Statement on the disinvitation of Nancy Fraser from the Albertus Magnus Professorship
We regret and unequivocally oppose the disinvitation of the feminist philosopher and critical theorist Prof. Dr. Nancy Fraser from the Albertus Magnus Professorship at the University of Cologne. We were not involved in this decision and the process leading up to it in any way.
We are committed to ensuring and actively advocating for the University of Cologne and other universities to remain places for open, controversial, necessarily complex and sometimes risky debates, even in challenging times.
GeStiK – Gender Studies in Köln
Statement of Solidarity with Prof. Dr. Ayşe Gül Altınay
As a centre for gender & queer studies, we want to articulate and emphasize our support for our colleague Ayşe Gül Altınay, who was sentenced to 2 years and 1 month in prison on May 21, 2019. Along with other academics she has been charged with "propagandizing for a terrorist organization" for having signed the declaration entitled "We will not be a party to this crime" prepared by the Academics for Peace.As a member of the Global Campaign for Peace Education and her research and writing focus being on militarism, nationalism, violence, memory, gender, and sexuality we cannot help but suspect her imprisonment to be an authoritarian and drastic means of silencing her voice. In a current climate of growing governmental interference with certain study programs and "critical" sciences and scientists, we need to express our general concern and solidarity with Ayşe Gül Altınay firmly and publicly.
Official Statement by Prof. Dr. Ayşe Gül Altınay presented at her second hearing held on December 11, 2018.
Against the Ban of Gender Studies Programs in Hungary
Open Letter: Against the Ban of Gender Studies Programs in Hungary
Dear Minister of Education,
We have been notified about the Hungarian government's proposed law to abolish the accredited MA program in gender studies in Hungary. According to The Hungarian Journal, "the part of the amendment which concerns gender studies provides no explanation whatsoever. Two universities are concerned: Hungary's biggest state-funded university ELTE, and the Central European University. If the amendment becomes official, it will mean that nobody can attend gender studies courses in Hungary and get a degree in the subject."
As directors and professors of gender studies masters and study programs in various European states and worldwide, we would like to express our deep concern and protest this proposal. We also want to show our solidarity with our Hungarian colleagues. Gender studies are well established as a scientific discipline and Hungary enjoys an excellent reputation in the field. This discipline, which is taught in the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the world, has significantly contributed to the advancement of science and the improvement of society. Perspectives from gender studies on questions of human wellbeing, equality, identity, difference, and diversity today are also recognized within many other scientific disciplines, from medicine, law, political sciences, economics, sociology to cultural, literary studies and history. Furthermore, gender studies embraces a plurality of theoretical perspectives and methodologies that cannot be reduced to one single framework or paradigm. Therefore, research, studies and graduates with the skills and expertise to tackle both global, but also specific local challenges relating to societal progress, rights and dignity remain important for future generations. This field is both intellectually and politically crucial, across Europe and within Hungary.
This measure also sets a dangerous precedent for state intervention in all other university courses. By denying to faculty and administrators the academic freedom that is the guarantee of the autonomy of higher education, the Hungarian government puts itself outside the community of democratic nations.
We therefore call upon the Minister of Education to refuse this amendment. We also call upon the European Union, of which Hungary is a member nation, to condemn this action as a violation of its principles. And we call upon academic institutions in our own countries to join our protest.
Best regards,
1. Sanjam Ahluwalia (Northern Arizona University), Women's and Gender Studies, United States of America
2.Nadje Al-Ali (SOAS University of London), Master Program in Gender Studies & MPhil/PhD in Gender Studies, Centre for Gender Studies, United Kingdom
3. Gill Allwood (Nottingham Trent University), PhDs in Arts and Humanities, United Kingdom
4.Fanny Ambjörnsson (Stockolm University), Bachelor Program, Master Program and PhD Program in Gender Studies, Sweden
5. Karuppannan Annapuranam (Institute for Social and Economic Change), Gender Studies, India
6.Milica Antic Gaber (University of Ljubljana), Doctoral Program of Gender studies at the Faculty of Arts, Slovenia
7.Ionela Baluta (University of Bucharest), Master în Ştiinţe Politice, Specializarea Ştiinţe Politice - Politicile egalităţii de şanse în context românesc şi european, Romania
8.Lorraine Bayard de Volo (University of Colorado Boulder), Women & Gender Studies, United States of America
9. Adriana Bebiano (University of Coimbra), PhD in Feminist Studies, Portugal
10. Merike Blofield (University of Miami), Women's and Gender Studies, United States of America
11.Saskia Bonjour (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Bachelor Minor Gender & Sexuality, The Netherlands
12. Flavia do Bonsucesso Teixeira (Federal University of Uberlandia), PhD Program in Public and Collective Health, Brazil
13.Adriana Boria (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba), Doctorado en Género, Argentina
14. Karen Boyle (University of Strathclyde), Msc Applied Gender Studies, United Kingdom
15.Sarah Bracke & Marie-Louise Janssen (Universiteit van Amsterdam), Master of Science in Sociology, Gender, Sexuality, and Society (track), The Netherlands
16. Melanie Elyse Brewster (Columbia University), Sexuality, Women, and Gender Program at Teachers College, United States of America
17.Jude Brown (University of Cambridge), MPhil in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies & PhD Program in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies, United Kingdom
18. Rosemarie Buikema (Utrecht University), Graduate Gender Programme, The Netherlands
19.Rebeca Bussinger (Federal University of Espirito Santo), PhD Program in Psychology, Brazil
20. Wendy Cadge (Brandeis University), Women's & Gender Studies Program, United States of America
21. Marina Calloni (University of Milano-Bicocca), EDV Italy Project, Italy
22.Mary Anne Case (University of Chicago), Workshop on Regulation of Family, Sex, and Gender, Law School, United States of America
23. Sébastien Chauvin & Eléonore Lépinard (Université de Lausanne), Master en Sciences Sociales, Switzerland
24.Sara Cohen Shabot (University of Haifa), Women's and Gender Studies Graduate Program, Israel
25. Christa Craven (College of Wooster), Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, United States of America
26.Kent Elizabeth Davis-Packard (Johns Hopkins University), SAIS Women Lead Curricular Program, United States of America
27. Francine Descarries (Université du Québec à Montréal), Réseau québécois en études féministes, Canada
28.Juan F. Díaz Morales (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Máster en Estudios de Género, Spain
29. Alessia Donà and Barbara Poggio (University of Trento), Centre of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, Italy
30.Lisa Downing (University of Birmingham), PhD & MRes in Sexuality and Gender Studies, United Kingdom
31. Laura Lee Downs (European University Institute), EUI Gender Project, Italy
32. Pascale Dufour (Université de Montréal), Mineure en études féministes des genres et des sexualités, Canada
33.Daša Duhaček (University of Belgrade), Gender Studies Program, Center for Gender and Politics, Serbia
34. Silvia Elizalde, Carolina Spataro & Carolina Justo von Lurzer (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Programa de Actualización en Comunicación. Géneros y Sexualidades, Argentina
35. Yasmine Ergas (Columbia University), Gender & Public Policy Specialization, School of International & Public Affairs, United States of America
36.Éric Fassin & Nadia Setti (Université Paris 8-Vincennes-Saint-Denis), Département d'études de genre, France
37. Laura Frader (Northeastern University), Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, United States of America
38.Katherine Franke (Columbia University), JD, MA and PhD programs, Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, United States of America
39. Susan Freeman (Western Michigan University), Department of Gender and Women's Studies, United States of America
40.Jennifer Freeman Marshall (College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University),Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, United States of America
41. Nathalie Frogneux (Université catholique de Louvain), Mineure en Etudes de Genre, Belgium
42.Linda Garber (Santa Clara University), Women's and Gender Studies Department, United States of America
43. Marie-Dominique Garnier (Université Paris 8-Vincennes-Saint-Denis), Doctorat d'études de genre, France
44.Sabine Grenz (University of Vienna), Master in Gender Studies, Austria
45. Inderpal Grewal (Yale University), Program in Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, United States of America
46. Gabriele Griffin (Uppsala University), Centre for Gender Research, Sweden
47.Tamar Hager (Tel Hai College), Gender Studies Program, Israel
48. Daphna Hacker (Tel Aviv University), Women and Gender Studies Program, Israel
49.Jack Halberstam (Columbia University), Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, United States of America
50. Nahema Hanafi (Université d'Angers), Master Etudes sur le Genre des Universités d'Angers, de Brest, du Mans, de Nantes et de Rennes 2, France
51.Haldis Haukanes (University of Bergen), Master Global Development Theory and Practice, Specialization in Gender in Global Development, Norway
52. Clare Hemmings (London School of Economics and Political Science), Gender Studies, United Kingdom
53.Jean-Philippe Imbert (Dublin City University), Masters of Arts in Sexuality Studies, Ireland
54. Susan V. Iverson (Manhattanville College), Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership, United States of America
55.Katrien Jacobs (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Gender Studies Program, Hong Kong
56. Gabriele Jähnert (Humboldt-Universität), Bachelor of Arts (BA) Geschlechterstudien/Gender Studies & Master of Arts (MA) Geschlechterstudien/Gender Studies, Center for transdisciplinary Gender Studies, Germany
57.Lena Karlsson (Lund University), Gender Studies Department, Sweden
58. Mary Celeste Kearney (University of Notre Dame), Gender Studies Program, United States of America
59.Catherine Lawless (Trinity College Dublin), Taught M.Phil. in Gender and Women's Studies, Ireland
60. April Lidinsky (Indiana University South Bend), Women's and Gender Studies Program, United States of America
61.Katerina Liskova (Masaryk University), Gender Studies Program, Department of Sociology, Czech Republic
62. Mauricio List Reyes (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla), Maestría en Antropología Social, Linea de Sexualidad, Cuerpo y Género, Mexico
63.Chia Longman (Universiteit Gent), Master Gender & Diversity, Belgium
64. Denise Lynn (University of Southern Indiana), Gender Studies, United States of America
65.Maria do Mar Pereira (University of Warwick), MA in Gender and International Development & PhD in Women's and Gender Studies, United Kingdom
66. Esteban Martinez-Garcia (Université libre de Bruxelles), Master en Sciences du Travail, Filière Genre et Inégalités, Belgium.
67. Paula Sandrine Machado (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul), PhD Program in Social and Institutional Psychology, Brazil
68.Amana Matos (State University of Rio de Janeiro), PhD Program in Psychology, Brazil
69. Sally McWilliams (Portland State University), Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, United States of America
70.Maria Mesner (University of Vienna), Head of Gender Studies Program, Austria
71. Marcos Mesquita (Federal University of Alagos), PhD Program in Psychology, Brazil
72. Jacinthe Michaud (York University), School of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies, Canada
73.Liesbeth Minnaard (Leiden University), Minor Gender and Sexuality, The Netherlands
74. Avigail Moor (Tel Hi College), Gender Studies, Israel
75.Anne Mulhall (University College Dublin), Master Gender Studies (School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin) & Master Literature & Culture - Gender, Sexuality & Culture (School of English, Drama, Film and Creative Writing), Ireland
76.Sally Munt (University of Sussex), PhD Program in Gender Studies/Humanities, United Kingdom
77. Henrique Caetano Nardi (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul), PhD Program in Social and Institutional Psychology, Brazil
78. Laura C. Nelson (University of California, Berkeley), Department of Gender and Women's Studies, United States of America
79. Hélène Nicolas (Université Paris 8-Vincennes-Saint-Denis), Master d'Etudes de Genre, France
80. Luciano Nosetto (Universidad de Buenos Aires), Doctoral Program in Social Sciences, Argentina
81.Libora Oates-Indruchova (University of Graz), MA in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, Austria
82. Rachel O'Connell & Samuel Solomon (University of Sussex), Master in Sexual Dissidence, United Kingdom
83. Vera Paiva (University of Sao Paulo), PhD Program in Social Psychology, Brazil
84.Lorena Parini (Université de Genève), Master en etudes genre, Switzerland
85. David Paternotte (Université libre de Bruxelles) & Tania Van Hemelrijck (Université catholique de Louvain), Master de specialisation en études de genre, Belgium
86.Hélène Périvier (Sciences Po Paris), PRESAGE, Programme de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Savoirs sur le Genre, France
87.Juliana Perucchi (Federal University of Juiz de Fora), PhD Program in Psychology, Brazil
88. Deborah Philips (University of Brighton), Women's Writing and Feminist Theory, United Kingdom
89.Alison Phipps (Sussex University), Master in Gender Studies & Gender Studies PhD programs, United Kingdom
90. Valérie Piette (Université libre de Bruxelles), Certificat Genre, Sexualité & Société, Belgium
91.Marco Aurélio Máximo Prado (Federal University of Minas Gerais), PhD Program Psychology, Brazil
92. Elisabeth Prügl (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), Gender Centre, Switzerland
93. Mary Lou Rasmussen (Australian National University), MPhil Gender, Sexuality and Culture, Australia
94.Emma L. E. Rees (University of Chester), Gender Studies MRes, United Kingdom
95. Juliette Rennes & Matthieu Trachman (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales), Master Genre, Politique et Sexualité, France
96.Monika Rudaś-Grodzka (Polish Academy of Sciences), Gender Studies, Institute of Literary Research, Poland
97.Katja Sabisch (Ruhr-University Bochum), Master Gender Studies, Women's & Gender Research Network NRW, Germany
98. Zdenka Šadl (University of Ljubljana), Doctoral Gender Studies Program at Faculty of Social Sciences, Slovenia
99.Kristen Schilt (University of Chicago), Gender and Sexuality Studies (BA & Graduate Certificate), United States of America
100. Marianne Schmidbaur (Goethe University Frankfurt), BA Minor in Gender Studies, Germany
101. Stacey Scriver, (National University of Ireland Galway), MA Gender, Globalization and Rights, Ireland
102.Lynne Segal (Birbeck, University of London), Master Gender, Sexuality & Culture, United Kingdom
103. Carisa R. Showden (University of Auckland), Gender Studies, New Zealand
104. Vera Sokolova (Prague University), Gender Studies, Czech Republic
105.Maria Juracy Toneli Filgueiras (Federal University of Santa Catarina), PhD Program in Psychology, Brazil
106. Marco Antonio Torres (Federal University of Ouro Preto), PhD Program in Education, Brazil
107.Aili Mari Tripp (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Department of Gender and Women's Studies, United States of America
108.Rivka Tuval-Mashiach (Bar Ilan University), Gender Graduate Program, Israel
109. Marieke van den Brink (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen), Radboud Gender and Diversity Studies, The Netherlands
110.Cristina Vega (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales), Department of Sociology and Gender Studies, Ecuador
111.Tània Verge (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Minor in Gender Studies, Spain
112. Luciana Vieira (Federal University of Pernambuco), PhD Program in Psychology, Brazil
113.Paula-Irene Villa (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), Minor Gender in Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, Germany
114. Susanne Völker & Dirk Schulz (University of Cologne), Master Gender & Queer Studies, Germany
115. Elisabeth Wesseling (Maastricht University), Centre for Gender and Diversity, The Netherlands
116.Stephen Whittle (Manchester Metropolitan University), LLM European Equalities and Human Rights Law, United Kingdom
117. Elizabeth A. Wood (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Women's & Gender Studies, United States of America
118.Bonnie Zare (Virginia Tech), Women's and Gender Studies, United States of America
119. Amalia Ziv (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Gender Studies Program, Israel
Contacts
David Paternotte (Université libre de Bruxelles), david.paternotte@ulb.ac.be
Chia Longman (Universiteit Gent), chia.longman@ugent.be
Statement on New Year's Eve in Cologne
Cologne, 10.1.2016
Is it about protection?
Expansion of sexualized violence and racist instrumentalization.
The excessive sexualized violence against women* on New Year's Eve, especially in Cologne, but also in Hamburg, is upsetting and fills us with anger and pain. It is now a matter of being with those who encountered this violence and were hurt by it, of addressing the concrete experiences of violence, of naming acts of sexual violence and of not shifting the debate discursively. And precisely because it is about rejecting this violence and opposing it resolutely, it is important to understand its social dynamics and logic.
Sexualized violence against women* has an enduring history in patriarchal societies, in which the dominance of the masculine generalized as 'actually human' is practiced in different cultural, religious and (geo-)political constellations in East and West, North and South. The question of the acceptance or condemnation of sexualized violence is answered differently. And it is an expression of decades of struggles by women's* movements and their alliances when it is possible to publicize and punish violence in non-public, 'private' spaces, in family relationships, or to repeatedly fight for public space as legitimate for all genders (and all too often this is not only denied to women*). The versions of patriarchal dominance and variants of 'male domination' (Bourdieu) are diverse and very different in their intensity, physical violence and legal protection or limitation; they affect those who are classified as women as well as - with similar and other attacks and regulations - those who stand up for genders and sexualities beyond heteronormative legitimizations.
Sexualized violence against women* constructs 'women' and marks bodies in a particular way as (physically, psychologically and socially) vulnerable and open to injury. It is aimed at gaining sovereign power to act and rendering the addressees* powerless and incapable of acting. Sexualized violence is a form of practice between (heterosexual) masculinities in which women* and others become a mirror of their own agency and are instrumentalized in this way.
The worldwide expansion of sexual violence against women* (but also homophobia and transphobia, which is not the same thing, but cannot be separated from it either) has its roots in the current global relations of inequality and exploitation and in the - political and social - logic by means of which these are (re-)instituted: It is - as Judith Butler has already worked out very impressively on the basis of the caesura of September 11, 2001 for George W. Bush's US policy - the logic of war.
France and Belgium responded to the terrorist attacks in Paris with declarations of war and states of emergency, thereby enforcing the supposed accountability of those responsible in the form of an act of war. Numerous European governments have reacted to the movement of people fleeing war and intolerable living conditions by strengthening and closing borders, de facto suspending the Geneva Convention on Human Rights and undermining the right to asylum. The camps in which refugees, uprooted and often traumatized people are housed are not only an expression of the overstretched capacities of societies willing to receive them, they also articulate above all policies of demarcation, the constitution of we-groups and of camp inmates who have to prove themselves capable of integration - or not.
The direct acts of war in Syria, accelerated by the terror of IS, are associated with the formation and multiplication of different groups, some of which are deadly hostile to each other and may deny each other their rights and rights to life for generations.
At the same time, and linked to this, logics of war diffuse in privileged, dominant, protected countries - such as Western Europe - and determine social and political action: through the juxtaposition of 'us' groups and 'others' who are not (fully) recognized in their (life) rights. Currently, racist and Islamophobic outbursts are fueling these logics of war in a terrible way and turning refugees into hated, threatening others whose rights to life are at stake.
It is these logics of war that address and update the issue of gender and sexualized violence with particular intensity.
This can be seen in the question of masculinity: war is not only an arena for the articulation and reproduction of masculinity(ies), it is the most serious of the serious games of 'male domination'. At a time when this 'masculine domination' - for example in the social figure of the white, European, heterosexual, (post-)colonial man - is faltering, i.e. when the domination of this unmarked and previously protected masculinity does not remain unquestioned, indeed when competing masculinities exhibit their own particularity, access to 'women' - as addressees* of their own potency and/or as a dependent 'good' worthy of protection - is a tried and tested instrument for the re-establishment of a centered masculinity.
This is currently expressed in the heterogeneous, broad, masculinity-fundamentalist right-wing alliances: the massive threats of sexual violence against gender and sexuality researchers in social networks are only the reverse side of the male, racist women's protectors who mobilize against 'other', 'brown men' as alleged rapists of ('white') women.
The second point is thus the instrumentalization of women* as prey between men/masculinities, from whom agency and subject status are withdrawn - in accordance with the logic of war.
What does all this mean in relation to New Year's Eve in Cologne?
I am writing here - and this also shows how gender is linked to other positions of privilege and disadvantage - as a white middle-class woman. And in this respect, it would be necessary to distinguish once again in which ways and configurations which 'white women' become the 'object' of patriarchal-paternalistic policies.
They are certainly not affected by the colonial policies that Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak aptly described early on (in the original 1988) for women of color : "White men save brown women from brown men", but rather benefit from and participate in postcolonial racisms and dominances. Nevertheless, those labeled with the classification 'white woman' (i.e. those privileged by it and the addressees* of sexism) are once again the ones to be protected between 'white men': "Women and children first!".
Experienced violence, pain and grief as well as the rejection of sexism and violence and the right to public space are instrumentalized in an intolerable way for racist attributions. It is therefore just as important to reject the essentialization and culturalization of groups of perpetrators.
And first and foremost, it is about breaking through the dynamics of war, warfare and group formation and the associated destructive dynamics of subjugation, powerlessness and injury. This would mean enabling and socially preserving (physical) integrity on the basis of the fundamental vulnerability of life, and thus also of all people regardless of gender. It would mean paying attention to the vulnerability, the precariousness of life, addressing it: concretely, in individual cases and everywhere.
It is certainly also about protecting endangered lives, from violence, from persecution, from war, from discrimination, from sexism, from racism; it is about protecting people whose lives, bodies and desires do not conform to normative standards. But it would be a kind of 'protection' that refers to conviviality, to an egalitarian sharing of the world (Irigaray), to the facilitation of non-externalized differences.
But as long as we (a 'we' of queer-feminist alliances to be positioned in each case) speak of a protection that is granted and distributed patriarchally, we have not yet really countered the warlike structure of the serious games of 'male domination' that constitute women* as women.
Susanne Völker
GeStiK team