Transnational Anti-Gender Politics: Feminist Solidarity in Times of Global Attack edited by Aiko Holvikivi, Billy Holzberg and Tomás Ojeda brings together analyses of anti-gender movements in countries around the world. Giving nuanced attention to specific national and regional contexts and pushing against Western frameworks, this volume is a crucial resource for understanding and addressing anti-gender politics today, writes Jyotirupa Das.
On social media, discourse about gender is hard to avoid these days. The ways it’s invoked can range from discussions on the material effects of the social construction of gender to opinions on who should have access to which (often unavoidably gendered) bathroom(s), or romanticising archaic gender divisions of labour in marriages, and many other things in between. The discussion on such topics, like many other politicised issues appearing on social media and on other media forums, is decidedly polarised. Outside of social media (or as an extension of it), attitudes towards gender and gendered forms of expression can manifest much more violently, evidenced by gender-based hate crimes.
The book sets out to challenge the dominant single-origin narratives of anti-gender movements (which often focus on the roles of the Vatican, European right-wing populism, or American neoconservatives) and recognise the specific ecosystems of anti-gender movements in different contexts.
Transnational Anti-Gender Politics: Feminist Solidarity in Times of Global Attack edited by Aiko Holvikivi, Billy Holzberg and Tomás Ojeda is a welcome intervention into the discourse. It aims to position the anti-gender movement – a movement marked by “the coordinated attack on ‘gender ideology’ and ‘genderism’ as a political force, the field of gender studies as an academic field, and feminist, queer, and trans individuals seen to be their embodied representatives” (1) – within the broader contexts of rising nationalism, racism, religious unrest, capitalism, and heteronormative ideas of the family. In so doing, it sets out a path for a liberatory politics that could take these varying contexts into account. The contributions in this volume explore these dynamics across various regions and nations, placing them within a transnational context to identify influences, interactions, and implications. The book sets out to challenge the dominant single-origin narratives of anti-gender movements (which often focus on the roles of the Vatican, European right-wing populism, or American neoconservatives) and recognise the specific ecosystems of anti-gender movements in different contexts.
At the centre of the book is an effort to develop a politically actionable understanding of anti-gender politics – one that accommodates transnational contexts without becoming an all-encompassing concept (Obst and Ablett uses the clever metaphor of the Bed of Procrustes (226) to acknowledge the risks) that loses analytical clarity. The book is divided into three sections focusing on the role of the state in anti-gender movements (Part I), civil society actors engaged in anti-gender politics (Part II), and epistemic frameworks that sustain such politics (Part III). Though distinct, these areas are so interrelated and co-constitutive that it would be possible to move certain chapters across sections (for instance the chapter on Hungary in Part II that discusses the State’s regulation of and social responses to children’s education would fit as well in Section I).
“Child-saving” rhetoric serves as a tool in the collusion of right-wing nationalism and anti-gender politics in Hungary where the state, and not grassroot groups, is the main anti-gender actor.
Part I of the book focuses on state projects and political movements engaged in anti-gender mobilisations. Examining Turkey, China, and Peru, the authors explore how state machinery is used to uphold traditional gender roles (e.g., Scarlett Yee-man Ng and Zhifeng Chen’s chapter on China), how masculine virility is used by the state in the service of prioritising a certain religious sect (Alev Özkazanç’s chapter on Turkey), or to appropriate discourses typically employed by progressive forces and use it against them (e.g., Daniela Meneses Sala and Corina Rueda-Borrero’s chapter on Peru).
Part II of the book examines civil society actors, grassroots groups, and activist networks involved in anti-gender politics, as well as the counter-mobilisations advocating for liberatory politics. In a particularly insightful chapter on South and East Africa, Haley McEwen highlights how the racism, colonialism and anti-gender movements operate in tandem in deploying the figure of the child to oppose state-provided Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) in schools. The child, who is supposedly corrupted by Western influences, in used to generate moral panic and is weaponised against the promotion of sexual and reproductive rights and education. While such education is dismissed as a Western import, local anti-gender movements are themselves influenced largely by transatlantic pro-family movements constituted by the US Christian Right, which reflect colonial epistemic efforts to establish nuclear families as the only legitimate family formation. Such movements also reinforce remnants of White civilising missions whereby the Global South is treated as a child in the need of guidance from the rational adult that is the Global North.
Hungary, which Kim Lane Scheppel describes as a ‘legalistic autocracy’ ( under Prime Minister Viktor Orban, employs a similar “child-saving” framework wherein LGBTQ folks are constituted discursively as the “paedophile monster” that “corrupts” children’s sexuality. Dorottya Redai argues that instead of protecting children from sexual abuse within families, this narrative is used to place children as the gatekeepers of the traditional heteronormative family (143). This “child-saving” rhetoric serves as a tool in the collusion of right-wing nationalism and anti-gender politics in Hungary where the state, and not grassroot groups, is the main anti-gender actor. In their chapter on India, Nolina S. Minj and Niharika Pandit situate the anti-gender movement (though this terminology is not commonly used in India) within the intersecting frameworks of caste, religion, and patriarchy. They analyse how these forces reinforce one another to create heteronormative expectations of the family.
Some approaches to studying anti-gender politics lump together any oppositions to progressive forces as the ‘Global Right’ and lose the power to reflect on any contextual specificity
Part III shifts focus from actors to the epistemic frameworks, discourses, and knowledge systems that sustain anti-gender movements. This section, along with the concluding chapter, might also have served as a useful introduction to the book, setting up its themes and challenges early on. It insightfully addresses the challenges and nuances of analysing anti-gender movements within a transnational framework. Nour Almazidi warns against framing anti-gender movements as merely a “backlash” against progressive movements because that might only serve to justify the premises of anti-gender, anti-queer and anti-feminist politics (204). This section also demonstrates that it is important to recognise the presence of anti-gender tendencies in feminist, Leftist and other movements that are usually considered progressive. Rather than coining new terminology, the authors argue for building bridges between diverse struggles while respecting their situated knowledge and unique contexts.
One potential strength of the anti-gender framework is its ability to expose exclusionary tendencies within certain strands of feminism. However, the expansive nature of this framework requires careful nuance. Paternotte and Kuhar’s work emphasises the importance of critically analysing the limits of this framework (196) as some approaches to studying anti-gender politics lump together any oppositions to progressive forces as the “Global Right” and lose the power to reflect on any contextual specificity (196).
A transnational analysis of anti-gender politics requires both theoretical rigor and political imagination, incorporating situated knowledges without erasing local specificities.
The book is self-aware and cautious, often reflecting on the limitations of applying the anti-gender framework in countries where the terminology does not arise organically. It is a valuable resource in conceptualising anti-gender politics, while revealing the inherent difficulty in doing so without stretching the term too thin. The prominence of anti-gender narratives varies significantly across the Global South, and the authors note the importance of acknowledging these differences (e.g., identifying countries where anti-gender movements are also anti-feminist vs others where that is not the case). A transnational analysis of anti-gender politics requires both theoretical rigor and political imagination, incorporating situated knowledges without erasing local specificities. It is a good place to begin the conversation in the hope that we could proceed towards more nuanced understandings of anti-gender politics that account for the epistemic uniqueness of sociopolitical and geographical variations.
Note: This review gives the views of the author, not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Main image: Mayimbú on Wikimedia Commons.
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