Where feminists dare
The challenge to the hetero-patriarchal and neo-conservative backlash in Italy and Poland
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1156Mots-clés :
Anti-gender movements, backlash, abortion, Black Monday, feminist strike, Non Una Di MenoRésumé
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.
Téléchargements
Metrics
Downloads:
PDF (English) 677
Références
Autorino, T., Mattioli, F., and Mencarini, L., 2018. The Impact of Gynecologists’ Conscientious Objection on Access to Abortion in Italy. WP Dondena [online], nº 119, Università Bocconi. Available from: https://www.dondena.unibocconi.it/wps/wcm/connect/cdr/centro_dondena/home/working+papers/working+paper+no.+119 [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Bellè, E., Peroni, C., and Rapetti, E., 2018. One step up and two steps back? The Italian debate on secularization, heteronormativity and LGBTQI citizenship. Social Compass [online], 65(5), 591–607. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768618800750 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768618800750
Bennett, W.L., and Segerberg, A., 2012. The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Information, communication & society [online], 15(5), 739-768. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.670661
Bonfiglioli, C., 2011. Former East, Former West: Post-Socialist Nostalgia and Feminist Genealogies in Today’s Europe. Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU [online], 59(1), 115-128. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI1101115B [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI1101115B
Bracke, M.A., 2017. Feminism, the state, and the centrality of reproduction: abortion struggles in 1970s Italy. Social History [online], 42(4), 524–546. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2017.1368234 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2017.1368234
Braidotti, R., 2008. In spite of the times: The postsecular turn in feminism. Theory, Culture & Society [online], 25(6), 1–24. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276408095542 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276408095542
Buss, D., and Herman, D., 2003. Globalizing Family Values: The Christian Right in International Politics. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctttstd7
Calloni, M., 2001. Debates and Controversies on Abortion in Italy. In: D. McBride Stetson, ed., Abortion Politics, Women’s Movements, and the Democratic State. Oxford University Press, 181-204. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/0199242666.003.0009
Cigarini, L., 1994. La politica del desiderio. Parma: Pratiche.
Dalla Costa, M.R., 1988. Domestic labour and the feminist movement in Italy since the 1970s. International Sociology [online], 3(1), 23–34. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/026858088003001002 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/026858088003001002
Datta, N., 2018. Restoring the Natural Order: The Religious Extremists’ Vision to Mobilize European Societies against Human Rights on Sexuality and Reproduction [online]. Brussels: European Parliamentary Forum on Population & Development (Vol. 14). Available from: https://www.epfweb.org/sites/default/files/2020-05/rtno_epf_book_lores.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Federici, S., 2012. Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. Oakland: PM Press.
Federici, S., 2019. On reproduction as an interpretative framework for social/gender relations, Gender, Place & Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography [online], 25 (9), 1391-1396. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1552404?scroll=top&needAccess=true [Accessed 11 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1552404
Figà-Talamanca, I., Grandolfo, M.E., and Spinelli, A., 1986. Epidemiology of legal abortion in Italy. International Journal of Epidemiology [online], 15(3), 343-351. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/15.3.343 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/15.3.343
Fotopoulou, A., 2016. Feminist Activism and Digital Networks: Between Empowerment and Vulnerability. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50471-5
Foucault, M., 1999. 1974-1975. Les anormaux: Cours au Collège de France. Paris: Le Seuil.
Gago, V., and Mason-Deese, L., 2019. Eight Theses on the Feminist Revolution. Toward Freedom [online], 10 September. Available from: https://towardfreedom.org/story/eight-theses-on-the-feminist-revolution/ [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Gal, S., and Kligman, G., 2000. The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Comparative-Historical Essay. Princeton University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400843008
Garbagnoli, S., 2014. “L’ideologia del genere”: L’irresistibile ascesa di un’invenzione retorica vaticana contro la denaturalizzazione dell’ordine sessuale. About Gender [online], 3(6), 250-263. Available from: https://doi.org/10.15167/2279-5057/ag.2014.3.6.224 [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Garbagnoli, S., 2017. Italy as a Lighthouse: Antigender protests between the “anthropological question” and national identity. In: R. Kuhar and D. Paternotte, eds., Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe Mobilizing against Equality. London/New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Garbagnoli, S., and Prearo, M., 2017. La croisade “anti-genre”: Du Vatican aux manifs pour tous. Paris : Textuel, coll. Petite encyclopédie critique.
Grabowska, M., 2009. Polish feminism between east and west: The formation of the polish women’s movement identity [online]. Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Women’s and Gender Studies. Written under the direction of Professor Joanna Regulska. New Brunswick: Rutgers University. Available from: https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/26287/PDF/1/play/ [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Grabowska, M., 2012. Bringing the Second World in: Conservative revolution (s), socialist legacies, and transnational silences in the trajectories of Polish feminism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society [online], 37(2), 385-411. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1086/661728 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/661728
Grabowska, M., 2014. Cultural war or “business as usual”? Recent instances, and the historical origins, of a “backlash” against women’s and sexual rights in Poland [online]. Warsaw: Heinrich Böll Stiftung. Available from: https://pl.boell.org/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/10/cultural_war_or_grabowska.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Graff, A., 2003. Lost between the Waves? The Paradoxes of Feminist Chronology and Activism in Contemporary Poland. Journal of International Women’s Studies [online], 4(2), 100-116. Available from: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol4/iss2/9/ [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Graff, A., 2010. Efekt magmy, czyli o szczególnej roli Kościoła katolickiego w Polsce. In: A. Ostolski, ed., Kościół, państwo i polityka płci [online]. Warsaw: Fundacja im. Heinricha Bölla w Polsce, 10-25. Available from: https://pl.boell.org/sites/default/files/kosciol_panstwo_i_polityka_plci.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Graff, A., 2014. Report from the gender trenches: War against “genderism” in Poland. European Journal of Women’s Studies [online], 21(4), 431-435. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506814546091 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506814546091
Gunnarsson-Payne, J., 2019. Kobiety jako “lud”. Czarne Protesty jako sprzeciw wobec autorytarnego populizmu w perspektywie międzynarodowej. In: E. Korolczuk et al., eds., Bunt kobiet: Czarne protesty i strajki kobiet [online]. Gdansk: Europejskie Centrum Solidarności, 55-183. Available from: https://ecs.gda.pl/library/File/nauka/e-booki/raport/ECS_raport_buntkobiet.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Hall, B., 2019. Gendering resistance to right-wing populism: Black protest and a new wave of feminist activism in Poland? American behavioral scientist [online], 63(10), 1497-1515. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219831731 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219831731
Hanafin, P., 2007. Conceiving Life: Reproductive Politics and the Law in Contemporary Italy. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Herdt, G., 2009. Moral Panics, Sexual Panics: Fear and the Fight over Sexual Rights. New York University Press.
Komisja Polityki Społecznej i Rodziny nr46, z dnia 3 listopada 2016 r., Biuletyn nr 1188/VIII [Social Policy and Family Committee nº 46 from 3 November 2016, Bulletin nº 1188/VIII] [online]. Available from: http://orka.sejm.gov.pl/Zapisy8.nsf/wgskrnr/PSR-46 [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Korolczuk, E., 2016. Explaining mass protests against abortion ban in Poland: the power of connective action. Zoon politikon [online], 7, 91-113. Available from: https://www.civitas.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Zoon_Politikon_07_2016_091_113.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Kováts, E., and Põim, M., eds., 2015. Gender as Symbolic Glue: The Position and Role of Conservative and Far Right Parties in the Anti-Gender Mobilizations in Europe [online]. FEPS–Foundation for European Progressive Studies/Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Available from: https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/budapest/11382.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Kuhar, R., and Paternotte, D., eds., 2017. Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe Mobilizing against Equality. London/New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
Kulczycki, A., 1995. Abortion Policy in Post-communist Europe: The Conflict in Poland. Population and Development Review [online], 21(3). Available from: https://doi.org/10.2307/2137747 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2137747
Lavizzari, A., and Prearo, M., 2018. The anti-gender movement in Italy: Catholic participation between electoral and protest politics. European Societies [online], 21(3). Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2018.1536801 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2018.1536801
Libreria delle donne di Milano, 1986. Non credere di avere dei diritti. Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Majewska, E., 2016. Słaby opór i siła bezsilnych. #Czarnyprotest kobiet w Polsce 2016. [Weak resistance and the power of the powerless. Women’s #Blackprotest in Poland 2016]. Praktyka Teoretyczna [online]. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/31140128/Słaby_opór_i_siła_bezsilnych_Czarny_protest_kobiet_w_Polsce_2016 [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Mason-Deese, L., 2018. From #MeToo to #WeStrike: a politics in feminine. Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence# MeToo. Versobook Blog [online], 6 March. Available from: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3666-from-metoo-to-westrike-a-politics-in-feminine [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Mény, Y., and Surel, Y., 2002. The constitutive ambiguity of populism. In: Y. Mény and Y. Surel, eds., Democracies and the populist challenge [online]. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1–21. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403920072_1 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403920072_1
Ministero della Salute, 2017. Relazione del Ministro della Salute sulla attuazione della legge contenente norme per la tutela sociale della maternità e dell’interruzione volontaria di gravidanza (Legge 194/78) [Report on the application of Law 194/78. Protection on maternity and abortion] (online). Rome, 22 December. Available from: http://www.salute.gov.it/imgs/C_17_pubblicazioni_2686_allegato.pdf [Accessed 11 September 2020].
Ministero della Salute, 2018. Relazione del Ministro della Salute sulla attuazione della legge contenente norme per la tutela sociale della maternità e dell’interruzione volontaria di gravidanza (Legge 194/78) [Report on the application of Law 194/78. Protection on maternity and abortion] (online). Available from: http://www.salute.gov.it/imgs/C_17_pubblicazioni_2807_allegato.pdf [Accessed 11 September 2020].
Munro, E., 2013. Feminism: A Fourth Wave? Political Insight [online], 4(2), 22-25. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-9066.12021 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-9066.12021
Non Una Di Meno, 2017a. 8 punti per Lottomarzo. Nonunadimeno [online], 18 February. Available from: https://nonunadimeno.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/8-punti-per-lottomarzo/ [Accessed 11 September 2020].
Non Una Di Meno, 2017b. Abbiamo un Piano: Piano femminista contro la violenza maschile sulle donne e la violenza di genere. Nonunadimeno [online], November. Available from: https://nonunadimeno.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/abbiamo_un_piano.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Non Una Di Meno, 2018. Appello nazionale di Non Una di Meno verso i 40 anni dalla Legge 194. [Blog post]. Nonunadimeno [online], 12 May. Available from: https://nonunadimeno.wordpress.com/2018/05/12/appello-nazionale-di-non-una-di-meno-verso-i-40-anni-dalla-legge-194/ [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Obiezione Respinta, 2017a. SoS Aborto! Obiezionerespinta [online]. Available from: https://obiezionerespinta.info/campagna_sos_aborto/ [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Obiezione Respinta, 2017b. Sui nostri corpi, sulla nostra salute e sul nostro piacere decidiamo noi! [Manifesto]. Obiezionerespinta [online]. Available from: https://obiezionerespinta.info/manifesto/ [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Ozzano, L., and Giorgi, A., 2015. European Culture Wars and the Italian Case: Which Side Are You On? London: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315669892
Paternotte, D., and Kuhar, R., 2018. Disentangling and Locating the “Global Right”: Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe. Politics and Governance [online], 6(3), 6–19. Available from: https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v6i3.1557 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v6i3.1557
Pavan, E., and Mainardi, A., 2018. Striking, Marching, Tweeting. Studying how online networks change together with movements. Partecipazione e conflitto [online], 11(2), 394-422. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1285%2Fi20356609v11i2p394 [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Peroni, C., 2015. Gender-Based Violence and “Feminicide” in Queer Italian Movements: Questioning Gender, Sexuality, and the (Hetero) Normative Order. Oñati Socio-Legal Series [online], 5(6). Available from: http://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/499 [Accessed 11 September 2020].
Peroni, C., 2018. Il #MeToo di Hollywood e il #WeToogether di Non Una Di Meno. Dalla denuncia alla pratica collettiva contro le molestie sessuali nel/del lavoro. In: M. Bettaglio, N. Mandolini and S. Ross, eds., Rappresentare la violenza di genere: Sguardi femministi sulla letteratura, il cinema, il teatro e il discorso mediatico contemporaneo. Milan: Mimesis.
Pitch, T., 1998. Un diritto per due: La costruzione giuridica di genere, sesso e sessualità. Rome: Il Saggiatore.
Ramet, S.P., 2014. The Catholic Church in Post-Communist Poland: Polarization, Privatization, and Decline in Influence. In: S.P. Ramet, Religion and Politics in Post-Socialist Central and South-eastern Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137330727_2
Richardson, D., 2017. Rethinking sexual citizenship. Sociology [online] 51(2), 208–224. Available from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038515609024 [Accessed 11 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038515609024
Salvatori, L., 2018. “Lost Between the Waves” or Riding a New Tide? Drawing Connections Between Italian and Polish Digitally Mediated Feminism. Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media [online], 19, 73–91. Available from: https://www.digitalicons.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/DI19_4_Salvatori.pdf [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Scott, J.W., 2009. Sexularism. Paper presented at RSCAS Distinguished Lectures, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. Florence, 23 April.
Seidman, S., 2001. From identity to queer politics: Shifts in normative heterosexuality and the meaning of citizenship. Citizenship Studies [online], 5(3), 321–328. Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13621020120085270 [Accessed 11 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13621020120085270
Strajk Kobiet, 2017. Co Robimy. Strajk Kobiet [online]. Available from: http://strajkkobiet.eu/co-robimy/ [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Szelewa, D., 2016. Killing “Unborn Children”? The Catholic Church and Abortion Law in Poland Since 1989. Social & Legal Studies [online], 25(6), 741–764. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663916668247 [Accessed 4 September 2020]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663916668247
Urquhart, G., 1999. The Pope's Armada: Unlocking the Secrets of Mysterious and Powerful New Sects in the Church. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
Valentini, C., 1997. Le donne fanno paura. Rome: Il Saggiatore.
Wodak, R., 2015. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446270073
Zappino, F., ed., 2016. Il genere tra neoliberismo e neofondamentalismo. Verona: Ombre corte.
Téléchargements
Publié-e
Comment citer
Numéro
Rubrique
Licence
(c) Tous droits réservés Agnieszka Bielska-Brodziak, Marlena Drapalska-Grochowicz, Caterina Peroni, Elisa Rapetti 2020
Cette œuvre est sous licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence, further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
