Mapping Anti-Gender, Anti-Feminist, Anti-Intersectional Rhetoric: Insights from the Horizon Europe RESIST Project
Creators: name: Lynch, Sheryl
name: Titley, Gavan
Publisher: name: RESIST Project
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Gender equality
subject: Gender studies
subject: Gender inequality
subject: Sociology
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Media and communications
subject: FOS: Media and communications
subject: Journalism
subject: Epistemology
subject: LGBT
subject: Queer
subject: Educational sciences
subject: FOS: Educational sciences
subject: Inclusive education
subject: Feminism
subject: Geopolitics
subject: Democracy
subject: Discourse analysis
subject: Anti-gender
subject: Social movements
subject: Political communication
subject: Europe
subject: Intersectionality
subject: Homosexuality
subject: Transgender
subject: Human rights law
subject: International protection of human rights
subject: Human rights violations
subject: Human rights
subject: Regional human rights
subject: Social inequalities
subject: Other social sciences
subject: FOS: Other social sciences
subject: Social issues
subject: Civil society

description: In this overview of our work in the horizon Europe RESIST project, we will summarise our understandings of the specific tactics, arguments, ideas, and narratives of anti-gender in Europe by working through five key case studies where these tactics are most visible, and analysing how these circulate between contexts, inform each other and are manifest through public controversies.
description: Kovats (2015) and others argue that the most successful strategy of anti-gender movements is, in fact, the language they are using for political mobilisation. For example:



Gender and sex education in schools, and the protection of children from sexual exploitation and paedophilia is another issue falling under the ‘gender ideology’ umbrella, yet particularly from LGBT persons30 or, more recently, from ‘powerful elites.’

The protection of parental rights against ‘state interference’ and ‘government overreach’ is instrumental in this discussion. Moreover, the ‘family’ is no longer (only) associated with ‘values’ and object of protection, but conceived as subject of rights, an idea that historically resonates throughout the religious enclaves in the Americas, but could be gaining traction in Europe as well.


In this overview of our work in the horizon Europe RESIST project, we will summarise our understandings of the specific tactics, arguments, ideas, and narratives of anti-gender in Europe by working through five key case studies where these tactics are most visible, and analysing how these circulate between contexts, inform each other and are manifest through public controversies. The WP’s objectives in mapping and explaining anti-gender discourses and policies are supported by research question

RQ1: What are the political manifestations of anti-gender, how are they formed and articulated transnationally, and how are they informed by intersecting categories of inequality? This RQ has two sub-RQs:



RQ1.1: How are representations and discourses of feminism, gender and intersectionality produced and used in populist nationalist politics and in repressive strategies that threaten fundamental rights?

RQ1.2: How and why do these representations circulate beyond this politics in political discourse and media culture, and how are strategies of controversy-generation about feminism, gender and intersectionality mobilised in wider public debate?


By layering an analysis of motivated political action with an attention to cultural networks; the transnational circulation of ideas and political strategies; and the integral significance of media dynamics, RESIST provides a unique mapping and analysis of anti-democratic political formations. RESIST’s innovative conceptual framework offers novel insights into the range of mobilisations of anti-gender. This is necessary to make policy and practice more effective in countering anti-gender politics across and beyond Europe.