in a conference, parts of the contributions of which form part of the book.