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Paper short abstract:

During the last years the discourse around feminism and women rights has changed in Germany and is increasingly entangled with nationalist and antiimmigrant rhetoric. This paper analyzes these current struggles in Germany by focusing on the language and images used by different actors in this field.

Paper long abstract:

In January 2018 a video of the group 120 Dezibel went viral in German speaking countries. With the slogan "The true outcry" a collective of women has started a new movement that takes up the feminist campaign #Metoo and fights "imported violence" and "foreign infiltration". At latest since the "event Cologne" (Dietze 2016) at New Year's Eve 2015/16 the discourse around feminism and the engagement for womens' rights has changed in Germany and is increasingly entangled with nationalist and anti-immigrant rhetoric. New actors like rightwing populist groups and conservative policy makers act now as defenders of women's rights while criticizing emancipatory diversity politics as "gender madness". Likewise, "old" actors like long existing feminist groups also use nationalist logics, request a critique of "Islam" and mobilize thereby a specific gender knowledge about "the others". These current struggles around feminism and women rights are accompanied by an ambivalent simultaneity since 2015: On the one side the reform of the law governing sexual offences and at the same time massive restrictions in asylum and migration law. This paper analyzes these current struggles around women's rights and feminism in Germany by focusing on the gendered and racialized language and images used by different actors in this field - across the political spectrum.