Abstract
Is the feminist project under threat in Europe? This thematic issue addresses the question in both theoretical and empirical ways, focusing on the various ways in which feminist politics are opposed and why, on what the impact of such opposition is, and how to improve our theoretical understanding of this particular manifestation of gender and politics. The issue addresses three major challenges: a need to reflect on the most suited concepts and theories in political and social sciences to understand what is at stake in Europe today; a need to vernacularize existing knowledge while forging global frames of analysis; and a need to avoid the risk of reifying oppositional forces and of reiterating dichotomous frames and categories. The responses to these challenges are: to analyse the threats to the feminist project as parts of larger projects against social justice and equality; to contrast macro narratives by engaging with the microlevel of the anti-feminist project, enabling a critique of mainstream scholarship; to analyse the threats to the feminist project as related to processes of changes to democracy, such as democratic backsliding; to give prominent attention to discursive, epistemic and symbolic processes; and finally to include studies on the response of feminist actors to the threats experienced. This collection of articles offers a variety of perspectives on the various threats to the feminist project in Europe today.
Highlights
Keywords abortion politics; anti-gender campaigns; democratic backsliding; discursive politics; Europe; feminism; LGBT politics; opposition; populism; sexual politics. Issue This editorial is the introduction to the Thematic Issue “The Feminist Project under Threat in Europe”, edited by Mieke Verloo (Radboud University, The Netherlands) and David Paternotte (Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)
Opposition to feminist and sexual politics―even if a staple of politics in many times and places―has become more visible in Europe, and can be found at national, regional and international level, and involves different kinds of actors and mechanisms. This new situation is characterized by a double phenomenon: an increasing polarization in politics and an increased politicization of gender and sexuality, leading to new forms of opposition and changing alliances
The scarce scholarship on opposition was generally restricted to specific geographic areas such as Eastern or Southern Europe, and decades of European optimism combined with a vigorous faith in the positive effects of Europeanization led some scholars to assume that the advent of the European project would inevitably strengthen feminist and LGBT equalities in the region (Ayoub & Paternotte, 2014; Lombardo & Forest, 2012)
Summary
Issue This editorial is the introduction to the Thematic Issue “The Feminist Project under Threat in Europe”, edited by Mieke Verloo (Radboud University, The Netherlands) and David Paternotte (Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium). The scarce scholarship on opposition was generally restricted to specific geographic areas such as Eastern or Southern Europe, and decades of European optimism combined with a vigorous faith in the positive effects of Europeanization led some scholars to assume that the advent of the European project would inevitably strengthen feminist and LGBT equalities in the region (Ayoub & Paternotte, 2014; Lombardo & Forest, 2012).
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