The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Making Sense of Opposition to Feminisms from a Social-Movement Perspective

Social movement studies are a fruitful starting point to explore opposition to the feminist project. Social-movement scholars have come up with the concept of movement/countermovement dynamics to theorize the interaction between social movements and the movements that oppose them. Based on this, the chapter proposes a number of theoretical notions and mechanisms that are particularly useful for theorizing opposition to gender+ equality projects. This provides us with insights about the conditions under which opposition is likely to occur, the ways these conditions influence oppositional dynamics, how opposition is organized, and what it is that makes opposition/oppositional actors successful.