Review of: Barbara Rosenkranz: MenschInnen. Graz: Ares Verlag 2008

Abstract

The New Right has recently discovered the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming and all of its protagonists as new enemy terrain. The well-informed FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party) politician Rosenkranz, well known in Austria, polemicizes against “gender ideology” and paints a threatening scenario of an asexual and childless society. For those familiar with gender discourse it becomes quickly clear that these statements are not concerned with the object of criticism per se but instead the wish to perpetuate reactionary gender politics clothed in a new image for the purpose of election politics. The true purpose of the strategy of gender mainstreaming, the fulfillment of the legal task of gender equality, is described as “camouflage” for the goal of abolishing the family. The sexual orientation of specific (often alleged) protagonists of gender mainstreaming is also used as an indication for the goal of promoting asexuality. It is, however, too simple to disregard this as conspiracy theory: The author extensively and decidedly relies on positions against GM that have already been referred to in the bourgeois media landscape – the FAZ and SPIEGEL at the forefront.