5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Anti-gender and anti-feminist movements are on the rise throughout the world (Graff and Korolczuk 2022). Often combined with populist, right-wing politics (or inspiring those) these movements try to hinder progressive politics. In the name of securing conservative vision of the family, or conservative values, they pursue their homophobic or misogynist agenda. They push for restricting marital equality or reproductive rights. Feminist movements are one of the key enemies of the anti-gender movements that try to limit their impact on societies and policymakers. The aim of this panel is to look closely at the responses of the feminist movements to the challenges posed by anti-gender movements. Building upon cases from various cultural and political contexts, the panel will examine and analyse various tactics and strategies that feminist movements from all over the world deploy in order to overcome the anti-gender and populist threat. These strategies include (but are not limited to) changes in protest repertoires, reaching out to supra-national organisations for help and assistance, cooperation and collaboration with politicians and political parties that might want to utilise the feminist movement and agenda for their own purposes. In the context of movement - countermovement dynamics, the most interesting question is about the exchange of knowledge and experiences with other movements from their national contexts (as many of these movements are becoming increasingly intersectional) and from their counterparts abroad.