Antigenderism and White Feminist Reconstructions in Germany

Abstract

This article critically reflects on dominant scholarship on antigenderism in Germany. In its most common usage, antigenderism refers to an ideological and discursive constellation that is opposed to critical scholarship and activism around gender and sexism. I argue against common accounts, which suggest that the critical analysis of antigenderism can bottom out in claims about sexism and gender rather than race and racism. In so doing, I urge feminist scholars to resist the temptation to reassert the primacy of gender as a corrective to antigenderism. Instead, I highlight the need for an intersectional reading. The reason German antigenderists rhetorically target “gender ideology” rather than “antiracism,” I argue, is not that they care less about their racial privileges than their gender privileges but that, in a context of German “race” and colonial denial, the marginalization of antiracist claims is constitutive of the political status quo in a way that the marginalization of antisexism is not. Thus, an attack on “gender ideology” enables political groups across the spectrum to discredit antiracist claims without having to invoke the language of race and racism.