The last decade has seen a significant conservative backlash against women's and LGBTQ rights across the globe. From Russia to the United States, attempts to curtail women's reproductive rights have been accompanied by a backlash against (liberal) feminism and non-heterosexual identities. In Central Eastern Europe and Latin America, in particular, conservative political and religious actors have sought to curb debate about gender inequality, reproductive injustice, sexual violence, and discrimination against LGBTQ communities.
The term "gender ideology" has been adopted by a range of actors, including right-wing politicians and catholic and evangelical preachers, to mobilise support for conservative and populist agendas. In both regions, conservative actors portray feminism and LGBTQ rights as the outcome of "cultural colonisation" from international bodies and changing demographics from increased levels of migration. Appropriating the language of rights, they advocate a ban on abortion and parents' rights to educate their children about sex and sexuality based on faith based values. In countries across both regions, this has led, amongst other things, to the marginalization of equality-based sex education and Gender Studies, a the refusal to ratify the Istanbul Convention, and a rejection of self-identification for transgender people.
Gender Wars: East and South is an international, interdisciplinary network of scholars and an artist focusing on gender and sexuality across Latin America and Central Eastern Europe in a comparative, cross-regional perspective . Its purpose is to bring together disciplinary expertise, area-based knowledge, and local know-how to shed light on how different institutional, religious, and cultural histories in and across these regions have contributed to the development of the contemporary backlash. Existing scholarship, mostly by political scientists, has mostly focused on the political dimensions of "antigenderism", documenting the electoral successes of radical right parties, or the transnational backlash against anti-gender discrimination policies in countries with right-wing, conservative leadership. However, this has left significant cultural and historical dimensions understudied. What role have historical changes in religious life, family structures, and legal reforms in the field women's and LGBTQ rights played in generating contemporary "anti-genderisms"? How has the experience of various forms of authoritarian regimes and processes of post-authoritarian democratization influenced social and cultural perceptions of gender and sexuality? How have the effects of neoliberalism (for instance, changes in labour regulations and social welfare) intersected with "pro-family" conservative approaches in these regions?
Across a series of workshops, roundtables, and artistic interventions hosted by academics at network hubs (University of Oxford, Central European University, Federal University of Bahia, University of Amsterdam, University of Brasilia, University of Warsaw), Gender Wars aims to document the similarities, differences, and connections between "anti-gender" movements across the two regions by harnessing the specialist, area-based knowledge and local contacts of network members. It will bring scholars of "anti-gender" movements from across the Humanities and Social Sciences in dialogue with political scientists, in order to expose the historically, socio-culturally, and religiously specific dynamics in each region which generate and underpin the conservative backlash against women's and LGBTQ rights.
Finally, it will expose the role of art in critically interrogating and resisting anti-gender movements in Latin America and Central Eastern Europe and integrate artist-led practice in the facilitation, recording, and dissemination of inter-disciplinary dialogues
