This study examines how democratic actors in Portugal have adapted their strategies to counter the rise of anti-gender movements, particularly since the radical right party Chega (CH) entered Parliament in 2019. While Portugal established strong legal foundations for gender equality following the 1974 democratic revolution, gender policy implementation has been constrained by conservative social attitudes, weak women's movements, and male-dominated political institutions. Gender policy evolution has remained predominantly top-down, driven by state modernization imperatives and left-wing government and parliament support rather than grassroots pressure.
The emergence of CH has activated a distinct electorate characterized by younger, less educated men who express high political dissatisfaction and authoritarian attitudes. Furthermore, it has intensified the anti-feminist discourse through multiple strategies: promoting toxic masculinity while denigrating women in leadership positions, supporting international anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, attacking gender equality education as "gender ideology" and “indoctrination” and advocating for the repeal of gender equality laws and quotas. Significantly, these conservative gender attitudes transcend party lines within Portugal's right and center-right parties, suggesting a broader challenge to democratic gender equality achievements.
A recent manifestation of conservative mobilization emerged with the April 2024 publication of "Identity and Family – Between Traditional Conscience and the Demands of Modernity." The timing was significant, appearing just weeks after the March 10, 2024 legislative elections that ended nine years of left-wing governance and established a right-wing parliamentary majority. The book was coordinated by four male founders of the Movement Ethic Action, a civic initiative established in January 2021 by individuals who describe themselves as "concerned citizens in these times of marked ethical and moral degradation." The contributors represent a broad coalition of conservative voices, including former Christian Democratic Party leaders and MPs, prominent Portuguese Catholic Church figures, conservative academics, and former politicians from the Catholic wing of the Socialist Party. The book explicitly opposes what the authors name the "destruction of the traditional family," "gender ideology," and "death culture."
This paper analyzes how Portuguese institutional and non-institutional feminist actors have adapted their strategies, actions, and discourses to defend and advance gender equality in this new political context. Researching feminist individual and collective activism within and outside institutions is especially relevant given the complex interplay between state feminism, political parties, and women's movements during the last 50 years of democratic rule. We explore the evolution of feminist responses through three key dimensions: (1) the development of new counter frames by political parties, social movements, and individual activists; (2) the emergence of novel pro-equality coalitions across institutional and grassroots actors; and (3) the transformation of historical alliances between gender equality state institutions, political parties, and women's movements. The analysis draws on content analysis of party manifestos and parliamentary debates, as well as news and opinion articles from two mainstream newspapers (2019-2014), in order to map these adaptive strategies and assess their effectiveness in building democratic resilience against anti-gender mobilization.
