Political Opportunity Structures in Exploiting Gender Identity for Polarisation

The next speaker in this session at I-POLHYS 2024 is Annett Heft, whose focus is on gender contestations and polarisation in Germany. Gender has become a contested topic in Germany in recent times, with anti-feminism and attacks on gender-inclusive language growing especially on the far right; an emphasis on ‘traditional’ roles for women is a core principle for the far-right, and far-right women in particular also play a substantial role in pushing such ideologies.

This also intersects with other actors, including conservative and elitist feminism, Christian fundamentalism, and other groups whose ideological perspectives enable them to enter discourse coalitions with such far-right actors opposing gender equality. That said, gender equality (understood as between men and women) itself is no longer the core point of contestation; LGBTQI+ rights and other more specific areas of gender equality are now more important areas of contestation.

This also connects with political opportunity structures: polarising actors operate in the political contexts that prevail at the time, and lean on those topics that are likely to generate further popular and electoral support for them. Indeed, there is a specific form of gendered opportunity structures that emerge here, and which have a decisive impact on what and how gender issues are politicised and then contribute to polarisation.

A comparison of gender debates in Sweden, Germany, and Italy shows clearly how existing public attitudes towards gender equality mean that far-right parties in each country have very different incentives to operationalise gender identity as a campaigning topic – in Sweden, to do so is no longer feasible, while in Germany and especially Italy this can still galvanise support. There are also commonalities, however: in all three countries migrants are portrayed by far-right parties as threatening local women’s rights and safety.