The new wave of anti-feminism inherent in many contemporary nationalist movements that we are witnessing worldwide no longer constitutes a manifestation of conventional patriarchal resistance to women’s liberation.
Today’s anti-feminist discourses, intersecting with nationalist rhetoric and populist discursive strategies, as well as resentment towards transnational bodies and a resistance to globalization, are veiled as “pro-family”. Effectively, they reframe women’s rights as a struggle for the rights of mothers and motherhood.
While such discourses are ultimately geared towards sustaining and promoting patriarchy, the activists who get their “hands dirty” by engaging in street politics are, very often, strong women who do not necessarily fit into the “obedient silent wife” imagery central to conventional patriarchal fantasies.
