Gender Wars: East and South: Final Conference

For the past two years, the Gender Wars: East and South research network has been exploring its cross-regional cultural, historical, and political implications, uncovering their similarities and differences within and between Central Eastern Europe and Latin America. Our aim has been to provide a more nuanced understanding of the intersections of history, religion, sexuality, and gender have contributed to a backlash against women’s and LGBTQ+ rights across the globe.

We are holding our final Gender Wars conference at St Antony's College, Oxford, on September 25th and 26^th 2024. The conference will showcase current academic work and the artistic work of Karol Radziszewski.

Participation is free. Please email gender.wars.network@gmail.com with your name and affiliation to participate.

Wednesday, 25^th of September

10:30 – 11:00 Registration

11:00 Welcome

11:15 – 12:30 Keynote: David Paternotte (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Anti-Gender Campaigns: Still A Useful Concept?

Chair: Agnieszka Kościańska (University of Warsaw)

12:30 – 13:30 Lunch break

13:30 – 15:30 Transnational and Local Histories of Anti-Genderism

Chair: Hadley Renkin, Central European University

Piotr H. Kosicki (University of Maryland) and Sylwia Kuźma-Markowska (University of Warsaw), Violent Lessons for Polish Pro-Life Activism: How Polish-(Latin) American Exchanges Have Shaped the Gender Wars

Wannes Dupont (University of Edinburgh), Cultures of Life and Death. The Gender Wars’ Inception at the Early UN (1945-1968)

Anna Dobrowolska (University of Warsaw), ‘Naked Girls and Bare Shelves’. The Genealogies of Anti-Gender Discourses in pre-1989 Poland

Nađa Bobičić (University of Belgrade), Vanja Petrović (University of Belgrade), The Never-Ending 90's: The Role of Old Right-Wing Actors in New Anti-Gender Movements in Serbia

Izabela Desperak (University of Lodz), Anti-gender movement in Central East Europe: case study of Poland

15:30 – 16:00: Coffee break

16:00 – 17:45 Transnational and Transregional Links and Networks

Chair: Conny Roggeband (University of Amsterdam)

Ugo Laquièze (Université Libre de Bruxelles), From East to West, North to South: Mapping the Paths of Anti-Gender Discourses

Adriana Zaharijević (University of Belgrade) and Roman Kuhar (University of Ljubljana), Anti-Gender Mobilizations in the Post-Yugoslav Space

Barbora Doležalová (Charles University), Where Anti-Choice Is the Status Quo. The Shape of Anti-Gender Discourse in Malta

Olga Doletskaya (UCL), Transphobia as the new frontier: Russia’s new anti-trans legislation

18:00 Exhibition – Karol Radziszewski

19:00 Conference dinner

Thursday, 26^th of September

9:30– 10:45 Keynote: Flávia Biroli (University of Brasília)

Far-right Politics, Gender, and Democracy in Brazil

Chair: Nicolette Makovicky (University of Oxford)

10:45 – 11: 00 Coffee break

11:00 – 13:00 Anti-Gender Activisms: Case Studies in Comparative Perspective

Chair: Wannes Dupont (University of Edinburgh)

Rodrigo Cruz (Université Libre de Bruxelles), “Non-binarism is a sick fallacy”: Right-wing gay men against the “gender approach” in contemporary Brazil

Katalin Fábián (Lafayette College), Anti-Trans Feminists and Anti-Woke Politics: The diffusion and application of culture war concepts

Julia Laureau (UCLouvain), “Inside organized antifeminism”. Women in the Polish war on gender

Ionela Băluță (University of Bucharest), War against gender in education in Romania: resisting the neo-Marxist invasion and defending the “truth” and the “nation”

Ana Luleva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), War against Gender(s) in Bulgaria

13:00 – 14:00 Lunch break

14:00-16:00 Resisting Anti-Genderism: Legal and Activist Strategies

Chair: David Paternotte, (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Piotr Godzisz (University of Leicester), Beyond the Parliament? The Role of Advocacy Coalitions and Issue Salience in Shaping Policy Responses to Misogyny, Homophobia, and Transphobia in Poland

Lourdes Peroni (University of Warsaw) and Marta Bucholc (University of Warsaw), Anti-genderism at the Intersection of Law and Religion in the European and Inter-American Human Rights Courtrooms

Katarzyna Zielińska (Jagiellonian University), “Abortion is OK”!? Legitimizing Strategies of the Pro-choice Discourse in Poland

Beata Huszka (UCL), ‘“We are humans, too”: Mobilizing European courts in defence of the rights of sexual minorities in Hungary and Romania’

Amelia Barnes (University of Kent), Feminist and Queer Activism in Armenia: Facing the realities of war and the rise of the anti-gender movement.

This event is part of the AHRC-funded research network Gender Wars: East and South, which brings together an interdisciplinary network of scholars and artists of gender and sexuality across Latin America and Central Eastern Europe to examine the link between history, religion, sexuality, and gender under contemporary authoritarianisms. Gender Wars: East and South aims to document the similarities, differences, and connections between “anti-gender” movements across the two regions.