Gender Knowledge, and Opposition to the Feminist Project: Extreme-Right Populist Parties in the Netherlands

Mieke Verloo

doi:10.17645/pag.v6i3.1456

Abstract

This article aims to better understand current opposition to feminist politics by analyzing positions of extreme-right populist parties on gender knowledge, “explicit and implicit representations concerning the differences between the sexes and the relations between them, the origins and normative significance of these, the rationale and evidence underpinning them and their material form” (Cavaghan, 2017, p. 48). These understandings contribute to constructing a societal truth on gender and/or to setting the terms of the political debate about gender issues. This article introduces and uses the theoretical concept of episteme to highlight the systematic nature of discursive institutional settings, and the role knowledge and truth production plays in processes reproducing or countering gender inequality. The article analyzes the positions of extreme-right populist parties in the Netherlands and their discursive attacks on the feminist project in the Netherlands, in which these opponents use a redefined concept of ‘cultural Marxism’. Through this analysis, the article illustrates the theoretical argument that epistemic dynamics play a strong role in opposition to feminist politics, that the shifting epistemic framing of science is important in these oppositions and that more comprehensive attention for the epistemic dimension is needed.

Highlights

Extreme-right populist parties often express strong positions against feminism and feminists, frequently oppose sexual equality and are vocal against abortion rights (Köttig, Bitzan, & Pető, 2017)
The current discursive attack on the feminist project, in which opponents redefine the concept of “cultural Marxism” to bundle the broader social justice projects in the Netherlands together and attack them, illustrates this article’s argument that epistemic dynamics play a very strong role in opposition to feminist politics, that in political dynamics the shifting epistemic position of science is important and that more comprehensive attention for the epistemic dimension is needed. This analysis leads to conclusions that call for more attention to the analysis of gender knowledge in grasping the damaging potential of extreme-right populist parties for the feminist project in Europe
This article has focused on struggles about gender knowledge, arguing that more attention for the epistemic dimension of debates on gender and sexuality is needed to understand the threat to the feminist project coming from extreme-right populist parties

Summary

Introduction

Extreme-right populist parties often express strong positions against feminism and feminists, frequently oppose sexual equality and are vocal against abortion rights (Köttig, Bitzan, & Pető, 2017). The current discursive attack on the feminist project, in which opponents redefine the concept of “cultural Marxism” (see Jamin, 2014, for information on the roots of this concept in the US far right) to bundle the broader social justice projects in the Netherlands together and attack them, illustrates this article’s argument that epistemic dynamics play a very strong role in opposition to feminist politics, that in political dynamics the shifting epistemic position of science is important and that more comprehensive attention for the epistemic dimension is needed This analysis leads to conclusions that call for more attention to the analysis of gender knowledge in grasping the damaging potential of extreme-right populist parties for the feminist project in Europe. Should―be compared to other knowledges (such as those within the feminist project)

Knowledge and Truth Production and Societal Domains

Episteme as a System

The Gendered Politics of Knowledge in Extreme-Right Populist Parties

The Politics of Knowledge in Two Dutch Extreme-Right Parties

Conclusion and Discussion