After the Arabellion: Antifeminism and ‚Anti-Gender‘-Politics in the SWANA Region

Abstract

Starting with Tunesia, the 2010s witnessed a series of mass protests and revolutions in the countries of the SWANA (South-West Asia and North Africa) region. Women and queer people were heavily involved in these protests, hoping for democratization, civil liberties and an expansion of rights as well as for improvements for their social situation and protection against gender-based violence. Meanwhile, a process of re-authoritarization swept through the region that has put an end to many of these hopes. While paying lip service to some of the claims of the mass movements, for example combatting gender-based violence, the region’s authoritarian regimes discovered the mobilizing force of ‚anti-gender‘ discourse to showcase a post-colonial profile and to silence claims for an expansion of women’s and queer rights. The panel argues that there is a specific brand of post-uprising antifeminism in the SWANA region. It asks for papers that tackle the following questions: - What are the contested issues in recent campaigns against ‚gender‘ in the SWANA region? Who are the actors that promote these campaigns, who are the target groups, and who is opposing these developments? - How are ideas on sex and gender intertwined with the new surge of post-colonial nationalism in the region, and in how far are campaigns against gender or ‚state antifeminism‘ functional to re-stabilize authoritarian rule? - How do feminist and queer activists respond to the process of re-authoritarization that might come along with increased policing, criminalization and political prosecution? - How are recent developments intertwined with the diverse gender regimes in the countries of the region? Do different gender regimes lead to different patterns of antifeminism, or is there evidence for regime convergence? - Is there evidence in the region for a new transnational antifeminist/anti-queer alliance that counters the progressive stance of transnational organisations towards womens‘ and queer rights in the post-Beijing area? The panel wants to provide empirical knowledge on a region that is still under-researched in the booming field of studies on ‚anti-gender‘/antifeminist politics. Moreover, it contributes to wider theoretical debates on the relevance of antifeminism/’anti-gender’ politics for processes of (re-)authoritarization, its entanglement with nationalism and changing gender regimes.

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