Description
How ';anti-genderism' fueled a global right-wing movement
In recent years, opposition to ';gender ideology' has become a rallying cry for the Right. Politicians throughout the world have invoked the dangers of ';gender' to restrict access to abortion, revoke LGBTQ rights, and police education. And yet at the same time, the term';gender' has become standard in everyday speecha box to check on a passport application or on a form at the doctor's office. When did the word ';gender' become a political controversy? When did the idea of a ';gender ideology' first emerge? In The War on Gender, Camille Robcis traces the history of a global movement that she calls ';anti-genderism': the assertion that a ';gender ideology,' developed in the halls of academia and foisted on an unwilling public, has become the driving force behind social policy.
Robcis argues that anti-genderism was invented by the Vatican in the mid-1990s in response to demands for reproductive and sexual rights made by feminist activists at conferences sponsored by the United Nations. To counter these claims, Vatican representatives decided to oppose ';gender' altogether. The culprits, in their view, were not only the activists at the conferences but the ';gender theorists' who had inspired them. During the papacy of John Paul IIwho made defense of the heterosexual family the bedrock of his reignthe Vatican propagated the expression ';gender ideology' throughout the world. It was embraced by many on the Right, including evangelical Christians, who adopted the rhetoric of anti-genderism to further their own illiberal agendas.