The enemy’s enemy: feminism at the crossroads of neoliberal co-optation and anti-gender conservatism

Abstract

Contemporary left-wing feminist and queer politics finds itself in a double-bind between on the one hand neoliberal and corporate embracement of gender equality and sexual diversity, and (neo)conservative anti-gender mobilization on the other. In anti-gender discourse, feminist and queer politics is commonly seen to be backed up and disseminated by global corporations. Thus, in a time when nationalist ultra-conservative movements are increasingly challenging neoliberal hegemony and political and economic elites, there is a need for progressive movements on the left to understand specifically how anti-gender rhetoric is underpinned by a critique of corporate power. Through empirical analysis of the Canadian-based web-portal LifeSite, this article examines the ideological 'grip' of anti-establishment antigender discourse as well as the weakest points in its critique of market capitalism and corporate power in order to identify entry points for their politically effective contestation.

Feminism contested and co-opted: Women, agency and politics of gender in the Greek and Greek-Cypriot far right

“…For example, in line with (neo)liberal feminism, women’s participation in the political sphere based on their abilities and men and women’s sameness are emphasised (Rottenberg, 2014). This substantiates the argument made by others that neoliberal feminism and femonationalism often work in tandem in the far right’s attempts to undermine feminism and present its own policies as the only way for the unproblematic organisation of the ethnonational community’s sociopolitical relations by denying structural, institutional and intersectional inequalities, and by distinguishing equal rights from equal status (Dietze, 2022; Elomäki and Kantola, 2018; Gunnarsson Payne and Tornhill, 2021; Petzen, 2012; Sprengholz, 2021).…”

“…This raises concerns about feminism’s individualisation and nationalisation, and about gender and gender issues’ depoliticisation and repoliticisation through their decoupling from feminism as a theoretical and political project concerned with intersectional, structural and institutional inequalities (Dietze, 2022; Elomäki and Kantola, 2018; Gunnarsson Payne and Tornhill, 2021; Petzen, 2012; Sprengholz, 2021). As Gunnarsson Payne and Tornhill (2021: 4) explain, contemporary feminism is faced with a ‘double-bind’, since ‘neoliberal policy, market solutions and socioeconomic inequalities have paved the way for the authoritarian turn on which anti-gender politics itself thrives’.…”

“…This is particularly the case in times of economic crises and democratic decline that facilitate gender conservatism’s rise and attempts to present it as the solution to concomitant material problems and cultural anxieties. These attempts are often successful as, contrary to anti-racist and intersectional approaches to gender and gender equality, the far right has the ability to promote contradictory positions and get away with them (Cullen, 2020; Dietze, 2022; Gunnarsson Payne and Tornhill, 2021; Sauer et al, 2017).…”

“…ELAM’s aforementioned political move shows that unless feminism is grounded in a critical intersectional tradition, its language and achievements can be employed by anti-feminist forces that may use them to erase gender as a relational category linked to power and construct exclusionary versions of feminism (Elomäki and Kantola, 2018; Gunnarsson Payne and Tornhill, 2021; Petzen, 2012). The following excerpt from an interview with an ELAM woman politician supports the argument:…”

Disinformation and gendered boundarymaking: Nordic media audiences making sense of “Swedish decline”

“…It may then appear paradoxical that the framing of gender equality and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights as “national” or “European” values, coexists with growing gender conservative sentiments and celebration of heteropatriarchal ideals of family, masculinity, and femininity within Western societies. Nationalists, Christian conservatives, and increasingly also self-proclaimed liberals attack what is described as a harmful “gender ideology,” as they variously criticize gender mainstreaming policies, feminism, gender-based violence legislation, LGBT, and particularly trans rights, sexual education, or academic gender studies (Gunnarsson Payne and Tornhill, 2021; Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017). Through descriptions such as “gender doctrines,” “feminazis,” and “cancel culture,” politics of social justice is reframed as an authoritarian assault on freedom of speech, a language which reverses victim–perpetrator roles by portraying the normative subject as the oppressed part (Brown, 2018).…”