Gender Rights and Opposition to Populism

The 2020-2025 gender equality strategy presented in March 2020 by the European Commission has set out key actions in order to put an end to gender-based violence and stereotypes, to ensure equal participation and opportunities in the labour market and to achieve gender balance in decision-making and policymaking. The European Parliament has welcomed the positive measures included in the new EU strategy for gender equality, and called for further specific and binding actions and targets. Among other issues, it explicitly called for support for women's rights campaigners as well as women's rights organisations in the EU and worldwide, including organisations dealing with sexual and reproductive health and rights and LGBTIA+ people, by providing them with more substantial and targeted financial support. On this basis, the first part of this contribution aims to shed light on the way in which European populist institutional actors, with particular reference to the Italian case, deal with gender issues within their government programmes and on whether their representations of gender correspond to the values defined at European level. A second part of the work aims to analyse the tension between institutional populist actors and antagonistic feminist associations, which act in an anti-populist sense. In this articulated and complex framework, the women's movements of the so-called 'fourth wave' seem to represent a valuable front of resistance. The contribution will examine the practices and political discourses of the international movement Ni Una Menos, with particular reference to the Italian network, focusing on how and in which specific areas it takes action as an anti-populist force and on the relationship that can be identified between its objectives and values and those set by the European Commission on gender issues.