Introduction

New Culture Wars: Tradwives, Bodybuilders and the Neoliberalism of the Far-Right

“…Gender panic is ubiquitous in the heterogeneous political ecosystem of the contemporary far-right (DiBranco, 2017; Hermansson et al, 2020; Köttig et al, 2017). Stubbs, Lendvai-Bainton and Szelewa have shown how, anti-genderism is a common trend of contemporary ‘authoritarian neoliberal’ governments in Hungary, Poland and Croatia (Lendvai-Bainton and Szelewa, 2020; Stubbs and Lendvai-Bainton, 2020).…”

“…Gender mainstreaming, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights and reproductive rights are seen as alien impositions from European Union elites, part of a globalist neoliberal project undermining national sovereignty. Similar tropes regarding ‘gender-science’ and ‘gender ideology’ populate the manifestos, public speeches and writings of far-right politicians and parties (Köttig et al, 2017).…”

The Gendered Politics of Crisis and De-Democratization: Opposition to Gender Equality. Edited by Bianka Vida. London: ECPR Press, 2022. 266 pp. ISBN: 9781538156780.

“…In The Gendered Politics of Crisis and De-Democratization , Bianka Vida and her coauthors offer an interdisciplinary analysis of the recent rise of opposition against gender+ and LGBTQIA+ equality in the multilevel space of the European Union (EU) (and Turkey). The book is thus part of a burgeoning body of scholarship in the field of gender and politics that has began to address such opposition from an explicitly feminist perspective (Dietze and Roth 2020; Graff, Kapur, and Walters 2019; Graff and Korolczuk 2022; Köttig, Bitzan, and Pető 2017; Kuhar and Paternotte 2017; Möser, Ramme, and Takács 2022; Roggeband and Krizsán 2018; Verloo 2018; Verloo and Paternotte 2018). And yet, this book advances such scholarship in important ways: first, by broadening its focus in order to locate current opposition against gender+ and LGBTQIA+ equality within the context of the specifically gendered effects of current de-democratization processes and the 2008 economic crisis, crucially, as these intersect with the role of the EU as a gendered normative power; and second, by deepening that focus to assess the effects of opposition in terms of policy reversals and changes in prevailing gender regimes at both the EU and national levels, as well as feminist responses to these.…”