Speaker: Shimizu Akiko

Abstract

“The Return of the Anti-Gender Movement in Japan”

SHIMIZU Akiko (the University of Tokyo)

The latest phase of the transnational anti-gender movement, which can be traced back to the mid-1990s, has, since the mid-2010s, successfully incited and spread transphobic moral panic, which has served as an effective tool for recruiting not only grassroots conservatives but also some feminists and liberals.

This presentation aims to provide a brief overview of how this latest phase has unfolded in Japan, highlighting how it can be seen as a re-enactment of the so-called “gender backlash” of the early 2000s, while also noting what is newly emerging.

Focusing primarily on the historical failure of Japanese feminists to effectively mount a clear opposition to attacks—first on queers, then on ethnic minorities—by a coalition of traditional moral/religious conservatives and the newly formed online alt-right in the early 2000s, the presentation also considers the role of another historical failure: the liberal/left’s repeated sidelining of women’s and feminist concerns.

It argues that the lack of an intersectional perspective—on both the feminist and the liberal/left sides—has contributed to a newly emerging political landscape, in which part of the fractured left has begun to align with the extreme moral/religious right.

Short bio