PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Abstract: This article delineates the ways in which gender and the opposition to “gender ideology” has become one of the key arenas of right-wing populist and extremist discourse and polarization. Starting from a number of right-wing patterns of en-gendering, it traces particularly the correspondence between right-wing populist logics and media logics and asks how media logics and gender patterns play a crucial role in the related re-fram-ing of polarized positionings. In the current “re-framed culture wars” (Brown), digital media in particular play an increasingly central role in the mobilization of affective attachments and the consolidation of new forms of community and communication. By proposing a first outline of possible correspondences, the article seeks to provide a lens through which the ways in which the current “conjuncture” (Hall) is marked by a re-ordering of political communication and democratic mechanisms can be traced in its complexity.Keywords: populism and gender, media and gender, political polarization, democracy and populismResumo: Este artigo aborda as formas como o género e a oposição à “ideologia de género” se tornaram uma das principais arenas do discurso e da polarização populista de extrema direita. Partindo de uma série de padrões de en-gendramento da direita, o artigo traça em particular a correspondência entre as lógicas populistas de direita e as lógicas dos media e questiona de que forma as lógicas dos media e os padrões de género desempe-nham um papel crucial no reenquadramento de posições polarizadas. Nas atuais “guerras culturais reenquadra-das” (Brown), os media digitais, em particular, desempenham um papel cada vez mais central na mobilização de ligações afectivas e na consolidação de novas formas de comunidade e comunicação. Ao propor um primeiro esboço de possíveis correspondências, o artigo procura fornecer uma lente através da qual as formas como a actual “conjuntura” (Hall) é marcada por uma reordenação da comunicação política e de como os mecanismos democráticos podem ser rastreados na sua complexidade.Palavras-chave:populismo e género, media e género, polarização política, democracia e populismo1. Opposition to “Gender Ideology”, Neoliberal Conjunctures, Re-Framed Culture WarsAs part of the first big event of his election campaign to run again as presidential candi-date for the Republican Party in 2024, Donald Trump gave a speech in South Carolina in late January 2023. Trump announced that as president, he would protect children from “perverts” and steer the country away from “woke” gender and sexuality politics: “We’re going to stop the left-wing radical racists and perverts who are trying to indoctrinate our youth, and we’re going to get their Marxist hands off of our children” Trump emphasized, and he continued: “We’re going to defeat the cult of gender ideology and reaffirm that god created two genders called men and women”, further promising to “cut federal funding for any school pushing far-left sexual or political content on our children.” (McClure 2023)Donald Trump’s obvious “obsession with gender” (Dietze/Roth 2020, 7) is but one ex-ample of the observation that gender has moved center stage in right-wing extremist and populist discourse, and that it is indeed fundamental for this discourse to function. While during his presidency, Donald Trump himself did not yet outrightly oppose gender as a major enemy, he also did not contradict Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who during his first visit to the US president in 2017 claimed that he and Trump would be united in their opposition