Description
Since the mid-1990s, the Vatican contests the concept of gender as forged by feminists to
study social arrangements through which the sexual order is naturalised. This contestation
came with the distortion of the analyses and claims formulated by feminists and LGBTQ
scholars and social movements. This article understands the Vatican’s invention of
‘gender ideology’ as a new rhetorical device produced both to delegitimise feminist and
LGBTQ studies and struggles and to reaffirm that sexual norms transcend historical and
political arrangements. It also investigates how the transnationality of this discursive
construct relates to the specific features it has taken in two different national contexts –
France and Italy. The article is structured as follows: it first highlights the logic and
structure of the anti-gender discourse. Then, it analyses how the same argumentative
device is performed in anti-gender demonstrations. Finally, it scrutinises the rhetorical
and performative strategies through which anti-gender actors have formulated their
views and argues that ‘gender ideology’ can be understood as a political reaction against
the entry of minorities into the fields of politics and theory.
Source
https://brill.com/view/journals/rag/6/2/article-p187_4.xml
Language
English
Author
Sara Garbagnoli
Publication
Religion and Gender
Date
2016
