'Gender Wars' in Europe: the Structural Context of International Polarization

Since 2010s we observe an increased polarization in international politics over the issues of gender and sexuality. The polarization between progressive and conservative states exists both as the sorting of ideological positions into two distinct camps (ideological polarization) as well as the relational dynamic of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ construction (pernicious polarization; (McCoy, Rahman, and Somer, 2018). The question of this paper is – how does the structure of international society mitigate or exacerbate said ‘gender wars’? Four structures are investigated: bilateral diplomacy, international law, multilateral negotiation culture, and (lack of common) lifeworld. The paper contributes empirically to the literature, so far mainly focused on the locus of the United Nations (Symons and Altman, 2015; Janoff, 2022), by studying European context and bilateral relations – the activities of progressive embassies in Poland and negotiations in the Council of the European Union. The findings point to the important role of international structures in the constitution of polarization over gender and sexuality issues, a fact largely omitted in the literature and public debate. The study suggests depolarizing role of bilateral diplomacy as well as of stable negotiation culture of the Council of the EU in relations between conservative and progressive state actors. Moreover, the research shows how the use of international law by diplomats as well as the approach of negotiators to the lack of uniform meaning of ‘gender’ in different states mitigate polarization, but at the same time, prevents European or global consensus and solutions on the issues of gender and sexuality, in the spirit of ‘living together in difference’ (Constantinou 2013), inherent to the international. Please note: This paper is an introductory chapter to a book.