Integration Policies and the Institutionalization of Femonationalism

Chapter 3 discusses the recent legislation on civic integration, implemented in the Netherlands, France, and Italy between 2006 and 2013 by neoliberal governments with the support of nationalist parties. Focusing on civic integration programs, the chapter shows how gender equality and women’s rights are among the most important values that migrants are expected to internalize and respect. While influential interpretations of civic integration policies such as Christian Joppke’s have claimed that the theme of gender equality conveyed by these policies demonstrates the liberal, as opposed to nationalist (and racist), character of these programs, this chapter demonstrates that the opposite is actually the case. By showing the colonial legacies of these policies as well as their nationalist rationale, it demonstrates that civic integration policies are arguably the most concrete and insidious form of the institutionalization of femonationalism as an ideological formation.