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Cited by 143Gender and Feminist StudiesGender, Sexuality, and EducationReligion and Society in Latin America

Against the Heresy of Immanence: Vatican's ‘Gender’ as a New Rhetorical Device against the Denaturalization of the Sexual Order

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Garbagnoli, Sara·2016·Religion and Gender
DOI 10.18352/rg.10156
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Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, the Vatican contests the concept of gender as forged by feminists to study social arrangements through which the sexual order is naturalised. This contestation came with the distortion of the analyses and claims formulated by feminists and LGBTQ scholars and social movements. This article understands the Vatican’s invention of ‘gender ideology’ as a new rhetorical device produced both to delegitimise feminist and LGBTQ studies and struggles and to reaffirm that sexual norms transcend historical and political arrangements. It also investigates how the transnationality of this discursive construct relates to the specific features it has taken in two different national contexts – France and Italy. The article is structured as follows: it first highlights the logic and structure of the anti-gender discourse. Then, it analyses how the same argumentative device is performed in anti-gender demonstrations. Finally, it scrutinises the rhetorical and performative strategies through which anti-gender actors have formulated their views and argues that ‘gender ideology’ can be understood as a political reaction against the entry of minorities into the fields of politics and theory.

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  • The kind of postfascist feminism examined here explicitly promotes the renaturalization of the heteronormative sexual order and of the gendered division of labor between men and women.

    “Even as it is making a number of overtures to liberal feminism (mired as these may be in ambivalence and contradiction), the kind of postfascist feminism we are examining here explicitly promotes the renaturalization of the heteronormative sexual order and of the gendered division of labor between men and women (Garbagnoli 2016: 190).”

    From Introduction (2022) · cites this paper as Garbagnoli 2016: 190

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2 of the 16 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 7

  1. Buss, Doris E. 2004. 'Finding the Homosexual in Women's Right', International Feminist Journal of Politics 6:2, 257-284.
  2. Couture, Denise. 2012. 'L'antiféminisme du "nouveau féminisme" préconisé par le Saint- Siège' in Anne-Marie Devreux and Diane Lamoureux (eds.), Les antiféminismes (spe- cial issue), Cahier du genre/Recherches féministes, 25:1, 23-49.
  3. Joan W. Scott's Critical Feminism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 143-158.
  4. Maingueneau, Dominique. 1983. Sémantique de la polémique, Lausanne: L'Âge d'homme. Religion and Gender vol. 6, no. 2 (2016), pp. 187-204
  5. O'Leary, Dale. 1997. Gender Agenda. Redefining Equality, Lafayette: Vital Issues Press.
  6. Robcis, Camille. 2013. The Laws of Kinship: Anthropology, psychoanalysis and the family in France, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  7. Scott, Joan W. 2013. 'Usi e abusi del "genere" ' in J. W. Scott (ed.), Genere, politica, storia. Roma: Viella, 105-127.

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Authors
Garbagnoli, S.
Corresponding author
Garbagnoli, Sara
Venue
Religion and Gender
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Published
2016-02-19
Volume
6
Issue
2
Pages
187-204
ISSN
  • 1878-5417 (ISSN-L)
  • 2589-8051
DOI
10.18352/rg.10156
OpenAlex
W2572845496
Cited by
143
References
16
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 2
FWCI
13.58
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Religion and Gender (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Feminist Studies
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Sexuality, and Education
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Religion and Society in Latin America
Keywords
anti-gender discourse, gender ideology, Vatican, sexual order, feminist theory, LGBTQ studies, transnationalism, performative strategies, France, Italy

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