Introduction

Abstract

Reactions against progressive politics are sweeping across liberal democracies, and populism is rising globally. To successfully counter these political shifts, which we conceptualize as backlash, feminists will need more specific understandings of what backlash entails. In the introduction to this symposium, we pose four sets of questions about backlash. First, what is backlash, and how is backlash distinguished from discrimination? Second, which persons and which locations matter when we consider backlash, and how do different points of departure shape our understanding of the phenomenon? Third, how does backlash work? Fourth, how can feminists counter backlash? To answer these questions, we synthesize the arguments from our contributors and from the academic and policy-oriented literature, mapping alternate approaches to backlash and offering different visions of feminists’ challenges and future agendas.

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