Skip to content

Seminar on Social Exclusion and Inclusion – A CES 50th Anniversary Event

Troubling Times for Gender Equality Politics: German and European Experiences


October 11, 2019
2:00pm - 5:00pm
Hoffmann Room, Adolphus Busch Hall
October 11, 2019
2:00pm - 5:00pm
Hoffmann Room, Adolphus Busch Hall

The workshop will feature two panels with well-known, prominent and junior scholars on gender equality politics in Germany and Europe, to discuss contemporary challenges in gender politics, especially with the politicization of immigration, as well as with the rise of populist right parties. In unsettled times, gender relations become a favorite target for social repression, but the openings created by changing political alignments are also opportunities for women politicians and for feminist and gender-queer mobilizations. Thus, the workshop will draw attention to the changes in women’s status that have occurred and are sometimes seen as precipitating “backlash.”

The workshop will examine narratives of progress as well as of reaction, and the opportunities opening for social movements as once secure political parties falter. It will focus on gender equity politics, LGBTQ+I issues, motherhood, and gender studies in Germany and draw connections to developments across Europe and offer comparisons to experiences in the United States. It will try to account for the specificities of German history, parties and policies, in the context of challenges that are coursing throughout Europe and sometimes echoed in developments in the US.

About

Introductory Remarks

Kathrin Zippel, Northeastern University

Panel 1: Family, Gender Binaries, and Knowledge Production

Chair and Discussant: Mary Brinton, Harvard University

  • Laura Frader, Northeastern University: Creating Gender Policy in Europe
  • Caitlyn Collins, Washington University in St. Louis: Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Care-giving
  • Angelika von Wahl, Lafayette University: From Object to Subject: Intersex Activism and the Rise and Fall of the Gender Binary in Germany

Coffee Break 3:30 - 3:50 pm

Panel 2: Gender Politics Inside and Outside of the Right

Chair and Discussant: Laura Frader, Northeastern University

  • Louise Davidson-Schmich, University of Miami: German Gender Politics in the Age of the AfD
  • Sarah Wiliarty, Wesleyan University: Gender Politics in German Conservative Parties
  • Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Demography and Democracy: Masculinity Threat and the Politics of Reproduction

This event is part of Worldwide Week at Harvard, which will showcase the breadth of Harvard's global engagement from October 6-12, 2019.

CES 50th Logo

Sponsors

Close