Ontological (In)Security and Gender - Anti-Feminism and Anti-Genderism in German Right-Wing Populism

Abstract: Many of the right-wing populist forces currently on the rise across the world have anti-feminist and anti-genderist agendas and narratives. This thesis investigates such narratives from an ontological security perspective by conducting a frame analysis. To build the theoretical framework, a gendered approach to ontological security theory that considers changing gender relations a trigger of ontological security is developed. In a case study focusing on Germany, programmes of the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are analysed in order to identify anti-feminist and anti-genderist frames. The AfD’s narrative is based on an underlying frame in which the concepts of gender and nation become entangled. In this frame, the survival of the nation is presented as threatened by the supposed demographic demise of the ‘native’ population and women are assigned the role of ‘natural’ reproducers of the nation. Two main frames are based on this underlying gender-nation frame: the first rejects ‘gender’ as an ideology aimed at the destruction of the nation and the second seeks to re-establish traditional gender roles and family models to ensure the survival of the nation. The identified frames are then applied to and discussed in the context of recent parliamentary debates on abortion. The thesis holds that anti-feminist and anti-genderist narratives can serve as strategies to securitise subjectivity.