Research-Initiatives

How are anti-feminism, democracy, and authoritarian tendencies entangled with each other? This question is the focus of the new LOEWE Research Cluster "Entanglement of Anti-Feminisms: Gender, Democracy, and Authoritarianism in 'Entangled Modernities'" (GenDem).

The interdisciplinary research network GenDem is conducting the first comparative study of anti-feminist mobilizations in various countries of Eastern and Western Europe as well as in the South Caucasus through six thematic subprojects: These include men’s rights movements in Germany and Turkey, “drag panic” discourses in Austria, anti-feminist rhetoric by Islamist influencers, and historical developments in Eastern Europe since the early 20th century. In addition to the University of Marburg and Justus Liebig University Giessen, researchers from the Herder Institute for East Central European Studies in Marburg are also participating in the network.

The goal of GenDem is to systematically and interdisciplinarily identify the conditions under which anti-feminist movements emerge, how they are transnationally interconnected, and what influence they exert on processes of democratization or authoritarianism.