Where feminists dare

The challenge to the hetero-patriarchal and neo-conservative backlash in Italy and Poland

Authors

  • Agnieszka Bielska-Brodziak University of Silesia
  • Marlena Drapalska-Grochowicz
  • Caterina Peroni
  • Elisa Rapetti

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1156

Keywords:

Anti-gender movements, backlash, abortion, Black Monday, feminist strike, Non Una Di Meno

Abstract

This paper focuses on the public debate in Poland and Italy concerning the right to abortion in the contemporary rise of populist neo-conservative forces in Europe and of a global feminist movement. In both countries, the historical Catholic interference into women's reproductive rights and self-determination has been enforced by the renewed alliance of right-wing governments and pro-life groups to converge into a transnational “anti-gender war”. This represents a real backlash against women’s achievements over the last decades in terms of reproductive and sexual citizenship, which appears to be the battlefield for redefinition of western citizenship in times of global crisis. Although different genealogies, we identified a common framing of neo-conservative discourse, and of feminist claims and practices, as that of feminist strikes and social mutualism. In this perspective, we consider these practices as a normativity from below, arguing that feminist movement is addressing a new paradigm of citizenship.

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Author Biographies

Agnieszka Bielska-Brodziak, University of Silesia

post-doctoral degree in legal sciences (Dsc.), attorney-at-law, assistant profesor at the Department of Theory and Philosophy of Law on The Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Silesia in Katowice; author of numerous publications on interpretation of law 

University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Law and Administration, ul. Bankowa 11, Katowice, Poland. ORCID: 0000-0002-9926-6436, Email: agnieszka.bielska-brodziak@us.edu.pl 

Marlena Drapalska-Grochowicz

PhD candidate in the Department of Theory and Philosophy of Law in the Faculty of Law and Administration of University of Silesia in Katowice

University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Law and Administration, ul. Bankowa 11, Katowice, Poland. ORCID: 0000-0002-8602-2918, Email: mdrapalska@gmail.com

Caterina Peroni

Post-doc researcher at the National Research Council and member of the scientific committee of the Master in Critical Criminology at the University of Padua. Email: caterina.peroni@irpps.cnr.it

IRPPS - CNR, via Palestro 32, 00185 Rome (Italy)

ORCID: 0000-0003-1001-0125

Elisa Rapetti

 

Elisa Rapetti is PhD in Methodology of Social Research and Applied Sociology and her research interests include gender discrimination, citizenship and education, learning and teaching processes. Her involvement into international development cooperation projects as consultant for several NGOs has led her to focus on how gender is intersected with ethnicity, class, age and other axis of social differentiation and discrimination. Her professional skills include designing, implementing and monitoring gender training courses. 

Address: Elisa Rapetti, vicolo Fontana, 7 - 15010 Gamalero (AL)

Email: rapetti.elisa@gmail.com

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Published

28-12-2020

How to Cite

Bielska-Brodziak, A., Drapalska-Grochowicz, M., Peroni, C. and Rapetti, E. (2020) “Where feminists dare: The challenge to the hetero-patriarchal and neo-conservative backlash in Italy and Poland”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 10(1S), p. 38S–66S. doi: 10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1156.