What does this actually mean? I mean, I have a PhD in an allied area and I don't understand it :(. Did Judith Butler write it?
Right-wing agendas have consistently identified feminism, gender equality and anti-racism as a problem, and have used ‘anti-gender’, anti-feminist, and anti-migrant feeling as a way of garnering support for nationalist, cultural, religious or political agendas. Currently 'anti-gender' attacks are on the rise globally, in the form of violence against feminists, LGBTQI communities and institutionalisation of feminist thought in universities, NGOs and governments. 'Anti-gender' aggression also forms part of religious, ethnic, cultural and nationalist fundamentalism in a range of contexts, with gender equality demonised as a foreign import associated with heightened migration and liberalisation, or heightened Westernisation. Within feminism, too, 'anti-gender' work insists on the integrity of 'sex', both as the unique site of sexual oppression of women, and as a unique position from which to challenge sexual violence and its representations. In this context, trans* claims to integrity are dismissed, and critiques of sexual essentialism from within decolonial feminism remain unacknowledged.
The research network starts from a critique of sexed, sexual, racial and cultural 'authenticity' that lies at the core of 'anti-gender' rhetoric, exploring arts and humanities approaches that can help draw out how these mobilisations work.