Women, Gender and the Reactionary Right in the United States

Women, Gender and the Right in the United States

Speakers:
--Katie Gaddini, Associate Professor of Sociology, University College London
--Sophie Bjork-James, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University

Gender and sexuality are flashpoints in today’s culture wars in the US and serve to bind together the right wing (with somewhat varying ideologies in the mainstream right and far right). This event brings together two scholars, Sophie Bjork-James and Katie Gaddini, to share their new research on women, gender, and the right in the United States. Examining intersections with race and religion in the political arena, they will reflect on the recent past, the current moment, and possible future directions.

November 12 @ 3:30 - 5 p.m.

In Person: 820 Social Sciences Building at UC Berkeley

Online: https://berkeley.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nw8vN99bRAiZ17-i5Uzilw#/registration

Sponsor(s): Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, Center for the Study of Law and Society, Berkeley Institute for Young Americans

More info: https://events.berkeley.edu/crws/event/270989-women-gender-and-the-right-in-the-united-states


ABSTRACTS:

"Gender, Sexuality, and the US Far Right," authored by Sophie Bjork-James

A focus on sexual and gender politics unites disparate factions of the contemporary US right. Opposing sexual and gender diversity along with feminism creates multiple points of agreement across Christian nationalism and white nationalism. Such a gendered analysis shows how issues as diverse as abortion bans, anti-trans legislation, and replacement theory stem from a similar gendered and sexual logic, one focused on patriarchal gender roles and reproduction. This talk explores this underlying logic on the right and suggests possible directions for these movements moving forward. Based on over a decade of research on the Christian Right and White Nationalist movements, this talk explores how historical racial norms around the family now animate much of the contemporary conservative and far-right movements.


"Activated: Right-Wing Christian Women and Their Impact Today," authored by Katie Gaddini

In this talk, I trace the political importance of right-wing Christian women from 1970 to present. These women have been the ground forces of conservativism for decades, driven the Christian Right farther right and kept it firmly fixed on issues such as abortion and sexuality. And over the past five years, they’ve also entered public politics like never before. Drawing on ethnographic research, I challenge common misconceptions that label these women as brainwashed puppets of male authority figures, instead uncovering their agency and stop-at-nothing commitment to conservativism. By examining the 2024 election through the lens of right-wing Christian women, I examine the complex intersections of gender, religion, and politics in the United States.


Bios:

Sophie Bjork-James is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University and a Visiting Scholar at the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies. She has over ten years of experience researching both the US-based Religious Right and the white nationalist movements. She is the author of The Divine Institution:White Evangelicalism’s Politics of the Family (Rutgers 2021, winner of the Anne Bolin & Gil Herdt Book Prize), and the co-editor of Beyond Populism: Angry Politics and the Twilight of Neoliberalism (2020). She has been interviewed on the NBC Nightly News, NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC Radio 4’s Today, and in the New York Times.

Katie Gaddini is a Visiting Scholar in the History Department, Stanford University, and Associate Professor of Sociology at the Social Research Institute, University College London (UCL). Her debut book, The Struggle to Stay, was based on over four years of in-depth ethnographic research with single evangelical women in the US and the UK. Her next book is about right-wing Christian women from 1970 to present. Her writing has been published in San Francisco Chronicle, The Conversation, The Hill,Religion & Politics, LA Review of Books, The Marginalia Review, and more.