Submit a Manuscript to the Journal, Journal of Gender Studies, for a Special Issue on

Critical Perspectives on the Nexus between the Transformation of Gender Order and the Far Right

Across the globe, we can observe contradictory shifts in the gender order. On the one hand, there has been a shift towards greater gender liberalisation and flexibility. On the other hand, there is evidence of the persistence and re-stabilisation of gender-conservative, anti-feminist, anti-queer and anti-LGBT* structures (Arguedas-Ramirez 2024, Edström et al. 2024, Scheele/Roth/Winkel 2022, Antić/Radačić 2020, Kuhar/Paternotte 2018). In this context, the (re-)establishment of social justice – not only in relation to gender, but also connected to sexuality, race/ethnicity, class, ability, and age – is challenged. Indeed, we often observe a backlash against equality.

One actor that takes part in contesting the gender order and in shaping its transformation, is the far right. Here we understand it as a spectrum of anti-democratic and anti-pluralist groups, movements, and parties including regressive neoliberal, authoritarian, populist, nationalist, libertarian, fundamentalist, neo-fascist. Worldwide, far-right actors refer to the disruptions in the gender order in a way that serves to advance their anti-feminist, racist political project (cf. Roth/Sauer 2022).

The last years have seen an intensification in gender-sensitive research on the far right. The literature has showed that a gender-sensitive approach is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of far-right extremism (see among others Scrinzi 2024, Leidig 2023, Leidig/Baryarri 2023, Kisoyava et al. 2022, Worth 2021, Blee 2020, Sauer 2020, Dietze/Roth 2020, Geva 2020, Mattheis 2018, Köttig et al. 2017, Farris 2017, Fangen 2003). However, when it comes to the nexus of the gender order and the far right, the literature has thus far has focused on two lines of work. First, work dealing with the gender order within the far right. Second, work analysing how the far right addresses gender in its narratives, programs, and politics. In contrast, we have only begun to understand the complex dynamics, effects and contradictions of the nexus between the transformation of the societal gender order and the contemporary far right. This Special Issue contributes to filling this gap by exploring the role of the far right in the ambivalent transformation and contestation of the gender order.

Since both the transformation of the gender order and the politicisation of gender by far-right actors can be observed globally (e.g. Goetz/Meyer 2023), the endeavor of understanding the far right’s part in the ambivalent transformation of the gender order must inevitably have a global focus. This endeavor has to bear in mind heterogeneities of far-right movements and of the different contexts in which they emerge. So far, studies of the far right focus mainly on Europe and the US. De- and postcolonial accounts of the far right in the Global South criticize the epistemic coloniality and orientalism that is a consequence of this methodological Eurocentrism/Westernism (e.g. Kumral 2024; Pinheiro-Machado/Vargas-Maia 2023; Masood/Nisar 2020). Alike, work to understand the nexus between the gender order transformation and the far right in a global perspective has to bear in mind historical path dependencies, regional particularities and ideological continuities in regional gender regimes, and their transformation (Bose 2023, 2015, Pinheiro-Machado/Varga-Maia 2023). By deliberately adopting a global perspective, the special issue wants to transcend the methodological eurocentrism of studies of the far-right and test whether gender is a suitable analytical category for relating and comparing phenomena across different regional developments.

Our main objective is to gather empirical evidence from different disciplines on how the nexus between the far right and the transformation of the gender order manifests in different countries and regions of the world, how it materializes in different cultural, political, economic and religious contexts, how it unfolds on a transnational level, how it intersects with social categories like race, class etc., and how it is discussed in the wider public and conceptualized in scholarship. We also seek contributions with conceptual and theoretical considerations that deepen our understanding of how the contemporary far right is both an actor and a contributor in the transformation of the gender order.

 The contributions to the special issue can engage with the following questions and beyond:

• In what ways is the societal gender order in a given country/region the condition for far-right mobilisation successes, strategies, and programs?
• How does the far-right refer to the societal gender order in a given country/region? How do far-right actors politicize or depoliticize certain aspects of the gender order?
• The transformation of the gender order, and the contestations that go along with it, are taking place in numerous fields and arenas: school/education, media, culture, governments/legislative bodies, labor markets, organisation of care work, within private relationships and so on. Which arenas does the far right choose (not) to enter, and why? And what factors determine their success in these arenas?
• There is some literature on how the topic of gender is adopted and framed by the far right. But how are far-right discourses on gender addressed in contexts like education or jurisdiction? What impact does this have on broader discourses, in school or legislative processes?
• How do far-right actors adopt and build their ideology and program upon gender-conservative and -reactionary attitudes and structures present in the mainstream? How do they radicalize them?
• How do societal gender relations and the concept of gender shape the perception of far-right actors (and their gendered self-presentation) by the state, scholarship, and civil society?
• How does the far right engage internationally in the struggle over the interpretation of gender relations/gender order? How do international networks of the far-right relate to gender? What is the role of social media?
• In discourse, Eurocentric and white accounts of gender and the far right are hegemonic. How do perspectives from other regions of the world or an intersectional or de-/postcolonial analysis (ex. Indelicato/Magalhaes Lopes, 2024; Erel, 2018) challenge this Eurocentric and predominantly white understanding? Which intersectional perspectives help understand the nexus of the gender order and the contemporary far right?
• How does the far right affect lived experiences? How do individuals negatively affected by far-right gender-reactionary and anti-feminist ideologies experience these effects? And how do such attacks reshape the gender order at the everyday level?

Submission Instructions

Abstracts of approximately 600-800 words should be submitted by end of April 2025 to the following email addresses: marie.reusch@sowi.uni-giessen.de and viktoria.roesch@fb4.fra-uas.de. All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors, and feedback will be shared by the end of May 2025. Authors whose abstracts are selected will be invited to submit their full manuscripts. Manuscripts should adhere to the submission guidelines of the Journal of Gender Studies and will undergo a double-blind peer review process.