Women as Fair Game? Why Some Feminists Support Anti-Immigrant Politics

• In Event: 3251 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 1. Anti-Immigrant Discourses

Abstract

When a majority of white women voted for the male Republican, rather than the female Democratic candidate during the 2016 US Presidential Elections, many observers were puzzled. Similarly, the support of right-wing arguments by some German feminists has caused a public controversy. How can a seemingly progressive demographic group support conservative politics? Using the mass sexual harassment by mostly North African asylum seekers during the 2015 New Year’s Eve celebrations in Cologne, Germany, as a case study, this paper argues that the apparent “strange bedfellow alliance” should not be surprising. Drawing on a content analysis (N = 104) of two major New Right newspapers, a right-wing online blog, as well as a major German feminist magazine, this paper highlights the importance of deconstructing narratives to understand political action. The paradoxical convergence between the New Right and feminist narratives is not simply due – as often assumed – to the New Right appropriating feminist arguments. Instead, it is a product of fundamentally shared core assumptions by feminists with the New Right: By agreeing with the implicit premise of the 1951 United Nations Geneva Convention refugee definition, both parties view refugees in Germany as fundamentally ‘out of place’. By stylizing refugees as unwanted, uncivilized intruders who should face immediate deportation, conservative feminists and the New Right end up reproducing a deeply colonialist narrative, supported by a seemingly neutral human rights framework. As such, Cologne teaches us about a global tendency of seemingly progressive groups to align themselves with a carceral feminist agenda.

Author

• Janina Selzer, CUNY Graduate Center