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Violence in anti-gender politics

What is the role of far-right violence? How can we care for each other while navigating these hostilities? What is the role of care in building feminist futures?

The politics of the manosphere, far right, and anti-gender actors is explicitly sexist, racist, ableist, and transphobic. This creates and targets precarious groups on the streets, at Europe’s borders, and within institutions.

Photos: © Michelle Geerardyn

Illustrations: © Valentine Zhang (https://www.instagram.com/valentinezhang/)

Introduction of CCINDLE and their research

With the increasing far-right violence, it seems the role of violence is changing and we need to rethink in this new context how violence becomes a tool for political campaigns. CCINDLE’s Andrea and Olli research violence in anti-gender politics in countries such as Belgium, Sweden and Spain.

Key findings

Three key findings from their work relevant for this roundtable include:

* There is a different instrumentalization of violence: building on violence already present in political campaigns, that may differ per country (e.g., the state itself becomes a violent actor and perpetrator of violence, such as in Poland and Hungary).

• Political violence is not what it used to be: political violence does not only happen towards politicians, it also happens towards civil society that stands at the forefront of violent attacks. Nowadays, political violence is not only physical, but also includes threats, intimidation, and bullying. Although they may not count as traditional forms of violence, they are nonetheless harmful.

• The role of the state is dual: it is a perpetrating actor of committing violence, but also an actor that is condoning violence (lacking in its role to prevent violence and protect against violence).

Andrea and Olli ask us two central questions:

• What is the nature of violence?

• What can we do about it?

We took some time to write down our own answers on post-its before discussing our views collectively. Below are some of the reflections that participants gave in answer to the questions.

The nature of violence

What is violence today? How has it changed? How does it show up in your context?

Violence has become instrumentalized by political actors, legimitated, legalized, and normalized in various ways: as “security management” or a “defense system”, as a tool of racism, as border regimes. So many different forms of violence are happening out of sight and explained to wider society as something legal, a last measure. One participant reflects: “How much social acceptance does direct violence get?”

Violence showcases anger and religious hate, instigating mobilization. Hate speech is used commonly in the Brazilian context: allegories (“men are losing rights, women have more rights”), anti-feminism, and aggression is also present within your own environment, with your loved ones.

The denial of non-action. There is a violence in being able to forget, excuse, and deny accountability.

Violent action is obvious (in the Mexican context), especially by state forces through sexual violence or blatant criticization of women and women’s bodies.

Epistemic violence, the way language is used to frame topics, frameworks that are assumed and taken on by states or far-right activists. The normalization of certain rhetorics: violence against women seen as anti-immigration issues.

Violence is contextual: to determine what is violence, you have to take into account the context.

Violence is polarization, to the extent that it sows divide. People are increasingly more inclined to burn bridges rather than work on repair: it’s a black-or-white, “either you’re with us, or you’re against us” dynamic, even among left and activist circles.

Some keywords that already came up during this discussion included:

• Fear: if you are constantly living in fear, you are not living

• Dividing: dividing people as an act of violence

• Control: fear and dividing as a means of control to exert power and control the masses

What can we as feminists do on different levels and engagements?

Violence can also be present within feminist groups. That is why coalition is all the more important.

• Coalition: it’s difficult to build bridges, also within feminist groups. How to repair ruptures?

• Sometimes people do not understand something (they did) is violence.

• The importance of showing support.

Education, e.g., lack of sex education: you cannot denounce it if you don’t know what it is. Knowledge is power.

Re-building narratives: building our own narrative and destroying the existing narrative.

Care as a strategy and a starting point. Building bridges and repairing ruptures, making space for nuance, support. Here the following questions arise: What is care? And how do you show care?

• Listening to people with less privilege, being aware of your own privileges.

• Care centered as a lens in research/work: focusing on the felt, lived experience of others, approaching others with empathy can also challenge the way you understand violence. When you see violence not (only) as how it is defined by law, but validating one’s own perception of what violence is. In other words: If it is called and experienced as violent, it is violent.

• “We have to ask ourselves who we are caring for and what we can do to be more horizontal.” Care as a feeling of togetherness, being one with others.

• The space to make mistakes and to be welcoming towards each other’s mistakes. To also be accountable and held accountable.

What we can do thus seems to center on two main approaches:

• Knowledge & awareness: education, knowledge dissemination, and re-building narratives.

• Care in the form of support, safety & openness: focusing on repair when there are ruptures and interacting with one another from a place of care, centered on empathy, active listening and lived experiences.

Conclusion

Each roundtable came up with three keywords to summarize the discussions.

The first roundtable - Polarization: a way to normalize the use of violence, strategies and weaponization

• Dehumanization/othering

• Renaming: naming, recognizing, not hiding away, is essential

The second roundtable - Control: strategies deployed (dehumanization/othering, fear, denial, normalization, etc.) are all done so in order to hold, gain, and maintain control.

• Omission: in-action, non-response is also a violent tactic.

• Culture of care: the importance of a culture of care to form a united front of solidarity.