Abstract: the aporias of the criticism of equal rights for women and men (case study of the "family, love, fatherland" movement mobilization against the law on gender equality)
This paper is about mobilization campaign against gender equality law that was a result of the proposal this law under the second consideration in January 2012. We examine, firstly, what the participants of this protest campaign declare, secondly, what they do to gain their goals and then we bring to light the contradiction of this mobilization campaign. Accomplish this we have to answer two questions: 1) what the main reasons to criticize the idea of gender equality and appropriate bill; 2) what pattern of femininity is constructed by female participants of this protest campaign. Giving the answer to the first question on the strength of our empirical data we outline the main mobilizing frames within which the gender equality bill is considered. We have outlined three discursive strategies that are used by the activists of this campaign in order to mobilize citizens against the gender equality law: 1) family and national safety; 2) "gender" as unnatural and normative heterosexu-ality; 3) nation building and the institute of the Russian Orthodox Church. Conducted analysis shows that in the rhetoric of this protest the normative femininity is connected with the notion of family that understood as a registered heterosexually marriage the purpose of which is childbearing. This union is a hierarchically organized, paternalistic family with functional gender roles where men and women are prescribed with instrumental and expressive roles respectively. The orthodox religion is also essential for defense and legitimization of the traditional gender order. Normative femininity in the activists' rhetoric is reduced to maternity and private; it is attributed such characteristics as modesty, passivity, subordination, etc. The second task of the mobilization campaign against gender equality bill's observation is to study out to what extant in their collective actions activists follow the principals that they protect. Here we consider the case of social movement organization "Family, love, Fatherland" conducted a broad protest campaign during this mobilization. This analysis have shown that the pattern of femininity demonstrated by the participants of this mobilization at the level of action could be opposite to that they consider as normative one.
Keywords
гендерное равенство, неотрадиционализм, родительское движение, гражданская активность, gender equality, neo-traditionalizm, pro-family movement, civic engagementAuthors
Name | Organization | |
Sherstneva N.A. | European University (St. Petersburg) | nsherstneva@eu.spb.ru |
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