Citizenship: Whos Afraid of Gender?

Published: May 11, 2022, 4:57 p.m.

From Poland to the studios of Fox News, reactionaries have recast progressive ideas about gender as a militant \u201cgender ideology\u201d that threatens society and its values. These politicians and pundits stoke this and other \u201cmoral panics\u201d\u2014mass frenzies of fear about practices, ideas, or identities that supposedly threaten a country\u2019s innocence or moral character.\xa0\nMoral panics are an increasingly prominent feature of the political landscape around the world, and they increasingly focus on gender. This episode of \u201cTransnational Trends in Citizenship\u201d\u2014the new season of\xa0Order from Ashes\u2014draws on examples from Egypt, Poland, and elsewhere to show how leaders, media, and other actors cultivate, promote, and even invent these moral panics. These actors exploit moral panics to rapidly construct social coalitions that might not otherwise coalesce. And in case after case, moral panics are shown to be about power\u2014more policing of the marginalized; stifling social and economic change that would cost the elite; fighting democratic reforms; and redirecting grievances toward scapegoats.\xa0\nThis podcast is part of \u201cTransnational Trends in Citizenship: Authoritarianism and the Emerging Global Culture of Resistance,\u201d a TCF project supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Open Society Foundations.\xa0\nParticipants include:\nLobna Darwish, gender and human rights officer, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights\nKate Korycki, assistant professor of gender, sexuality, and women\u2019s studies, Western University Canada\nNaira Antoun, director, Transnational Trends in Citizenship, Century International