Backlash

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As Backlash (German "retaliation, check") is a term for efforts against the progressive directed deemed developments as well as the return of conservative values and strengthening of such political forces. After the term was initially applied at the beginning of the twentieth century for strong negative reactions to various political and social developments, in current US American parlance it refers to the recurring endeavors of a group of people who in the past were regarded as privileged, newly acquired rights and freedoms until then as an underprivileged group to reverse.

Backlash against the civil rights movement

In the United States and the United Kingdom from the 1950s onwards, a backlash against the achievements and goals of the civil rights movement emerged . Against the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education , which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, there were major protests, particularly in the American southern states. In the spring of 1956, leading politicians from the southern states signed the so-called Southern Manifesto , a letter of protest against racial integration. After the decision of the Supreme Court, racial segregation was de jure forbidden, but in the years after Brown v. Board of Education stepped up efforts to separate white students from black students, e.g. B. by teaching white students mainly in private schools to which the court ruling did not apply. There was also a backlash against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and in particular Executive Order 11246 of President Lyndon B. Johnson , which stipulated that state and state-funded employers are no longer allowed to discriminate against people because of their skin color and ethnicity and measures ( affirmative action ) must take to ensure equal opportunities.

At the beginning of the 1980s, a movement called the Conservative Backlash by its opponents manifested itself through the strengthening of the neo-conservatives or the New Right , which over the last 20 years was able to achieve considerable power of definition in the entire US society.

Anti-feminist backlash

Susan Faludi popularized the term backlash in her book of the same name (1991). In it, she defines the anti-feminist backlash movement as a powerful counter-attack on women's rights aimed at undoing the successes of feminism . According to Faludi, there was an anti-feminist backlash in the mid-19th century, around the turn of the century, and in the 1940s and 1970s, which brought feminist endeavors to a standstill. Feminism has been blamed for most of the social problems, including women's dissatisfaction and myths such as “female burnout ”, the “infertility crisis” and the “lack of marriageable men”.

The feminist literary scholar bell hooks argues that any profound criticism of patriarchal masculinity threatens the existing structures of rule and creates an anti-feminist backlash.

The social scientist and political scientist Simon Möller concludes in his study that the discourse in the German media in the 1990s was characterized by an anti-feminist backlash. This backlash has instrumentalized the anti- political correctness (PC) rhetoric and in particular the media-constructed enemy image of an allegedly overpowering, lust- hostile and "politically correct" feminism as well as the supposed phenomenon of "sexual correctness" (SC). "Sexual correctness" functions as part of the anti-PC discourse with the special target of feminism. This anti-feminist backlash is a “hegemonic offensive discourse” that tries to ridicule emancipatory efforts as “politically correct” nonsense or to make them dangerous and to normalize misogynist positions. The anti-PC and anti-SC campaigns are male strategies of legitimation to maintain material and social advantages over women. The anti-SC discourse in particular has the function of “from the dominant side to consolidate the patriarchal consensus, i. H. to contribute to the creation of acceptance of structural power asymmetries in the gender relationship ”.

According to Möller, the anti-feminist backlash follows certain patterns:

  • Sexism and sexual violence are eroticized, trivialized and singularized;
  • a perpetrator-victim reversal takes place;
  • the existence of sexist dominance relationships is denied;
  • a feminist hegemony at universities, in the media and in the cultural sector is suggested; and
  • the term “feminism” is stigmatized.

In his discourse analysis study, John K. Wilson, like Simon Möller, suspected that the debate about political correctness, and especially sexual correctness in the media, is a backlash against feminism.

Anti “PC” campaign

The “anti- political correctness (PC)” campaign is seen as an important backlash strategy . Emancipatory movements and egalitarian changes should be pushed back. In particular, the resistance was directed against the " multicultural society ". The campaign aroused a fear of infiltration, " Balkanization " and ultimately the dissolution of the "common" American culture as a result of the demand for greater cultural diversity. It was about what should be considered a national standard . As a political strategy, with reference to the catchphrase “ politically correct ”, left-wing terms were appropriated, the meanings of which were emptied and provided with their own norms and turned against everything that contradicted the traditional notions of the “ melting pot ” and Western ideas . Anything that did not correspond to traditional notions of the "American white man" was considered "politically correct", un-American and un-democratic. Anyone who wanted to criticize or change these “American” norms was seen as “intolerant” and “equalizing”, exercised “censorship”, infected American society with “PC / MC” or behaved like the “storm troops”. Conservatives use the catchphrase “PC” to portray themselves as a victim of politically correct, all-powerful, left-wing “censorship”. The "PC" campaign stands in a history of struggles over what should be "American" and what constitutes national identity . The campaign was an expression of the identity crisis in American society. Their motivation and vehemence arose from this struggle for national identity.

Ariane Manske has examined the origins and development of the US American debate on political correctness and found that this debate is a conservative backlash that prevents liberal reform projects such as affirmative action and speech codes (in the sense of non-discriminatory language regulations) should. Conservative forces used "political correctness" as an "umbrella term for various liberal reform projects in the social and university area" and defamed the politically correct liberals as extremist. So the US-characterized Antifeministin Camille Paglia "political correctness" as " fascism of the left" ( "fascism of the left") and the people who followed him to Paglia acted according to "like the Hitler Youth " ( "like the Hitler Youth ").

The political scientist Katrin Auer analyzed several research results on the anti-“PC” debate and came to the conclusion that the ideological functions of the anti-“PC” discourse were an anti-feminist backlash, the re-establishment of anti-Semitic codes and the removal of taboos on racist and revisionist content are. A number of emancipatory and left-wing measures and theories are subsumed and defamed under the phenomenon of "Political Correctness" . An essential function of the discourse is the possibility of being able to make anti-feminist, racist, anti-Semitic and other discriminatory statements again without having to fear major sanctions. Within the anti- "PC" -Diskurses particular re- are patriarchalisierende and re- masculinizing tendencies can be seen. Auer writes:

“In general, the orientation of the anti-“ PC ”discourse is characterized by re-patriarchalization and normalization tendencies. The term re-patriarchalization does not only encompass all sexist and anti-feminist intentions, but also (neo-) racist, anti-Semitic, nationalizing, homophobic and, in principle, homogenizing endeavors aimed at the comprehensive restoration of Western patriarchal models of order. "

"Backlash" and the political development of the USA

In the online magazine Politico , the phenomenon of the backlash was explained as the result of progressive activism, often uncompromising in the past, and a lack of a culture of debate: repeated left-liberal successes in social politics (on topics such as abortion , same-sex marriage or transgender rights) would be in the public debate "Contempt for right-wing Stone Age views" accompanied. Left-liberal America denied the political right generally political legitimacy and intellectual integrity. Hillary Clinton , for example, described her opponent's target group as " deplorables ". The "unrestrained social activism" of the past few years and decades has led many Americans to frustration at the de-legitimation of their own way of life. It was this frustration that made the election of Donald Trump possible.

Political scientist Peter Beinart argues in a similar way : the experiences of the 1930s and 1960s clearly showed in the US context that left activism could lead to major reforms. However, these reforms would unleash forces that many people find chaotic, and which would have discharged, for example, during the race riots of the 1960s. This in turn favors a right-wing countermovement geared towards law and order . However, a backlash in the opposite direction has recently been observed: According to CNN journalist John Blake, a progressive backlash, the so-called “Trumplash”, is to be expected as a reaction to Trump's policies . Young people, women and members of minorities in particular would now become more politically active and help build a permanent political coalition for the Democratic Party.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Jeffery Scott Mio et al .: Key Words in Multicultural Interventions: A Dictionary. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1999, p. 27: "In contemporary American usage, the term backlash appears to refer to recurring attempts by a privileged class to rescind recently won rights and liberties gained by an underprivileged group or class."
  2. ^ J Mansbridgea, SL Shames: Toward a Theory of Backlash: Dynamic Resistance and the Central Role of Power . In: Politics & Gender . 4, No. 4, December 2008, pp. 623-634. doi: 10.1017 / S1743923X08000500 .
  3. ↑ K Sanbonmatsu: gender backlash in American Politics? In: Politics & Gender . 4, No. 4, 2008, pp. 634-642. doi: 10.1017 / S1743923X08000512 .
  4. ↑ Glenn Feldman: Before Brown: civil rights and white backlash in the modern South . University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa 2004, ISBN 978-0-8173-1431-6 , pp. 2 ff.
  5. ^ Roger L. Hewitt: White Backlash and the Politics of Multiculturalism . Cambridge University Press , Cambridge 2005, ISBN 978-0-521-81768-4 , pp. 18 ff.
  6. ^ A b c d John Fobanjong: Understanding the Backlash Against Affirmative Action . Nova Science Publishers, Huntington / New York 2001, ISBN 978-1-59033-065-4 , p. 8. ff.
  7. ^ A b Susan Faludi : Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women. Crown, New York, 1991, p. Xviii: “ The truth is that the last decade has seen a powerful counterassault on women's rights, a backlash, an attempt to retract the handful of small and hardwon victories that the feminist movement did manage to win for women. ”
  8. ↑ Faludi quoted in: Lorraine Code: Encyclopedia of feminist theories . Routledge, London, New York, 2000, p. 37: “ A struggle for women's rights gained force in the mid-nineteenth century, the early 1900s, the early 1940s and the early 1970s. In each case, the struggle yielded to backlash. ”
  9. ↑ Susan B. Boyd, Dorothy E. Chunn, Hester Lessard: Reaction and Resistance: Feminism, Law, and Social change. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 2007, p. 99: “ Faludi found that feminism was being blamed for most social problems, including the unhappiness and dissatisfaction of women themselves. ”
  10. ↑ bell hooks cited in: Mary F. Rogers, CD Garrett: Who's Afraid of Women's Studies ?: Feminisms In Everyday Life. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California, 2002, p. 128: “ Any profound critique of patriarchal masculinity that touches the minds and hearts of men of all ages in our culture threatens patriarchy in such a way that it engenders fierce backlash. ”
  11. ↑ Simon Möller: Sexual Correctness: The Modernization of Anti-Feminist Debates in the Media. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1999, ISBN 3-8100-2301-9 .
  12. ↑ Simon Möller: Operation succeeded In: der Freitag , 2003, accessed on December 27, 2010.
  13. ^ Rolf Löchel: Freedom or Feminism: Antifeminism in the Print Media. Accessed on December 27, 2010.
  14. ^ John K. Wilson: The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education. Duke University Press, Durham 1995, ISBN 0-8223-1713-3 , p. 109 ff.
  15. ↑ Steven Vertovec and Susanne Wessendorf: The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices. Routledge, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-415-55648-4 , p. 13: "In addition to the typical themes developed whiting the content of backlash arguments, there is also a common set of stratagems or discursive maneuvers […] Another significant maneuver entails the accusation of political correctness. "
  16. ↑ B Bagilhole: Understanding Equal Opportunities and Diversity: The Social differentiation and Intersections of Inequality . Policy Press, Portland 2009, ISBN 978-1-86134-849-4 , p. 72.
  17. ^ S McIntyre: Backlash against Equality: The "Tyranny" of the "Politically Correct". In: McGill Law Journal . 38, No. 1, 1993, pp. 1-63.
  18. ^ K Aoki: The Scholarship of Reconstruction and the Politics of Backlash . In: Iowa Law Review . 81, No. 5, 1996, pp. 1467-1488.
  19. ^ Ariane Manske: Political Correctness and Normality. The American PC controversy in a cultural-historical context. Synchron Wissenschaftsverlag der Authors, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-935025-33-5 .
  20. ^ Rolf Löchel: Political Correctness - more frightening than the old McCarthyism. literaturkritik.de; Retrieved December 21, 2010.
  21. ↑ Katrin Auer: "Political Correctness" - Ideological code, enemy image and stigma word of the right . (PDF; 103 kB). In: Austrian Journal for Political Science , Volume 31, No. 3, 2002, pp. 291–303.
  22. ^ Rob Hoffman, How the Left created Trump Politico , November 20, 2016, accessed November 7, 2019
  23. ↑ Peter Beinart: Will the Left go too Far? The Atlantic , December 1, 2018, accessed November 7, 2019
  24. ↑ John Blake: Trump is doing what Obama couldn't CNN , August 23, 2019, accessed November 7, 2019