Scientific conferences

Chanting. Marching. Uniforms. Street violence. Men. These are the usual images when picturing the past and present Far-right. But what about the so-called “softer” face of the Far-right? What about women? Since late the 1920s, perhaps in every European country, new movements began to embraced ideas of Fascism, later Nazism, and eventually adopting more indigenous forms of the Far-right ideology. Since their very beginnings, and until present days, women have observed, supported, and participated in the European Far-right movements. They built their carriers within the ranks of these movements and contributed to their success.

This two-days conference looks into the active participation of women in the Far-right movements and politics in 20th and 21st century Europe, with a focus on East Central, North-eastern and South-eastern Europe (and beyond). By using the umbrella term “Far-right”, this conference refers to and aims to cover various movements which have been defined by right-wing extremism, radical conservativism, ultra-nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism, and racism, such as various forms of Fascism, Nazism, Falangism, neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, white supremacism and other Far-right ideologies, movements, and regimes.

While at the first sight the Far-right seems to be a misogynist place, women have been essential for the movement, and have contributed to its attractiveness for both women and men. They soften the harsh, and thus have accomplished bringing the Far-right from the margins to the mainstream. One of the most effective opportunistic strategies for women of the Far-right is using women’s rights, and thus co-opting feminist arguments in some arenas, while being explicitly antifeminist. Thus, the inherent paradox of women in the Far-right movements is to advocate for the traditional gender roles and gender hierarchy, and at the same time leading the movement. Far from being objects of men in the Far-right, women had their agency, their plans on how to participate in the success of the Far-right, and their careers.

This conference seeks to debate how the Far-right women weaponized seemingly apolitical “women’s” concerns and engaged in protecting traditional family values to effectively promote the ideology of the Far-right, its politics, including white supremacy, racism or genocidal practices. We wish to bring together researchers to present the newest research and to discuss the integral roles women have played in promoting radical Far-right movements in the past and today.

Program

September 24, 2024
10:00-10:15 – Welcome
10:15-11:15 – Keynote by Eviane Leidig (Affiliate, Center for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo, Norway): Pouring old wine into new bottles: Female activism in the contemporary far right
11:30-13:00 – Session 1: At the Birth of Fascism
Anca Diana Axinia (New Europe College, Bucharest, Romania): Wives, Intellectuals, Aristocrats: Women’s Membership Patterns in the Romanian Legionary Movement
Jakub Drábik (Anglo-American University, Prague, Czech Republic): Unveiling the Forgotten: Women in the Czechoslovak National Fascist Community (1927-1932)
Ljubinka Škodrić (Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Serbia): Between Nazi Service and Conservatism. A Polemic on the Role of Women in Occupied Serbia in 1941
13:00-13:15 – Greetings by Peter Haslinger, Director of the Herder Institute
14:30-16:00 – Around the Herder Institute

16:30-18:00 – Session 2: Networks and Connections
Philippe Henri Blasen (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg): Elena Bacaloglu – a Connector between Italian and Romanian Fascisms
Lauren Ashley Bradford (Clark University, Worcester, USA and the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, USA): Women in the Crowd: A Transatlantic Study of Women’s Participation in Racial Terror in Nazi Germany and Jim Crow America
Elisabetta Cavallin (Scuola Normale Superiore and University of Pisa, Italy): Piera Gatteschi Fondelli, Cesaria Pancheri and Carla Costa: Self-portrait of three fascist women

September 25, 2024
10:00-11:30 – Session 3: Antifeminist Mobilisation
Anne-Sophie Crosetti (Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Institut de Sociologie, Belgium): Collages for Life « Pro Life Feminism », public disorder and gender order
Shaban Darakchi (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria and the University of Antwerp, Belgium): “She is the female Victor Orban”: Female leadership in the anti-gender campaigns in Bulgaria
Besarta Velija (Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany): Antigenderist narratives of muslim activists on social media in Germany

12:00-13:30 – Session 4: Continuities: Form Interwar to Current
Michelangelo Borri and Giovanni Brunetti (Universities of Trieste and Udine und University of Verona, Italy): “Guardians of the Faith”. The Italian Female Movement in post-war Italy
Andrej Kotliartchouk (Uppsala University, Sweden): Three lives of Nadzieja Abramava. The Leader of the Union of Belarusian Girls and her opinion writing in the Nazi-occupied Belarus and post-war Germany
George Souvlis and Rosa Vasilaki (Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Ioannina and College Year in Athens, Greece): Instrumentalizing Gender: from interwar fascism to the Alt Right in Greece
Any questions of an academic nature, please address to the organizer Denisa Nešťáková denisa.nestakova@herder-institut.de

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Wissenschaftlicher Ansprechpartner:
Denisa Nešťáková
denisa.nestakova@herder-institut.de

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Originalpublikation:
https://www.herder-institut.de/event/international-conference-far-right-women-past-and-present/