Is anti-gender opposition a current phenomenon? Brazil as a test case for studying anti-gender waves

As in so many other countries around the globe, the feminist project is under threat in Brazil. The country faces a strong anti-gender opposition for the moment, part of a broader backlash of (gender) equality policies and achievements, often also related to populist and anti-democratic tendencies. Many dimensions of the gendered democratic backsliding (Krizsán&Roggenband 2019) can be observed in Bolsonaro’s government: gender is associated to a communist strategy and a threat to national sovereignty; the emphasis on traditional values, reinforcing women’s role as mothers and reproducers; and the co-operation with religious and conservative organizations are good examples. While many scholars focus on the current phenomenon, its articulation, claims, networks, strategies, and success factors (Graff & Korolczuk 2021; Krizsán& Roggeband 2021; Kuhar& Paternotte 2017; Verloo 2018; Verloo & Paternotte 2018), we would like to approach the phenomenon from a different perspective. Indeed, going back in time, we can observe, that, at least in the Brazilian case, anti-gender articulations and opposition are no new or solely current phenomenon. Brazilian researchers (Schmidt 2006; Zimberg 2018) point at the evolution of anti-gender (rather anti-feminism) in the country since the 1960s. In 60 years of history, we have been able to identify four different phases. It is more than a current counter movement, as feminism it develops over time. Therefore, this paper aims at studying the current anti-gender opposition in Brazil in relation to earlier articulations of the same phenomenon, thereby exploring the concept of anti-gender or (anti-feminist) waves. The feminist movement literature divides its occurrence and development into waves. We acknowledge that this division or typology is not universal. Nonetheless, it is helpful in distinguishing between different moments in time and articulations of feminist claims, their organization and strategies, while still grasping all of them as part of a broader phenomenon. More particularly, in this paper we will address the following three research questions: 1) When did earlier anti-gender opposition (or anti-feminist) occur in Brazilian politics? 2) What does it have in common with and how does it differ from the current anti-gender opposition? 3) What does it teach us about the current anti-gender opposition as a specific phenomenon and to what extent would the concept of anti-gender (or anti-feminist) waves be useful to grasp the phenomenon we witness? In sum, this paper addresses the question to what extent the current anti-gender opposition in Brazil can be understood as a new wave of anti-gender (or anti-feminist) opposition, and what makes us argue so.