Paul Amar is Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of
Genderphobic Binarism / Binarismo Gênerofóbico: The War against Gender as a Political Weapon
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Published:October 2024
Vitória Moreira, 2024. "Genderphobic Binarism / Binarismo Gênerofóbico: The War against Gender as a Political Weapon", Rio as Method: Collective Resistance for a New Generation, Paul Amar, Editor
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The popularization of feminist and LGBTQ+ struggles have been accompanied by a growing resistance to the incorporation of the concept of gender. In conservative settings, gender ideology refers to the idea that gender is an ideological farce that denies natural or divine divisions between the sexes. Often associated with right-wing and authoritarian populist rhetoric, combating gender ideology—with its strategic plasticity—mobilizes diverse and sometimes unlikely alliances against what they consider to be a civilizational threat. In Brazil, the fight against gender is concentrated in the area of education, arguing to protect children against ostensible mass manipulation and the destruction of the family. If, on the one hand, genderphobic binarism has the characteristics of a counteroffensive, or backlash, to the expansion of minority rights, then it appears, on the other hand, as a complex mobilization platform built from the feeling of fear of a malleable enemy.
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