Gendernationalism as a new expression of political nationalism?

SWITZERLAND: GENDERNATIONALISM - 2018

Janine DAHINDEN, Carolin FISCHER, Joanna MENET, Anne KRISTOL, «Gendernationalism as a new expression of political nationalism? », on Gender Campus, September 2018

This article is based on a research conducted within the National Centres of Competence in Research (NCCRs). The authors notice that “gender equality has become a yard stick to assess who is or is not compatible with – and therefore eligible to belong – to Swiss society” despite the fact that reality is far more complex ant that the Swiss society itself doesn't comply with gender equality (e.g. unequal pay, unequal repartition of the work of care, unequality in leadership positions). Even if nationalism already used gender in the 1960’ as a political argument against male foreigners, the particularity with nowadays gendernationalism is that the lens is put on women, represented as unemancipated and victim of their foreign culture. They also stress out that gendernationalism is becoming increasingly institutionalized and “weigh[s] heavily on the soft criteria of political decision-making.” Among other consequences, gendernationalism “promotes generalized perceptions and representations of ‘us’ as the only good and legitimate citizens”, participating at the “sense of western superiority”. Direct to the article (gendercampus.ch)