The Centaur’s Kick: Backlash as Disruptive Upgrades to Patriarchal Orders

Abstract

Backlash is not always pushing back against progress for women, but how is it still patriarchal? Sliced into three sections – on confluence, contestations, and cartographies – this article draws on a thesis about backlash as the exploitation of insecurity wrought by apparent crises to re/shape social orders, through re-fixing symbolic sites, namely the body, family, and nation. It begins by describing a confluence of types of actors and projects silencing feminist voice. Contesting gendered backlash narratives about the three sites are then explored, followed by a more theoretical section reflecting on cartographies of resonant concurrence and contradictions in backlash. Reflecting on masculinities, identification, and levels of hegemonic power, the argument is that the fixing of sites re/naturalises three deep-level patriarchal logics – phallogocentric binary (body), hierarchical (family), and categorical closed-systems (nation) principles – which helps us theorise the evolution of patriarchal hegemonies. This may inform more strategic countering of backlash.