Gender equality in the name of the state: state feminism or femonationalism in civic orientation for newly arrived migrants in Sweden?

Abstract

In a widely cited article, Joppke (2007) has underscored how the shared focus on rights, women’s rights in particular, in integration policies is indicative of a post-national turn characterized by a decrease in national and cultural distinctiveness and a convergence around universal liberal values. In his view, these policies ‘are not born of sources extrinsic to liberalism, such as nationalism and racism, but are inherent in liberalism itself.’ (2007, p. 14). A diametrically opposite interpretation has been provided by Farris (2017), who contends that ‘the concrete national articulation of the themes of gender equality and women’s rights within the civic orientation national programs is precisely what attests to the persistence and even strengthening, rather than a disappearance, of a nationalist (and racist) trope, which I conceive as intrinsic and not extrinsic to liberalism’ (2017, p. 81). And she goes on to propose that ‘civic integration policies are arguably the most concrete and insidious form of femonationalism’ (ibid.). Here, femonationalism refers to ‘both to the exploitation of feminist themes by nationalists and neoliberals in anti-Islam (but, as I will show, also antiimmigration) campaigns and to the participation of certain feminists and femocrats in the stigmatization of Muslim men under the banner of gender equality’ (Farris, 2017, p. 4).