Anti-Gender Backlash and Contentious Politics: Polarization and Challenges to Intersectionality within Transnational Feminist Advocay Networks in Europe

Since 2007, the rise of the third-wave of feminism has coincided with a pronounced anti-gender backlash that poses a threat to democracy both in Europe and beyond. The increasing mainstreaming of radical and populist right-wing ideologies, coupled with anti-gender and anti-feminist actors, has given rise to novel, organised, and transnational forms of mobilisation and alliances. Gender issues serve as a focal point to promote an ultraconservative agenda defending traditional gender roles and the heteronormative family.

In this context, European feminist advocacy networks are also facing challenges. Feminist governance structures established in prior decades have weakened, marked by erosion, fragmentation, and their role witnessed a shift from cooperative relationships with feminist networks and associations to a more sceptical, watchdog stance towards EU policies. Transnational feminist activism encompasses a broad spectrum of positions, where intersectionality plays a pivotal role in shaping collective identity and alliance-building. Nonetheless, contradictions and polarization are present between actors that pursue an intersectional and LGBTQAI+ inclusive feminist approach and others promoting a more "traditional" and binary understanding of gender inequalities and other organizations. The latter adopt a “selective” approach to prioritising intersecting axes of difference and discrimination, often overlooking class, gender identity, and sexual orientation, in certain cases leveraging on arguments that are close to the ones framing anti-gender rhetorics.

This paper, delving into recent CEDAW discussions and debates on the EU Directive on Domestic Violence and Violence against Women, focuses on the actors and frames that have facilitated the “normalisation” or “mainstreaming” of anti-gender positions, also within transnational feminist advocacy contexts, which used to be drivers of democratic resilience. The paper argues that it has become increasingly difficult to draw a clearcut between the anti-gender and the feminist movement in certain cases.