Feminist democratic innovations in feminist movement and institutional responses to anti-gender politics in Spain

Democracies are living in critical times in Europe. Longstanding legacies of unresolved problems with democracy such as patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, and fascism are insufficiently addressed in liberal democracies, giving way to the maintenance of profound inequalities and social injustices. In addition, a specific challenge arises in the last decades: anti-gender and far-right politics. This puts gender equality and democratic institutions under siege, provoking equality policy and institution backsliding as well as the exclusion of women, feminist, Black and LGBTIQ* actors from the public arena. Democracy is in urgent need of innovation if it is to survive both longstanding and new challenges. We assert that feminist politics in both movements and institutions is a key source of democratic innovation that promotes strategies for progressive transformation toward intersectional inclusion and participation. We focus on the feminist response to the challenge of anti-gender politics and ask: what feminist democratic innovations emerge from feminist movement and institutional responses to anti-gender politics? How do feminist institutional and movement responses differ with respect to democratic innovation? What can we learn from feminist democratic discourses and practices in response to anti-gender politics for theorising democratic innovations? We develop this argument through the analysis of feminist movement and institutional discourses and practices articulated in Spain to respond to anti-gender politics and to advance feminist projects. We argue that feminist democratic innovations address some of the longstanding legacies of unresolved problems with democracy and suggest critical practices to improve the quality of democracy. The analysis of feminist democratic innovations, that is based on research conducted in the Horizon-Europe CCINDLE project, includes 12 parliamentary debates and 22 in-depth interviews in the Spanish Parliament (2019-2023), for institutional responses, and 16 in-depth interviews with feminist anti-racist, pro-migrant and queer movements.