The international scientific meeting “Who’s still afraid of gender?” organized by the Regional Network for Research on Gender and Politics in Southeast Europe (GenPolSEE), the Institute of Social Sciences and the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade, with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, held on November 17 2023. in Belgrade
Three round tables held discussing the following topics: on gender sensitive language, on anti-gender campaigns in education, culture and society, and on international and regional experience. The use of gender-sensitive language contributes to raising awareness of the importance of gender equality and directly affects the process of democratization of society. It has the greatest influence on the visibility of women in public life and one of the ways to eliminate any form of gender-based discrimination.
That is why we meet with the increasing resistance of conservative and right-wing political forces to implement changes in the language policy. The term “gender ideology” functions as a broad projection area for racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and transphobia, ethnic nationalist ideas. Here we observe how “gender ideology” has been coming to drive policy in a range of national and global contexts.
Experts from the Regional Network for Research on Gender and Politics in Southeast Europe (GenPolSEE) and colleagues from the academic community in Serbia, who are engaged in the study of gender, language, education, culture and society participating at the meeting. On the second day, two workshops were held with international participation. One is dedicated to the problems of political representation of women in the countries of Southeast Europe, and the other to anti-gender campaigns in the post-yugoslav space.
