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A World Without Gender? The Struggle of Austria’s Far Right over What It Means to Be Human: An Analysis of Barbara Rosenkranz’ Book MenschInnen

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Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe

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Abstract

In this article, we explore gender discourses in the Austrian far right to provide insights into the strategies used to construct, advocate and uphold a very particular gender worldview. Specifically, we focus on a 2008 publication by Barbara Rosenkranz (representing the far-right Austrian Freedom Party FPÖ), whose book supposedly reveals a conspiracy on the part of feminists, capitalists, Marxists, homosexuals, gender pseudo-scientists and the media that seeks to change human nature. We argue that her book and the discourses she draws on construct an elitist Other to the ‘average citizen’ and a threat to the continued survival of the Austrian nation and its people. We propose the concept of Überfremdung von innen to describe the fear of becoming the Other from the inside.

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En, B., En, M., Pöll, M. (2017). A World Without Gender? The Struggle of Austria’s Far Right over What It Means to Be Human: An Analysis of Barbara Rosenkranz’ Book MenschInnen . In: Köttig, M., Bitzan, R., Petö, A. (eds) Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe. Gender and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43533-6_16

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