Neo-patriarchy. A recurring idea of the hierarchical gender order

Timetable

Wednesday, 1.30 - 3.00, room 046, Collegium Heliodori, ul. Grunwaldzka 6

FIRST MEETING: Wednesday 6th March 2024

Module aim (aims)

The idea of the course stems from an observation that a concept of linear historical progress marked by increasing gender equality and piecemeal but inevitable dismantling of patriarchal hierarchies is far from being an adequate description of reality, both in Western and non-Western societies. While in many spheres of social life gender equality has been a significant achievement of emancipatory movements, we have been simultaneously witnessing diverse political, cultural and economic processes that have undermined it and contributed to establishing new forms of hierarchy and dependency. Among the most important factors responsible for these processes one should mention so called "return of religion" (especially in its politicized and neo-traditionalist variants), implementation of the neoliberal economic policies (involving the dismantling of the welfare-state and privatization of social reproduction), resurgence of nationalism (with its hierarchical gender models) as well as different forms of rejection - both practical and intellectual - of the Enlightenment values that historically were a basis of progressive movements, including feminist ones. The goal of the course will be to analyse these multiple processes and to examine a number of cases illustrating the anti-egalitarian backlash that takes place in Western as well as non-Western societies. During the course we will refer both to theoretical and empirical studies from the fields of history, sociology, political science as well as philosophy and cultural studies.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Syllabus

1. Introduction: the idea of backlash

1. Key concepts: gender - gender order - patriarchy – androcentrism – male domination

1. The Enlightenment and non-linear histories of emancipation

1. Femininity and masculinity in nationalism

1. The gender politics of anti-colonialism

1. Revolution and gender

1. Gender and other axes of domination (intersectionality)

1. Ideologies of Masculinity

1. Neoliberalism and the new gender order

1. Religion and "restoring the natural order"

1. War on gender - the specter of "gender ideology"

1. Women perpetuating male domination?

Reading list

1. Faludi, S. (2006). "Blame It on Feminism". in: Backlash: The undeclared war against American women. New York: Broadway Books.
2. Scott, J. W. (1986). Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis. The American Historical Review, 91(5), 1053–1075.
3. Pilcher, J., & Whelehan, I. (2013). "Patriarchy", "Gender order", "Androcentrism". in: Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies. SAGE Publications Ltd
4. Kelly, J. (1986). "The Social Relation of the Sexes. Methodological Implications of Women's History". in: Women, History, and Theory. University of Chicago Press.
5. Beck, U. (1992) „’I and I: Gendered Space and Conflicts Inside and Outside the Family’”. (fragment), in: Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Sage Publications.
6. Oyěwùmí, O. (1997). “Colonizing Bodies and Minds: Gender and Colonialism”. in: The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses. University of Minnesota Press.
7. McClintock, A. (1995). "No longer in a future heaven. Nationalism, gender and race" (pp. 352-368), in: Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. Routledge.
8. Zahia Smail Salhi (2010) "The Algerian feminist movement between nationalism, patriarchy and Islamism" Women's Studies International Forum, 33, 113–124.
9. Korolczuk, E., Graff, A. (2018). Gender as “ebola from Brussels”: the anticolonial frame and the rise of illiberal populism. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 43(4), 797–821.
10. Levy, D. G., Applewhite, H. B.  (1990). "Parisian Women. Gains and Losses". in: Kafker, F., Laux, J. (eds.)  The French Revolution. Conflicting Interpretations. Malabar Fl: Robert E. Krieger Publishing Company.
11. Moghadam, V. M. (1995). Gender and revolutionary transformation: Iran 1979 and East Central Europe 1989. Gender & Society, 9(3), 328–358.
12. Kimmel, M. S. (2003). Globalization and its Mal(e)Contents: The Gendered Moral and Political Economy of Terrorism. International Sociology, 18(3), 603–620.
13. Kimmel, M. (2017). Angry white men: American masculinity at the end of an era. London: Hachette (fragments).
14. Beauchamp, Zach. 2018. “Incel, the Misogynist Ideology behind the Toronto Attack, Explained.” Vox, April 25. https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25 /17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian.
15. McDowell, L. (1991). Life without father and Ford: the new gender order of post-Fordism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 400–419.
16. Fraser, N. (2009). Capitalism, Feminism, and the Cunning of History. New Left Review, 56, 97–117.
17. Cooper, M. 2017. "Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism", in: Family values: Between neoliberalism and the new social conservatism. Zone / near Futures. New York: Zone Books.
18. Kaoma, K. 2009. Globalizing the Culture Wars: US Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia: Political Research Associates.
19. Datta, N. 2018. “Restoring the Natural Order”: The religious extremists’ vision to mobilize European societies against human rights on sexuality and reproduction. the European Parliamentary Forum on Population & Development. https://www.epfweb.org/sites/epfweb.org/files/rtno_epf_book_lores.pdf
20. Kuhar, R., and D. Paternotte,  (Eds.). 2017. Anti-gender campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing against equality. London, New York: Rowman & Littlefield International.
21. Szwed, A., and Zielinska, K. (2017). A War on Gender? The Roman Catholic Church’s Discourse on Gender in Poland.
22. Melo Lopes, F. (2019). Perpetuating the patriarchy: Misogyny and (post-)feminist backlash. Philosophical Studies, 176(9), 2517–2538.
23. Catherine Rottenberg(2014) The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism, Cultural Studies, 28:3, 418-437.
24. Atwood, M. 1986. The Handmaid's Tale. Everyman's Library Classics, London, New York: Penguin.