Page - 182 - in Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies - Conference Proceedings of the 17th STS Conference Graz 2018

editor of the blog cuncti, and Günter Buchholz, who is responsible coordinator for the platform gender-diskurs.de.1 Gerhard Amendt is a key figure of the male right movement which often uses his scientific authority for their goals (e.g. see an interview with him on the male right- platform MANNdat 2014). Amend is founding member of agens.e.v. which is an association promoting heteronormative and essentialist views on gender and gender roles2. This shows that, as also a number of studies (Kováts/Põim 2015, Kemper 2014, Lang 2015, Gehrmann et al. 2015) have pointed out, antifeminist positions like those of the gender critic scientists serve as a link between different groups of actors of the new conservative right. Antifeminism covers ideological differences and thus allows coalitions between conservative, traditional, religious-fundamentalist and radical right-wing groups and movements, a network which is composed of the AfD, PEGIDA which is the radical right movement against the islamization of the Christian occident, the neo-nazi Identitarian movement and their think tanks like the journal “Junge Freiheit”, the so-called Institut für Staatspolitik (institute for state policy), the publisher antaios, the Zivile Koalition (civil coalition) and the Demo für alle movement. All of these groups state a societal crisis and perceive the modernization of gender relationships as a threat to society, to children and to traditional values and life forms like marriage. A part of the middle class tries to mobilize the precarious or those who are threatened by precariousness, and who fear to lose their privileges. Apart from the liberalization of gender relationships, thus also for example migration is problematized. Some of the scientists criticizing gender studies are also involved in such discourses; Gerhard Amendt depicts muslim male migrants on agens.ev in a culturalist way as savages who molest women because of their tribal origins and who can only be handled by a brutal police force (Amendt 2016a). Also, Ulrich Kutschera warns of “young, testosterone-driven men” and speaks of an “religious motivated African war against german women” (Kutschera 2016: 402; 2018). Historical Parallels Historical parallels can be seen regarding antifeminist movements at the beginning of the 20st century: as Ute Planert (1998) points out, during the German Empire, antifeminist activities emerged in reaction to the liberalization of gender relations. In addition, back then, antifeminism was connected to antisemitism (Volkov 2000), which is also today the case, as the popular conspiracy theory that feminism had been invented by Rockefeller and Rothschild shows3. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, science was used as final justification. For example in 1900, a neurological essay on the physiological imbecility of women was published (Möbius 1901). philosophers of the time like Schopenhauer have held misogynist views – a worthwhile reading on this is Annegret Stopczik´s collection of philosophers statements on women (Stopczyk 1997). Back then and today, specific naturalized gender characteristics were assumed. However, in contrast to those historical antifeminist argumentations, a discoursive shift has taken place: at the beginning of the 20th century and beyond, women were denied the same rights as men, 1 See https://sciencefiles.org/tag/dr-habil-heike-diefenbach/, http://www.cuncti.net/autoren/2-autor/?uid=ulfig- alexander, and http://www.gender-diskurs.de/kontakt/. 2 See their homepage https://agensev.de/. 3 See for example an accordant thread on the blog “Alles Schall und Rauch”, http://alles- schallundrauch.blogspot.de/2006/12/der-ursprung-des-feminismus.html. 182