Elżbieta Korolczuk

Gender as “Ebola from Brussels”: The Anticolonial Frame and the Rise of Illiberal Populism

This article examines the recent wave of grassroots mobilizations opposing gender equality, LGBT rights, and sex education, which vilify the term “gender” in public debates and policy documents. The antigender movement emerged simultaneously in various locations after 2010. We argue that this is not just another wave of antifeminist backlash or a new tactic of the Vatican in its ongoing efforts to undermine gender equality but represents a new ideological and political configuration that emerged in response to the global economic crisis of 2008 and the ongoing crisis of liberal democracy. The backlash of the eighties and nineties combined neoconservatism with market fundamentalism (which is to some extent still the case with neoconservative Christian fundamentalists in the United States and elsewhere), while the new movement—though in many ways a continuation of earlier trends—tends to combine gender conservatism with a critique of neoliberalism and globalization. Liberal elites are presented as “colonizers”; “genderism” is demonized as an ideology imposed by the world’s rich on the poor. Thanks to the anticolonial frame, antigenderism has remarkable ideological coherence and great mobilizing power: right-wing populists have captured the imagination and hearts of large portions of local populations more effectively than progressive movements have managed to do. The article examines the basic tenets of antigenderism, shedding light on how this ideology contributes to the contemporary transnational resurgence of illiberal populism. We argue that today’s global Right, while selectively borrowing from liberal-Left and feminist discourses, is in fact constructing a new universalism, an illiberal one. While the examples discussed are mostly from Poland, the pattern is transnational, and our conclusions may have serious implications for feminist theory and activism.

‘The purest citizens’ and ‘IVF children’. Reproductive citizenship in contemporary Poland

This article examines the public debate on reproductive technologies in contemporary Poland, focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by the main opponents of IVF: conservative politicians representing the leading parties in the Polish parliament and the representatives of the Catholic Church. The analysis highlights the exclusionary logic inscribed in the construction of the main categories of political subjects in this debate, revealing important limitations of reproductive citizenship in the Polish context. The study draws on a variety of texts published in print and electronic media between 2007 and 2015, including articles on infertility and reproductive technologies published in the main Polish daily and weekly print publications, online resources (web pages, forums and Facebook pages), documents issued by the representatives of the Church, politicians and experts, e.g. open letters, commentaries, information for the media and interviews.