Gender Politics and Anti-Gender Discourses – Between Progress and Regression. A Comparative Discourse and Policy Analysis in Four European Countries

The perceived crisis of Western democracies affects, at a normative level, the rejection of liberal-democratic values in favor of an authoritarian-regressive value orientation, which has strongly politicized the value of gender equality. Building on this theoretical premise, we address this value conflict by examining why gender equality has undergone increasing politicization and how growing polarization is emerging within societies. We focus on four European countries (Germany, Ireland, Poland, Spain) in the period from 2010 to 2025.
We analyze the interconnection and mutual influence of three arenas of discourse – policy discourse, traditional media discourse, and social media discourse – in debates around abortion (reproductive rights) and women's access to the labor market (productive rights). In doing so, we contribute to a deeper understanding of how democratic values are negotiated in the context of digitalization and discursive conflict, assess the role of social media, and extract the factors that explain the resilience and vulnerabilities of different democracies.