Culture Wars and Democratic Resilience: the Role of Civil Society Actors Challenging Institutional Narratives on Gender-Based Violence

“Patriarchy is over” since 1970s and whoever is denying it is ideological. That is the core of the Italian Ministry of Education Valditara speaking about gender-based violence and femicides. To accompany this statement, Valditara also added that femicides should be correlated with the increasing number of people with illegal immigration backgrounds. Although it is not the first attempt to ignite a culture war about gender in Italy, it was the first time that this position became so explicit, also trying to reframe the issue of gender-based violence into a securitarian and anti-immigration narrative. This paper examines how recent Italian debates about gender-based violence illustrate the emergence of new forms of culture wars and democratic resilience mechanisms. Following Education Minister Valditara's controversial declaration that "patriarchy is over," we analyze how institutional discourse attempts to reframe gender-based violence while simultaneously triggering unprecedented civil society resistance. The research explores three key dimensions. First, we examine how Valditara's statement represents a significant shift in institutional discourse by attempting to reframe gender-based violence as primarily a security and immigration issue. Second, we analyze civil society responses, ranging from Gino Cecchettin (father of a femicide victim), activists, and trans-feminist movements, demonstrating how these actors maintain democratic resilience through counter-narratives. Third, we investigate how this debate exemplifies the evolution of culture wars in terms of ideology-building. By means of a critical discourse analysis, we identify three discursive mechanisms pointing at democratic resilience: formation of counter-narrative and the redefinition of boundaries among categories of power and discourse (such as institutional v. counter-discourse and hegemonic v. counter-hegemonic); legitimation of personal experience and biographical accounts as sources of authoritativeness; rising awareness of intersectional structures of inequality. Our analysis reveals how platform media and political communication logics interact to sustain gender-based culture wars within contemporary communicative ecosystems. We argue that these debates reflect broader processes of polarisation, neoliberalisation and ideology-building. The findings contribute to understanding how democratic resilience operates within increasingly platformized public spheres, where institutional attempts to declare gender equality "achieved" face systematic resistance from civil society actors.