Gender and the Global Attack on Human Rights

A recent focus topic on this blog dealt with anti-feminism and anti-LGBTIQ+-mobilisations as attacks on democracy. This article takes up the conversation and adds a view of the international stage, where anti-gender rhetoric has become a threat to human rights.

As Agnieszka Graff and Elżbieta Korolczuk have shown in their contribution to the focus topic right-wing populist actors (right-wing conservativism and religious fundamentalism could be added here) in different European countries have successfully linked feminism and equality policies to neo-liberalism in the public image. Therefore they are able to frame their attacks on gender equality and sexual diversity as criticism of neo-liberal policies, the government and elites, while at the same time presenting marginalized people and groups like LGBTIQ+-communities as scape goats and legitimate targets of hatred and even violence. Feelings of helplessness and rage, which are grounded in the devastating consequences of neo-liberalism and further incited by authoritarian agitators can thereby be canalized into attacks on disadvantaged members of society, which in the worst case lead to deadly violence and terrorism.

 

The globalization of anti-gender discourse

With the globalization of anti-gender discourses similar patterns are playing out on an international stage. Examples abound, ranging from the “no”-vote on the Columbian peace accord in 2016, to the South Korean presidential elections of 2022 and Putin’s inflammatory speeches about the Ukraine war among many others. With its international spread one of the more stunning paradoxes of contemporary anti-feminism also moved to the forefront: The framing of anti-gender campaigns as anti-colonial endeavours against the imposition of an alleged “gender imperialism” – never mind the fact that the anti-gender rhetoric itself is a Western invention, developed by the Vatican and globally spread by the Catholic church as well as Evangelical groups that have their base mainly in the US. Julia Roth and Birgit Sauer aptly named this specific discursive pattern “reverse anti-colonialism”, which presents “conservative governments and religious groups as a minority under attack”. Right-wing populist strategies that create antagonisms against “those above” – in this case vaguely defined global elites, policy-makers at the UN etc. – as well as against “others” – among them feminist activists, LBGTIQ+-people and emancipated women in the respective country – which have typically been the domain of opposition parties, thereby gain new prominence for authoritarian leaders trying to organize public support. Again, devastating neo-liberal and neo-colonial politics in terms of economic policies, but also with regard to climate policies or migration issues have fertilized the ground for this kind of agitation. And again, marginalized communities and activists are most at risk to become victims.

 

A crusade against equality

Dangerous effects of anti-gender discourses also pertain to the international sphere as such and to international human rights more specifically. The globalization of anti-gender movements described above owes much to ultra-conservative organisations and their networking efforts, which increasingly blur the border between the religious and the (secular) political right. In recent years these organisations have professionalised their work on several levels, i.a. they use strategic litigation, run lobbying campaigns at international political forums and organize popular protest. A first study detailing the funding of these organisations showed that between 2009 and 2018 they received at least USD 707,2 million.

One of the more elitist networks of ultra-conservative Christian anti-gender actors on the European level is “Agenda Europe”, which was co-founded by Austrian MP Gudrun Kugler. As a strategic document originating from this network shows, anti-gender campaigns are just the most prominent part of a broader attack on human rights. Sexual and reproductive rights as well as anti-discrimination legislation, which are attacked vigorously, function as stepping stones in an endeavour to install a “natural order” that encompasses all aspects of human life and dictates positive law at all levels. Even though these groups use a language of “natural law” and even of “human rights” their goal is a reversal of the basic premises of human rights as we understand them today. Against the idea of rights pertaining to each individual human being that are being developed, expanded and encoded over time as a result of political struggles, they set the idea of an unchangeable order, that remains the same at all times and places. Democracy is thereby rendered an empty husk. Against the notion that equality is the basis for justice, they create an antagonistic relation between the two, calling for an unequal treatment of what they deem to be unequal things like e.g. hetero- and homosexuality, men and women, or Christianity and Islam. In this view discrimination is not just tolerable, but the very foundation of the “natural”, i.e. divine order. These ultra-conservative organisations envision international human rights bodies as one of their main fields of struggle, therefore contestations of sexual and reproductive rights are the first step in a broader attempt to dismantle the idea of individual human rights but by no means the only target. The re-definition of concepts and phrases – e.g.re-branding sexual and reproductive rights as nothing more than a “right to reproduce”, the term “family” as exclusive possession of married heterosexual couples with children and any kind of affirmative action or gender quotas as “discrimination” – is among the weapons deployed in these struggles about the meaning of human rights; another one is to pit rights against each other, e.g. arguing that a right to discriminate against same-sex couples is enshrined in religious freedom.

The globalisation of anti-gender discourse and movements depicted above might strengthen the efforts of ultra-conservative (lobby) groups which are mainly based in Europe and the US as they find new allies around the globe. In order to analyse and counter these worrying international trends it is necessary to see that these attacks are not “just” against the rights of sexual minorities and not “only” against the rights of women, but that they are attacks on the very foundations of democracy.

 

Recommendations:

  • Institutionalise/strengthen Human Rights Education aimed at an understanding of the complexities of human rights, which are a result of political processes that nevertheless need to be based on fundamental ethical assumptions about the inherent equality of all human beings.
  • Redefine religious education with the aim of providing critical literacy about religions and/or include this as a key aspect in ethics education.
  • Include critical analysis of political discourse with a focus on discursive structures rather than solely on content as an interdisciplinary subject in curricula.
  • Adopt social, economic, ecologic and migration-related policies on the international level that target the devastations of neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stefanie Mayer is a political scientist and researcher at the Institute of Conflict Research (IKF) in Vienna. Her research currently focuses on discourse analysis, right-wing extremism and populism, and especially on anti-feminism. This article previews some insights from the forthcoming (2023) book “Global Perspectives on Anti-Feminism. Far-Right and Religious Attacks on Equality and Diversity”, which she is editing together with Judith Goetz.