Backlash as the Moment of Revelation

Caste and Gender Backlash: A Study of the #MeToo Movement in Tertiary Education in Kolkata, India

“…Where Faludi' s analysis fails is in its lack of intersectionality; 3 an emphasis that other writers of backlash have picked up on (Murib 2020;Rowley 2020;Townsend-Bell 2020). In reality, different women have different reasons to fight for their rights, and as a result the backlash they face, and how and to what extent they face it, is also different.…”

“…Respondents unanimously said that their caste had been targeted to stop them from moving ahead with their complaints. Backlash comes in different forms, ranging from subtle remarks to blatant dangerous threats (Mansbridge and Shames 2008;Sen, Vallejo and Walsh 2017;Townsend-Bell 2020). In this case study the positionality of the respondents was used as a tool to further marginalise and intimidate them through ostracisation, silencing, stereotyping, stigmatisation, and invisibility (Sen et al 2017).…”

Collective system‐supporting inaction: A conceptual framework of privilege maintenance

“…But in order to indicate its lower visibility, it is referred to as normative violence, indicating “the violence inherent to the operation of discursive categories, relating both to the formation of subjectivity and also to the facilitation of more overt ‘typical’ forms of violence” (Kenny et al., 2019, p. 802). In being a precursor for more overt forms of power exertion, normative violence reflects powerful groups’ attempts to forestall power loss through “preemptive backlash” (Townsend‐Bell, 2020). In line with this, the labelling of this phase as preventing (Lukes, 2005) reflects the attempt by the powerful to prevent open challenges to their power and privilege.…”

“…Given that social systems often work for the benefit of advantaged group members, it becomes immediately clear that they will not have goals to change this system (Chow et al., 2013; Phillips & Lowery, 2018), and will engage in cost‐benefit calculations when deciding to make group‐level concessions towards equity (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2000; Jun et al., 2017). It could also be that their imagination of alternative futures, which is considered a determinant of revolutionary tendencies among disadvantaged groups (Passini & Morselli, 2013; Sweetman et al., 2013), could actually hinder solidarity‐based action or even enhance backlash among dominant group members (Townsend‐Bell, 2020), since this alternative system will probably decrease their own group's (undeserved) social value. Successfully implemented change initiatives show that these fears among the dominant group are well founded.…”

Backlash

“…Indeed, a partial explanation of backlash's appearance as a reactive event may be in considering the surprising way that social structures transform in ways unanticipated by activists, whether their agenda is oppressive or anti‐oppressive. In this sense, backlash offers a “moment of revelation,” where emergent logics of oppression become apparent (Townsend‐Bell 2020, 287). When feminist anthropologists try to cut through media narratives and exaggerated attention to backlash perpetrators, what are we tracing—how our interlocutors read the backlash, how they are impacted, or how they struggle against it?…”