The current rise of right wing populism and gendered nationalism brought about new challenges to gender and sexual equality. In country after country, critiques of gender equality policies, feminism, sex education, LGBTQ and reproductive rights have helped to mobilize constituencies, paving the way for populist leaders. While opposition to sexual and gender equality is often rooted in religious beliefs and nationalist mythology, today socially conservative actors legitimize themselves “scientifically” and present themselves as experts in the field of human reproduction, family and social policy. Anti-genderists insist that not only activists but also gender studies scholars are ideologues rather than scientists, simultaneously claiming that their religiously grounded claims are in fact scientific.
In this new and dynamic socio-political context addressing inequalities requires innovative and creative approaches. This paper discusses the effective strategies employed by the women’s movement in Poland to counteract the efforts of anti-gender actors. It will focus on how feminist activists successfully mobilized expertise and knowledge to oppose the bill proposal banning abortion in the country in 2016 and how the imagery associated with expert discourses has been creatively employed in the struggle for the inclusion of women’s voices in the media in 2018.
