Gender, Sexuality, Violence and the Far-Right (Defending the University)

Join us in person to explore how gender, sexuality and violence shape far-right politics—and how we can resist. The event is open to everyone and will take place in the room LMB/031, LMB Building, East Campus. *** Around the world, far-right movements fuel gender-based violence by legitimising sexist rhetoric and undermining gender equality. To examine these dynamics, the Defend the University series is organising a panel discussion with: • Yener Bayramoglu (University of York), • Emma Casey (University of York), • Lata Narayanaswamy (University of Leeds) • Alison Phipps (York St Johns) *** Presentations Broligarchs, vigilantes and the coloniality of sexual violence Alison Phipps Why does the far right so often present itself as the defender of women while attacking them at the same time? This talk moves beyond themes of hypocrisy and political opportunism to explore the deeper relationship between sexual violence, race, and racial capitalism. Based on the coloniality of sexual violence (Phipps 2026), it explores how narratives of sexual threat can be used to both dispose of unwanted populations, and accomplish divide and rule. This strategy is dear to the contemporary racial capitalist master subject, the tech ‘broligarch’, who cultivates both platform and street as sites of a necropolitical war of all-against-all that suppresses resistance and manufactures consent. Anti-queer and Anti-trans Backlash: Reflections on the current crackdown in Turkey and transnational networks of solidarity Yener Bayramoğlu Queer and trans lives are becoming increasingly vulnerable in many parts of the world, including Turkey. Particularly since the Gezi protests, Turkey has moved further towards authoritarianism, with feminist and queer activists, academics, and students who oppose the government's politics increasingly targeted by state repression. In September 2026, Turkish authorities raided queer and trans organisations and activists' homes and arrested people without any legal framework. While this crackdown is not unique to Turkey, it forms part of a worrying global tendency in which far-right actors mobilise against gender and sexual diversity, often using social media to target trans rights, migrants, and critical thinking in universities. These developments reveal how anti-queer and anti-trans politics are increasingly connected across national borders, while also raising urgent questions about the possibilities for resistance and solidarity. In this talk, I take the current crackdown on queer and trans lives in Turkey as a starting point to reflect on the possibilities and challenges of building transnational networks of solidarity in uncertain times. Moving Beyond ‘Women and Girls’: Finding New Ways to Conceptualise Gender and Development Discourse and Practice in the 21st Century Lata Narayanaswamy In this talk I will set out how the subject position of “women and girls” is in fact a common feature of both mainstream gender and development and anti-gender/pro-family narratives. The primary focus for mainstream development interventions is heterosexual women and girls in their reproductive years, because a “smart economics” approach to development, understood in neoliberal, economistic terms, is really only interested in the (unpaid) reproductive/caring labour and increasingly (paid) productive labour women and girls undertake. Intersectional difference is also largely overlooked, which is of particular concern insofar as social reproduction relies substantially on the under-valued labour of poorer and/or racially marginalised groups the world over. If we are to have a truly emancipatory gender and development discourse and practice, we must conceptualise gender and development differently in order to challenge a regressive anti-gender politics purporting to “protect women and girls”. This entails moving beyond “women and girls” as the main focus of mainstream gender and development practice in order to build intersectional solidarity across gendered struggles. The Return of the Housewife Emma Casey Understanding women's complicity in far-right movements is key to building communities of resistance and fighting back against the recent tide of restrictions to women's autonomy. In recent years the rise of the far-right in Europe and north America has been accompanied with a renewed fervour for the 'perfect housewife' with unpaid labour re-glamourised in ways that seem to celebrate gendered subordination. These are familiar far-right discourses grounded in histories of capitalism and colonialism. This time though they come with a neoliberal twist; today housework is placed at the centre of hyper-commodified self-care and positive-thinking movements with a promise of a life of love and contentment to those who capitulate.