Mapping Gender Struggles

Gender constitutes a central category of contemporary social movements: It remains at the core of feminist and queer movements, which in recent years have regained social significance. Moreover, women and queer individuals have increasingly emerged as spokespersons and key actors in social movements, for instance in Fridays for Future or the pro-democracy movements in Belarus and Iran. At the same time, gender is also a contested field for right-wing and authoritarian mobilization, both in Europe and globally - whether in the form of openly articulated anti-feminism and anti-genderism, or through the co-optation of feminist concerns for racist and nationalist politics. This volume brings together fourteen contributions from various social and cultural science disciplines that examine this contradictory constellation. By combining theoretical discussion with empirical case studies, the contributions open new perspectives on the significance of contemporary gender struggles for understanding present-day societies, crises, and lines of conflict.