Eurosodom: Specifics of Weaponized Sexuality and Gender-Based Narratives in Contemporary Russian and Pro-Russian Disinformation

Abstract

The Kremlin, under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin, has sponsored a resurgence of political warfare against Western targets. This analysis will focus on a particular aspect of Kremlin-sponsored political warfare: sexuality and gender-based narratives in Russian and pro-Russian disinformation campaigns targeting EU and aspiring members from 2015-2020. The potency of these narratives arises from the emotional and cognitive load that they elicit. Their significance is often overlooked in security, intelligence, and communication studies. In order to alleviate this gap, this article consists of a mixed-methods analysis in order to analyze the role and function of these narratives within the larger body of Russian disinformation. This research shows that sexuality and gender-based disinformation narratives are designed to target basic human emotions, such as fear, anger, hostility, confusion, and disgust, by exploiting existing cognitive biases within the targeted population. These narratives are a useful and effective political and propaganda tool meant to elicit support for a specific brand of traditional values that furthers the Kremlin’s geopolitical aim of creating an alternative to Western liberal hegemony.

Disinformation and gendered boundarymaking: Nordic media audiences making sense of “Swedish decline”

“…The findings extend research on disinformation and more broadly strategic narratives, which often notes how references to feminism and gender equality are present in the narratives it examines, but without theorizing what gender does in these narratives or whether its presence matters (an exception is Cushman and Avramov, 2021). In contrast, feminist International Relations (IR) research has long studied how gendered discourses underwrite statist and nationalist security discourses, bordering practices, and war justifications (Agius and Edenborg, 2019; Parashar et al, 2018; Peterson, 1992).…”

“…This may provide a clue to why sexuality, gender, and race-based narratives prominently feature in Russian disinformation campaigns. Stories depicting Europe as a dystopia of sexual perversion, dissolved families, gender-confused children, migrant men raping, and plundering—all permitted in the name of tolerance, feminism, and multiculturalism—are intended to sow disgust and elicit moral panics in the targeted audiences (Cushman and Avramov, 2021). In addition, such stories serve the larger ideological and geostrategic ambition of creating support for the conservative project promoted by the Kremlin, cherishing the heterosexual family, “traditional” masculinity and femininity, and Christian values, and thus challenge the perceived hegemony of liberal democracy (Keating and Kaczmarska, 2019; Edenborg, 2020a).…”

Uncanny Europe and Protective Europeanness: When European Identity Becomes a Queerly Viable Option

“…It is also evident at the level of politics (e.g. some politicians referring to Europe as 'Eurosodom' or 'Gayropa', Cushman and Avramov, 2021), activism (e.g.…”

“…It is also evident at the level of politics (e.g. some politicians referring to Europe as ‘Eurosodom’ or ‘Gayropa’, Cushman and Avramov, 2021), activism (e.g. LGBTQ activists employing Europe as a normative frame for shaping mobilisation, Ayoub and Paternotte, 2012) and popular culture (e.g.…”

Illiberal Communication and Election Intervention during the Refugee Crisis in Germany

“…Anecdotal evidence suggests the wide use of conspiratorial tropes by Russian sources. The theme of Muslim refugees “invading” the EU is an integral part of the “effeminization” of the West trope in Kremlin communication (Cushman and Avramov 2021).…”