Confronting Gender Polarity and Nationalism

Confronting Gender Polarity and Nationalism: This is the title of the thirty-first volume of the Journal of the ESWTR. The troubling reemergence of polarising discourses in Europe led the ESWTR to engage with this topic. In the current context, the ideologies that fuel these discourses often reference conservative Christian or Neopagan faith traditions for legitimation, thus linking religion with the growing far-right movements. Central to the movements is a new acceptance for polarised and racialised gender discourse. Male supremacy and the patriarchal family are reclaimed as foundational to both church and nation, thus putting the rights of women, queer and non-white people under new pressure. New analytics have evolved where climate change is denied, populist conspiracy theories accepted, civic polarities endorsed, and Anti-Islam and Anti-Semitism are revived. The desire for a new cultural war reaches from the US to Eastern Europe, and the war on Ukraine warns of its dangers. When core understandings and respect of human rights are challenged, so is sustainable democracy. The articles in this issue look at different aspects of the current gender discourse, especially at the polarised and racist variants of this discourse.