How have anti-gender movements adapted their strategies to target schools and politics? What lies behind the fear of ‘gender ideology’ in the education system? In this episode of ‘Knowledge Pills’, Paolo Gusmeroli (University of Padua) discusses his research on this topic. The link to the podcast episode on various platforms is available on the Arqus Alliance website.
Although anti-gender campaigns claim to protect children and family values, they raise questions about democratic backsliding, censorship in schools and the instrumentalisation of parental veto rights. Taking as its starting point a controversial incident in an Italian school and a new restrictive decree on affective education, the episode examines the impact of these movements on public debate and minority rights. Professor Gusmeroli discusses the development of neo-conservative rhetoric and demonstrates how these movements have shifted from open hostility to strategies such as ‘stigma inversion’. Drawing on concepts such as the ‘neo-Catholic hypothesis’, he analyses how specialised opposition groups disguise their religious agenda under an ‘apolitical’ banner in order to influence institutions and parents.