In the Name of Women's Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism 9780822372929

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IN THE NAME OF ­WOMEN’S RIGHTS

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IN THE NAME OF ­WOMEN’S RIGHTS The Rise of Femonationalism

sara r. farris

duke university press Durham and London 2017

© 2017 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca on acid-­free paper ∞ Typeset in Minion Pro by Westchester Publishing Service Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Farris, Sara R., author. Title: In the name of ­women’s rights : the rise of ­femonationalism / Sara R. Farris. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016047057 (print) lccn 2016049128 (ebook) isbn 9780822369608 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 9780822369745 (pbk. : alk. paper) isbn 9780822372929 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Europe—­Emigration and immigration. | ­ Women’s rights—­Religious aspects. | Islamophobia—­ Political aspects—­Europe. | Immigrants—­Europe—­Public opinion. | ­Women immigrants—­Employment—­Europe. | Feminism. | Nationalism. Classification: lcc jv7590.f368 2017 (print) | lcc jv7590 (ebook) | ddc 323.3/4094—­dc23 lc rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2016047057 Cover art: Adji Baifall Minaret, 2004. © Maïmouna Guerresi.

FOR MARIA AND ANTONIO, MY PARENTS

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CONTENTS

abbreviations ​ix acknowl­edgments ​xi Introduction:  In the Name of ­Women’s Rights ​1 1

Figures of Femonationalism ​22

2

Femonationalism Is No Pop­u­lism ​57

3

Integration Policies and the Institutionalization of Femonationalism ​78

4

Femonationalism, Neoliberalism, and Social Reproduction ​115

5

The Po­liti­cal Economy of Femonationalism ​146 notes ​183 bibliography ​229 index ​253

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ABBREVIATIONS

an Alleanza Nazionale (Italy) (National Alliance) cai Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration (Contract for Reception   and Integration) cswp Commission Staff Working Paper ec Eu­ro­pean Commission eif Eu­ro­pean Fund for the Integration of Third-­Country  Nationals fn Front National (France) (National Front) hci Haut Conseil à l’Intégration (High Council for Integration) ilo International ­Labor Organ­ization lfs ­Labor Force Survey ln Lega Nord (Italy) (Northern League) oecd Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development ofii Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration pavem Participatie van Vrouwen uit Etnische Minderheidsgroepen   (Participation of Ethnic Minority ­Women) pdl Il Popolo della Libertà (Italy) (­People of Freedom) pvv Partij voor de Vrijheid (Netherlands) (Party for Freedom) tcn third-­country national ump Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (France) (Union for a Popular Movement) vvd Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Demo­cratie (Netherlands)   (­People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy)

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ACKNOWL­E DGMENTS

This book is the fruit of many journeys. I began to think about writing it at the end of 2010, in the ­middle of a very vivacious and productive conversation at the conference “States of Feminism/Matters of State: Gender and the Politics of Exclusion,” which I had co-­organized as a fellow at the Jan van Eyck Acad­emy (jve) in Maastricht. The exchange with the other organizers, Avigail Moss, Rebecka Thor, and Kirsten Stakemeier, as well as with some of the participants at the conference—­Rada Ivekovic, Chiara Bon­ figlioli, Vincenza Perilli, and Neferti Tadiar—­encouraged me to develop my ideas in a more coherent form. That conference and the challenging intellectual climate itself could have not been pos­si­ble without the passionate efforts of the advising researchers of the jve Theory Department—­Katja Diefenbach, Dominiek Hoens, and Mladen Dolar—to keep a space for critique alive in the midst of the neoliberal Netherlands. I thank also my colleagues and friends for two memorable years (2009–2010) in that institutional context. Beyond ­those I mentioned above, I am grateful to Emiliano Battista, Pietro Bianchi, Giuseppe Bianco, Nathaniel Boyd, Vanessa Brito, Luisa Lorenza Corna, Gal Kirn, Dubravka Sekulic, Tzuchien Tho, Oxana Timofeeva, and Samo Tomsic. From the beginning of 2011 u ­ ntil 2013, I was fortunate to be able to work intensely on this book thanks to two generous fellowships, at the Center for Excellence at the University of Konstanz (Germany) in 2011 and at the Institute for Advanced Study (ias) in Prince­ton in 2012 and 2013. I would like to thank Rita Casale, my colleague and friend in Konstanz, with whom I discussed several parts of this book when they ­were still in an unshaped and underdeveloped form. Her astute and always challenging comments pushed me to clarify my concepts. I am thankful for her continuous support and friendship. I owe a special debt to Joan  W. Scott, with whom I had the pleasure plea­sure to discuss all parts of this manuscript during my period of

research at the ias in Prince­ton. She encouraged me to pursue this proj­ect from the outset and provided always invaluable comments and impor­tant criticisms throughout the vari­ous stages of its writing. Her rigor and commitment to critical thinking have been a ­great inspiration. My colleague and friend at the ias in Prince­ton, Catherine Rottenberg, read most of this book several times with incredible patience and passion, challenging me to avoid inconsistencies and shortcuts. Her critical insights undoubtedly helped to make this book better than it might other­wise have been. I am very grateful to Neve Gordon for reading parts of this book at vari­ous phases of its development and for not only giving me helpful comments, but also encouraging me to clarify the (often unnecessary) intricacies of my arguments. Nicola Perugini, David Eng, and Moon-­Kie Jung also read dif­fer­ent sections of this book and offered very useful criticisms. I could not wish for better readers and friends. For their precious support with bibliographical resources and other orga­nizational ­matters during my period of research at the School of Social Science at the ias, I thank Donne Petito, Nancy Cotterman, and Marcia Tucker. Between 2011 and 2015 I was invited to pres­ent papers based on this book at several universities: University of Vienna, University of Amsterdam, Australian National University, University of Sydney, University of Queensland, University of Paris Nanterre, University of Wuppertal, Barnard College at Columbia University, the Gradu­ate Center at the City University of New York, New York University, University of Glasgow, University of Munich, Goldsmiths College University of London, University of Fudan in Shanghai, and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In all ­these places I was privileged to discuss with scholars and friends who in vari­ous ways ­shaped my thinking: Alexandra Aidler, Danielle Allen, Moritz Altenried, Cinzia Arruzza, Brenna Bandhar, Stella Magliani Belkacem, Elizabeth Bern­stein, Gerd Blum, Saskia Bonjour, Svenja Bromberg, Sebastian Chauvin, Sara de Jong, Ines Detmers, Leonardo Donnaloia, Hester Eisenstein, Felix Boggio Éwanjé-­Épée, Didier Fassin, Éric Fassin, Susan Ferguson, Carole Ferrier, Bridget Fowler, Sara Garbagnoli, Enrico Gargiulo, Gaia Giuliani, Camille Gourdeau, Elizabeth Humphrys, Christine Inglis, Fiona Jenkins, Margaret Jolly, Nazima Kadir, Rosanne Kennedy, Vassiliki Kolocotroni, Francesco Laganà, Bronwen Levy, Sabrina Marchetti, Patchen Markell, Jamila Mascat, Sarah Mazouz, David McNally, Paul Mepschen, Morgane Merteuil, Monika Mokre, Momo, Miriana Morokvasic, Petra xii 

Acknowl­e dgments

Neuhold, Anne Norton, Sara Picchi, Andrea ­Piper, Christian Poiret, Jan Rehmann, Kim Rubenstein, Birgit Sauer, Paul Scheibelhofer, Bev Skeggs, Anna Stach, Tad Tietze, Massimiliano Tomba, Alberto Toscano, Sonja van Wickelen, Barbara Vinken, Alberto Violante, Katharina Walgenbach, Michelle Boulous Walker, Jeff Webber, Deva Woodly-­Davis, and Rafeef Ziadah. I thank my colleagues in the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths. Their commitment to a critical and interdisciplinary sociology that does not shy away from difficult societal questions and challenges the mainstream is a continuous source of motivation. I thank the three anonymous reviewers at Duke University Press who commented extensively on the manuscript, helping me to see how the argument could be strengthened. A special thank you to Ken Wissoker, who believed in this proj­ect from the outset and helped me to improve this book. His wide vision enlightened the path when it seemed unclear. A much earlier version of sections from chapters 3 and 5 in a dif­fer­ent form was published in Darkmatter, History of the Pres­ent, and So­cio­log­i­cal Review. My partner, Peter  D. Thomas, read the w ­ hole manuscript at vari­ous stages of its elaboration and always responded with insightful criticisms and provocations. For this as well as for his continuous patience, commitment, and love I ­will be always extremely grateful. As I was finishing this proj­ect we ­were joined by our d ­ aughter, Mira Elizabeth. She taught me more than a thousand books what care work and social reproduction actually mean. I thank my ­sister Elisabetta and her partner, Luca, for their support and for being role models of tenacity, vision, and talent. This book is dedicated to my parents, Maria and Antonio, who continue to inspire and encourage me in every­thing that I do.

Acknowl­e dgments 

xiii

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Introduction In the Name of ­Women’s Rights

I think we are dealing with very sick w ­ omen [i.e., full-­veiled Muslim w ­ omen] and I do not think we have to be determined according to their pathology. —­Élizabeth badinter, a French feminist phi­los­o­pher Islam . . . ​expels Jews and gays and flushes de­cades of ­women’s rights down the toilet. —­geert wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-­right Party for Freedom ­There cannot be a regularization for t­hose [mi­grants] who entered illegally, for ­those who rape a ­woman or rob a villa, but certainly we w ­ ill take into account for regularization all ­those situations that have a strong social impact, as in the case of [female] mi­grant caregivers. —­roberto maroni, the ex-­leader of the Italian far-­right party Northern League

The success of the far right in the 2014 elections for the Eu­ro­pean Parliament attracted a ­great deal of international attention. Across the continent, nationalist right-­wing parties ­either won an unpre­ce­dented number of seats or consolidated their significant popu­lar support.1 ­These electoral achievements, coupled with the harshness of the anti-­Islam slogans that characterized the parties’ campaigns, triggered fears of a return of fascism. Yet one of the striking features that distinguishes con­temporary Eu­ro­pean nationalist parties from their older counter­parts is the invocation of gender equality (and occasionally lgbt rights) within an other­wise xenophobic rhe­toric. Indeed, despite their lack of concern with elaborating concrete policies of gender equality and their masculinist po­liti­cal style, ­these parties have increasingly advanced their anti-­Islam agendas in the name of ­women’s rights. From Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, to Marine Le Pen

in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy—­the key animators of the “brown international” upon which this book focuses—­one of the central tropes mobilized by t­ hese right-­wing nationalists is the profound danger that Muslim males constitute for western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties, due, above all, to their oppressive treatment of ­women.2 Some scholars have described the nationalists’ turn to themes of ­women’s equality as an attempt to modernize their agenda and increase their female constituencies.3 ­Others have drawn a link between Eu­rope and the United States, where conservative politicians framed post-9/11 imperialist wars in the ­Middle East as missions to liberate Muslim ­women from Muslim men.4 And yet right-­wing nationalists are not the only forces waving the banner of ­women’s equality in ways that seem to contradict their core ideologies and policies. On the other side of the po­liti­cal spectrum some well-­known and out­spoken feminists have also joined the anti-­Islam choir. Throughout the 2000s, the internationally renowned French feminist phi­los­o­pher Élizabeth Badinter, the Dutch feminist politician Ayan Hirsi Ali, and the famous Italian “occasional feminist” Oriana Fallaci denounced ­Muslim communities as exceptionally sexist, contrasting them to western countries as sites of “superior” gender relations.5 Similarly, ­women’s organ­izations as well as top-­ranking bureaucrats in state gender equality agencies—­often termed femocrats—­all singled out Islamic religious practices as especially patriarchal, arguing that they had no place in the western public sphere.6 Accordingly, they all endorsed ­legal proposals such as veil bans while portraying Muslim ­women as passive victims who needed to be rescued and emancipated. This heterogeneous anti-­Islam feminist front, thus, presented sexism and patriarchy as the almost exclusive domains of the Muslim Other. The peculiar encounter between anti-­Islam agendas and the emancipatory rhe­toric of ­women’s rights is not, however, restricted to nationalists and feminists. Neoliberal advocates who are other­wise antinationalist have also increasingly deployed anti-­Islam repre­sen­ta­tions in the name of ­women’s rights.7 A good example of this are the civic integration programs for “third-­country nationals,” programs that are, as I w ­ ill explain, a landmark of neoliberalism. Designed to foster the inclusion of mi­grants into the fabric of Eu­ro­pean socie­ties, ­these programs have made mi­grants’ long-­term residency dependent upon a certified commitment to learn the language, culture, and values of the destination country. They urge mi­grants both to 2 Introduction

acknowledge ­women’s rights as a central value of the West and to assimilate to western cultural practices, which are presented as more civilizationally advanced. What is striking ­here as well is that civic integration policies tend to generalize claims regarding the inherent misogyny of Muslim communities and apply them to all non-­western mi­grants. Thus, three very dif­fer­ent po­liti­cal actors—­right-­wing nationalists, certain feminists and ­women’s equality agencies, and neoliberals—­invoke ­women’s rights to stigmatize Muslim men in order to advance their own po­ liti­cal objectives. But why are ­these dif­fer­ent movements invoking the same trope and identifying Muslim men as one of the most dangerous threats to western socie­ties? Are nationalist parties “betraying” their traditionally antifeminist politics, feminists their emancipatory politics, and neoliberals their antinationalist politics as they all deploy w ­ omen’s rights against Muslim male subjects? Who exactly are the nationalist, feminist, and neoliberal forces mobilizing gender equality against Islam, and what are their specific arguments? Are we witnessing the rise of a new, unholy alliance, or is this seeming consensus across the po­liti­cal spectrum merely coincidental and contingent? And, fi­nally, why are Muslim ­women being presented with offers of “rescue” in a context of rising Islamophobia and anti-­immigration sentiments, particularly regarding employment and welfare? As I discuss in the following sections, vari­ous scholars have explained the new centrality of gender and sometimes gay equality within anti-­Islam agendas as a consequence of the shift to the right and the war on terror that marked the 2000s in Eu­rope and the United States—­particularly ­after 9/11. They thus emphasize the securitarian logic of the con­temporary rescue narratives targeting Muslim ­women as victims and read ­these narratives mainly as po­liti­cal constellations that characterize the current neoliberal and nationalist Zeitgeist. This book argues instead that impor­tant political-­economic dimensions under­lying ­these paradoxical intersections in western Eu­rope have, for the most part, been overlooked. Furthermore, I claim that the ways in which anti-­Islam campaigns in the name of gender equality feed on and shape broader anti-­immigration and racist ideologies and institutions have not received the sustained attention they deserve. In the Name of ­Women’s Rights thus intends to propose new links, conceptualizations, and categories of analy­sis in order to decipher the reasons for the surprising intersection among nationalists, feminists, and neoliberals. In order to name this Introduction 

3

intersection and frame the political-­economic logic underpinning it, I introduce the notion of femonationalism. Short for “feminist and femocratic nationalism,” femonationalism refers both to the exploitation of feminist themes by nationalists and neoliberals in anti-­Islam (but, as I w ­ ill show, also anti-­immigration) campaigns and to the participation of certain feminists and femocrats in the stigmatization of Muslim men ­under the banner of gender equality. Femonationalism thus describes, on the one hand, the attempts of western Eu­ro­pean right-­wing parties and neoliberals to advance xenophobic and racist politics through the touting of gender equality while, on the other hand, it captures the involvement of vari­ous well-­known and quite vis­i­ble feminists and femocrats in the current framing of Islam as a quintessentially misogynistic religion and culture. In order to define and map out femonationalism, this book focuses on three specific national contexts (the Netherlands, France, and Italy during 2000–2013) and three specific po­liti­cal actors and agendas: (1) nationalist right-­wing parties (the Partij voor de Vrijheid [pvv; Party for Freedom] in the Netherlands, the Front National [fn; National Front] in France, and the Lega Nord [ln; Northern League] in Italy); (2) a number of prominent feminist intellectuals and politicians, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats within ­these countries; (3) and neoliberal policies targeting non-­western mi­grants within civic integration programs. Two qualifications are needed at this point. First, I should stress that, unlike the right-­wing nationalist parties that instrumentalize gender equality within broader anti-­immigration campaigns, the feminists, w ­ omen’s organ­izations, and femocrats whom I foreground have directed their main criticism at Muslims and not at mi­grants more generally. However, this book details the involvement of some of t­hese feminists, ­women’s organ­ izations, and femocrats in the elaboration and implementation of some components of civic integration programs that target non-­western mi­grant ­women in general.8 I thus show how anti-­Islam rhe­toric has permeated institutional mechanisms that target the non-­western mi­grant population at large. In the Name of W ­ omen’s Rights attempts to unravel this complex interweaving, claiming that while anti-­Muslim rhe­toric has become the dominant anti-­Other rhe­toric, it dovetails at certain moments and in certain locations and discourses with anti-­immigration rhe­toric. I explain this complexity by, on the one hand, pointing to how the slippage between

4 Introduction

anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration politics occurs through the assumption of the Muslim man and w ­ oman as the main representatives of the binary oppressor and victim. This binary is then projected and generalized to non-­ western mi­grants from the Global South more generally (as, for instance, in the case of the civic integration policies). On the other hand, I discuss how the binary of oppressor and victim used ­today to foreground Muslims in par­tic­u­lar feeds on repre­sen­ta­tions and ste­reo­types that ­were deployed during colonial times in all three countries and that are part and parcel of more general racist repertoires. Second, my critique of the western Eu­ro­pean portrayal of Muslim ­women as the quin­tes­sen­tial victims of non-­western patriarchy does not in any way imply a denial of the in­equality or repression to which t­ hese ­women, like ­women from any other cultural/social/national background, may potentially (and often factually) be subject within their socie­ties. Yet this book is concerned above all with their repre­sen­ta­tions and conceptualizations in the western Eu­ro­pean cultural imagery and with the ways in which such repre­sen­ta­tions and conceptualizations are informed by (and in turn inform) deeply rooted racist ste­reo­types as well as economic interests and practices, which affect other non-­western (mi­grant) w ­ omen as well. Ultimately, In the Name of W ­ omen’s Rights aims to introduce a more robust theoretical framework for analyzing the deployment of gender equality within xenophobic campaigns. It does so in a way that moves beyond the “politicist” lenses that have largely dominated the analy­sis of ­these phenomena. The weaving together of right-­wing nationalism, certain strains of feminism, and neoliberalism in the name of ­women’s rights needs, I maintain, to be deciphered by disclosing its very concrete political-­economic modes of operation. The introduction of the notion of femonationalism therefore aims to provide a theoretical concept to capture the political-­ economic agenda informing the invocation of ­women’s rights by a range of dif­fer­ent actors. This invocation, I argue, is intimately informed by a profound fear of the Other and, given our current historical conjuncture, by Islamophobia. Accordingly, I suggest that femonationalism must be understood as an ideology that springs from a specific mode of encounter, or what I prefer to call a convergence, among dif­fer­ent po­liti­cal proj­ects, and that is produced by, and productive of, a specifically economic logic. The

Introduction 

5

next sections are thus devoted to clarifying three key theoretical dimensions of femonationalism: femonationalism as convergence, as ideological formation, and as neoliberal po­liti­cal economy. Femonationalism as Convergence

In the Name of W ­ omen’s Rights proposes to analyze the intersection among nationalist right-­wing parties, certain prominent feminists/femocrats, and vari­ous neoliberal policies that seem to merge at the crossroad of anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns in the Netherlands, France, and Italy, as a case of convergence. The term describes the encounter between dif­fer­ent actors and movements in a given space without them losing their relative autonomy, and without the encounter itself (necessarily) producing identity or homogeneity. ­There is a large body of critical lit­er­a­ture documenting the paradoxical endorsement of ­women’s and lgbt rights by right-­wing and traditionally antifeminist/homophobic parties and neoliberals, as well as the support, in recent years, by some feminists and queers of Islamophobic agendas. Scholars have used two main approaches to explain the type of encounter between nationalism, feminist/queer movements, and neoliberalism. The first approach refers to this encounter as “instrumentalization” and “exploitation.” Such an approach has been put forward, for instance, by the sociologist Éric Fassin and the critical race scholar Liz Fekete in the context of their respective discussions of “sexual nationalism” and “enlightened fundamentalism.” They introduce t­ hese notions to define the deployment of w ­ omen’s and lgbt rights in anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns in vari­ous western Eu­ro­pean contexts.9 The second perspective, which focuses on notions of “collusion” or “alliance,” has been proposed most prominently by the queer scholar Jasbir Puar in her study of “homonationalism.”10 This concept foregrounds the ways in which gay rights have been mobilized against Muslims and racialized ­Others within new homonormative frameworks. By proposing to understand femonationalism as the outcome of a convergence, my aim is not to reject t­ hese analyses. Instead, I hope to provide a conceptual framework that can better explicate the distinct and heterogeneous configurations upon which this book focuses. Indeed, I argue that the notion of convergence enables us to ask two impor­tant questions about Dutch, French, and Italian nationalist right-­wing parties, neoliberals, and 6 Introduction

the composite feminist/femocratic camp I explore. First, what are the ideological matrices that have encouraged ­these parties, actors, and movements to advance anti-­Islam/anti-­immigration politics, in spite of the significant differences among them? Second, what interest might right-­wing nationalists, neoliberals, and feminists/femocrats have in endorsing a type of politics that is (or appears to be) at odds with at least certain aspects of their po­liti­cal agendas? I explore the first question by providing a critical genealogy of right-­ wing parties’ participation in anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns in the name of w ­ omen’s rights. This book accordingly charts the shifts that have occurred within the nationalist right-­wing camp: from “ethnic nationalism” to “cultural nationalism” and “western supremacy”—­particularly in Italy and France—or from “western supremacy” to “ethnic nationalism” in the case of the Netherlands.11 In the Name of ­Women’s Rights thus critically addresses the tendency within the scholarly lit­er­a­ture to define far-­right parties like the pvv, the fn, and the ln as “populists.” While this term is employed to capture the demagogic nature of their embrace of themes that did not previously figure in their agendas, I argue that the concept of populism—at least on its own—­fails to address the core ideological matrix that leads ­these right-­wing parties to foreground gender equality within xenophobic campaigns. As a modality of po­liti­cal mobilization centered upon the binary “Us” versus “Them,” pop­u­lism can account for right-­wing forces targeting Muslim and non-­western ­Others as enemies of western socie­ties. However, it cannot explain the paradox according to which ­these parties do not frame Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women as enemies in the same way, or even how they offer to rescue t­ hese ­women. I thus contend that if we want to decipher this seeming paradox, we need to draw on theories of nationalism, particularly in the ways they are articulated within postcolonial feminism and critical race studies. This book also interrogates the arguments put forward by several prominent and influential feminist intellectuals and politicians (including of Muslim background), ­women’s organ­izations, as well as femocrats from left to right in their anti-­Islam campaigns. I show that despite the many po­liti­cal, theoretical, and biographical differences among t­hese feminist actors, the common denominator of their anti-­Islam stance is a fundamental agreement that gender relations in the West are more advanced and must be taught to Muslim ­women who are other­wise taken to be agentless Introduction 

7

objects at the mercy of their patriarchal cultures. It is this fundamental agreement, I argue, that brings feminists and femocrats of dif­fer­ent po­liti­ cal stripes to position gender equality and Islamic practices as opposed. This western supremacist-­inflected lens has also informed the civic integration policies that are nationalist as well as neoliberal through and through. By analyzing ­these policies, I show how they have become a key site where the convergence between the anti-­Islam positions of feminists and nationalists with neoliberalism occurs. ­These policies, as I explain below, are informed by the neoliberal logic of workfare and individual responsibility and have blended together with the right-­wing ideology of homogeneity and superiority of the (western) nation as well as with the “westocentric” feminist notion of emancipation through work. The notion of convergence also helps us answer the second question raised above: namely, what interests do right-­wing nationalists, neoliberals, and feminists/femocrats have in endorsing a type of politics that is (or appears to be) at odds with at least part of their own po­liti­cal agendas? In asking this question, I draw on Derrick Bell’s “interest-­convergence theory.”12 This theory posits that the dominant racial group w ­ ill support the subaltern racial group’s fight for equal rights only if the former believes it has something to gain in the pro­cess. Transposing Bell’s argument to the understanding of the convergence among nationalists, neoliberals, and feminists/femocrats on issues of gender in­equality and Islam in the three countries upon which I focus, In the Name of ­Women’s Rights explores the strategic calculations, gains and losses, and benefits and costs for nationalists and feminists, in par­tic­u­lar when endorsing a politics they had not previously supported. On the one hand, I maintain that by encouraging a rhe­toric of division, or a Manichean splitting of the po­liti­cal and ideological debate into one counterposing “Us” (white, Eu­ro­pean, western, Christian, civilized, “women-­ friendly”) to “Them” (nonwhite, non-­European, non-­western, Muslim, uncivilized, misogynist O ­ thers), right-­wing nationalist parties have every­thing to gain. In a historical conjuncture in which the theme of gender equality, like that of h ­ uman rights, has become the common currency in the name of which new racist and imperialist configurations of power become hegemonic, a vague, mainstream idea of gender equality can quite easily be used opportunistically by ­these parties to contribute to the consolidation of the nationalist proj­ect. Indeed, t­ hese parties’ invocation of the lack of gender 8 Introduction

equality within immigrant and particularly Muslim communities has been instrumental to generate and reinforce racist sentiments among western Eu­ro­pe­ans.13 On the other hand, I argue that by converging with anti-­Islam and racist voices in the name of w ­ omen’s rights, feminists and femocrats effectively lose. That is, by suggesting that gender in­equality is an issue affecting mostly non-­western ­women, the anti-­Islam feminists and femocrats have contributed to diverting attention away from the many forms of in­equality that still affect western Eu­ro­pean w ­ omen. Neoliberal governments have seized on the opportunity opened up by the identification of ­women’s rights as a “migrant/Muslim woman-­only issue” to decrease funds for more universal programs aimed at tackling gender injustice more generally.14 Instead of helping it to gain more visibility, the widespread resort to the theme of w ­ omen’s rights as a “civilizational” ­battle demotes it from the rubric of general societal prob­lems and dislocates it as a “non-­western ­women prob­lem” only—or as a prob­lem that affects western Eu­ro­pean ­women as potential victims of Muslim and non-­western/nonwhite men. It is ­here that my notion of convergence departs from that of Bell. While his interest-­convergence theory helps us to analyze the tactical intentions (and manipulations) ­behind nonemancipatory po­liti­cal movements’ sudden endorsement of emancipatory proj­ects, Bell’s theory cannot account for the reasons emancipatory movements or oppressed subjects might converge with conservative parties. It also cannot explain why ­emancipatory movements fail to question the sudden endorsement by conservatives of previously denied or contested rights. In other words, the interest-­convergence theory, as framed by Bell, cannot explain the “self-­defeating” invocation by some feminists and w ­ omen’s equality agencies of anti-­Islam arguments in the name of w ­ omen’s rights. Even though some of the feminists and femocrats endorsing t­ hese arguments might think that their stance brings gender equality back more prominently onto the public agenda, in this book I explicate how and why the opposite is actually the case. The convergence producing femonationalism thus can be seen as the result of (and as producing) a fundamental tension and contradiction: that between the nonemancipatory forces of Islamophobia and racism on one side, and the emancipatory strug­gle against sexism and patriarchy, on the other. This book maintains that it is precisely this tension that makes femonationalism si­mul­ta­neously so strong and widespread, but also (at least potentially) so fragile. The strength of femonationalism lies above all in Introduction 

9

the fact that the foregrounding of Muslim (and, to a lesser extent, non-­ western mi­grant) men and w ­ omen as respectively “oppressors” and “victims” is accomplished thanks to the participation of a range of prominent feminists and femocrats as well as some female politicians/public figures of Muslim background. In the Name of ­Women’s Rights thus details how their participation in the anti-­Islam discourse reinforces the stigmatizing operations of the nationalists and mainstream media b ­ ecause it allows them to invoke ­these feminists and femocrats as “privileged insiders” who have firsthand experience of gender in­equality. Si­mul­ta­neously, this book suggests that this tension also makes femonationalism a fragile convergence that may be weakened when its contradictory components are critically confronted. My notion of convergence thus acknowledges and emphasizes the constitutive frictions and differences, gains and losses, that inhabit the femonationalist camp. It stresses that the relationships among dif­fer­ent social and po­liti­cal actors and agendas constituting the ideological space of femonationalism are multiple, ambiguous, and potentially beyond the actors’ own intentions. As I intend to show, a deeper understanding of t­hese contradictions can help us to advance a radical critique of the negative effects of this convergence on gender justice in general. Femonationalism as Ideological Formation

Dif­fer­ent names have been given to the po­liti­cal constellations emerging out of the intersection among nationalist, neoliberal, and feminist or lgbt politics in a range of countries. Yet w ­ hether in terms of a Zeitgeist, a discursive tactic, or a po­liti­cal proj­ect, scholars have mostly pointed to the political-­ conjunctural dimensions of this phenomenon.15 More specifically, they have foregrounded the con­temporary temporal juncture in which ­these encounters take place, yet they have paid insufficient attention to their histories. For this reason, I argue that the convergence among nationalist right-­wing parties, neoliberal policies, and feminists/femocrats in the three countries I examine is better captured in terms of an ideological formation. ­There are three impor­tant theoretical reasons for qualifying femonationalism as an ideological formation. First, the notion of ideological formation allows us to examine the philosophy underpinning femonationalism—­a philosophy that I previously 10 Introduction

identified as a common conviction regarding the supremacy of the West over the Rest. But it also enables us to identify what is new and what is déjà vu within this formation, or what I would term its “modularity.” By invoking the concept of modularity to account for femonationalism’s seeming ubiquity, I bring into play one dimension of Benedict Anderson’s theory of nationalism. As I discuss at length in chapter 3, this concept refers to the double character of the nation-­form (i.e., both universal and par­tic­u­ lar) and to its capacity to be transplanted across space and time. As Manu Goswami argues in her discussion of Anderson’s concept of modularity, “nationalist claims of particularity and the ­imagined singularity of national formations only become intelligible against and within a global grid of formally similar nations and nation-­states.”16 Accordingly, the notion of the modularity of femonationalism foregrounds how the current positioning of Muslim men and w ­ omen—­with the latter playing the role of the passive victims of non-­western male vio­lence who require protection—­can be regarded as a con­temporary face of a well-­known western topos, namely, that of the “white men [claiming to be] saving brown w ­ omen from brown men,” to use Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s apposite formulation.17 T ­ oday, Muslim ­women personify the homogenizing figure of the non-­western ­woman as the victim par excellence of non-­western male vio­lence in the western Eu­ro­pean imagery. I thus show that while current media and po­ liti­cal discourses focus on male Muslims as oppressors, in western Eu­rope the male immigrant threat in the 1990s came from the East. The bad immigrant was then mostly embodied by eastern Eu­ro­pean men, usually portrayed as involved in criminal activities and sex trafficking, while ­women from ­these countries ­were often depicted as victims of a backward culture and/or of the sex industry. Moreover, as postcolonial critics have compellingly shown, in colonial times in the Netherlands, France, and Italy (among ­others), the insistence upon unequal gender relations and the idea that colonized ­women ­were victims of patriarchal vio­lence—­which ­were understood as markers of indigenous populations’ “culture”—­was instrumental in strengthening the technologies of domination over colonial subjects.18 This book thus charts the historical recurrences and ideological premises underpinning the con­temporary mobilization of gender equality as a tool to depict male ­Others as sexual threats and female ­Others as sexual victims and as the property of western “saviors.” It is this rearticulation of all ­these Introduction 

11

ideas, fragments, and traces from the recent past in the changed context of neoliberalism and rising Islamophobia that defines the modularity of femonationalism. Second, femonationalism operates “through discursive regularities” that, as Stuart Hall put it, are at the core of ideological formations. For Hall, ideological formations are t­hose that “ ‘formulate’ their own objects of knowledge and their own subjects; they have their own repertoire of concepts, are driven by their own logics, operate their own enunciative modality, constitute their own way of acknowledging what is true and excluding what is false within their own regime of truth. They establish through their regularities a ‘space of formation’ in which certain statements can be enunciated.”19 The notion of ideological formation thus allows us to conceptualize more precisely the discursive plane that constitutes and consolidates femonationalism. The con­temporary mobilization of feminism to promote anti-­immigration and Islamophobia within an increasingly nationalist framework would not be thinkable without the deployment of a massive discursive media apparatus. One has only to think of the enormous media display to which the West has been subjected, particularly since 9/11: the bombing of Af­ghan­i­stan presented as necessary to liberate Muslim ­women from the burqa; draconian immigration laws in the Netherlands passed to purportedly avoid the “import” of brides from Morocco or Turkey; or, more recently, the portrayal of Syrian male refugees as responsible en masse for the sexual aggressions against and robberies of w ­ omen during the New Year’s Eve festivities in Germany. This apparatus, then, has produced the unquestionable and conclusive association between gender vio­lence and Islam. Femonationalism, in other words, has been constituted and nourished through the production and practice of meanings that have come to saturate the western cultural imaginary: namely, through the condensation of such meanings, symbols, images, and discursive regularities into the senso comune (literally, “common sense”), to use Gramsci’s apt concept.20 Fi­nally, I conceptualize femonationalism as an ideological formation ­because I claim that the mobilization of gender equality by nationalist parties, neoliberals, and feminists/femocrats in ways that intensify xenophobia also stems from very concrete economic interests. In his seminal text, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, Louis Althusser invited us to think of the materiality of ideologies in terms of the ways in which they serve the reproduction of the material conditions of production. That is, 12 Introduction

for Althusser, ideological state apparatuses (i.e., the ­family, the media, the school, religion, ­etc.) play the role of guarantors in the reproduction of the conditions that re-­create exploited ­labor power on a daily basis, both materially and psychologically. Althusser saw t­ hese apparatuses as functioning in a way that ensured the maintenance of the conditions for the subjection of the subaltern classes to (and their internationalization of ) the “dominant ideology.”21 In its Althusserian articulation, the notion of ideological formation thus urges us to explore femonationalism’s concrete materiality. The notion of ideological formation, then, suggests that we must examine the forms in which the convergence between a number of heterogeneous po­liti­cal subjects on the notion that sexism is the exclusive domain of the non-­western Other conceal the need to maintain and reproduce specific political-­economic arrangements. Ultimately, as I ­will explain in the next section, the notion of femonationalism as an ideological formation allows us to demonstrate how the xenophobic mobilization of gender equality reinforces the material chain of production and social reproduction. Femonationalism as Neoliberal Po­liti­cal Economy

The few studies that have attempted to take into account the political-­ economic dimensions of the turn to gender and gay quality by conservative, neoliberal, or racist politics have referred mainly to neoliberalism as a type of background force. For example, Sirma Bilge maintains that the possibility for gender and sexuality to become the “operation field of racist and imperialist nationalisms” is mainly due to their “fittingness” with the neoliberal mode of hiding structural inequalities b ­ ehind cultural con22 flicts. Similarly, Paul Mepschen and Jan Duyvendack have stressed how neoliberalism has facilitated the encounter between lgbt and nationalist politics not only by promoting the rise of a gay consumerist culture but also by reaffirming the authority of the nation-­state over the production of identities, while allowing for the (de)regulation of the economy.23 They thus maintain that sexual nationalisms are consistent with neoliberal strategies of market segmentation and the promotion of chauvinist politics. ­These previous studies, however, treat neoliberalism as the economic theater of operation for the encounter between a dif­fer­ent array of forces, but not as one of the main characters onstage. While agreeing that ­neoliberalism is central for understanding ­t hese phenomena, this book argues that Introduction 

13

neoliberalism is not simply the contextual ground on which the femonationalist convergence takes place, but it is itself constitutive of such a convergence. The mobilization of ­women’s rights within xenophobic campaigns, which has become prominent ­under neoliberalism, does not merely divert attention away from growing economic inequalities by means of “culturalist” modes of displacement. Nor has such mobilization operated solely through making equal rights campaigns functional to consumerist cultures. Rather, I understand neoliberalism to be a political-­economic formation that “institutionalizes” the femonationalist ideology as part of the functioning of the state apparatuses in order to (re)or­ga­nize the productive and particularly the socially reproductive sphere. In the Name of W ­ omen’s Rights details the neoliberal institutionalization of femonationalism by analyzing the economic components of the civic integration programs for third-­country nationals. As I mentioned above, ­these programs require mi­grants to learn what are claimed to be the main cultural tenets of the receiving Eu­ro­pean states in order to be granted residency. ­Here gender equality is presented as a pillar of the western Eu­ro­ pean nation, and the declaration of re­spect for ­women’s rights has been turned into a condition for settlement. By reconstructing the history of the implementation of ­these programs, and the po­liti­cal profile of their designers and supporters as well as their gendered dimensions, I show how they have incorporated the repre­sen­ta­tion of Muslim w ­ omen and men—as, respectively, victims and oppressors—­into the disciplinary apparatus of the state’s policies on immigration. I thus demonstrate how ­these policies are a specific and very concrete site in which we see a slippage between anti-­ Islam ste­reo­types and pro­cesses of Othering that involve and affect not only Muslim w ­ omen but also non-­western mi­grant ­women more generally. Furthermore, I detail how civic integration policies do not operate merely at the “disciplinary” level of the state, framing Muslim and non-­western mi­grant males as misogynist subjectivities in need of re-­education. Instead I demonstrate how ­these policies also crucially operate at the economic level. Premised upon the idea that Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women are backward individuals who are mostly confined to the home, from 2007 onward civic integration policies in the Netherlands, France, and Italy have encouraged t­hese ­women to integrate eco­nom­ically by seeking

14 Introduction

employment outside the ­house­hold.24 As I discuss in chapter 4, economic integration for non-­western mi­grant ­women in par­tic­u­lar (Muslim and non-­Muslim alike) has effectively functioned through the application of neoliberal workfare devices. W ­ omen’s organ­izations and gender equality state agencies have supported and been actively involved in implementing ­these initiatives, which address the difficulties of the female mi­grant population in the ­labor market of the country of destination. An in-­depth analy­sis of ­these initiatives, however, underscores that non-­ western mi­grant w ­ omen participating in civic integration programs have been systematically directed ­toward a handful of job types: ­hotel cleaning, h ­ ouse­keeping, child minding, and caregiving for the el­derly and/or the disabled. In spite of the g­ reat emphasis placed on the need for t­hese ­women to emancipate themselves by entering the productive public sphere by the vari­ous feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and the femocrats that I discuss in this book, in real­ity non-­western mi­grant ­women have been confined to care and domestic work in the private sphere. ­There is thus a contradiction when feminists and femocrats urge emancipation for Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women while channeling them t­oward the very sphere (domestic, low-­paying, and precarious jobs) from which the feminist movement had historically tried to liberate w ­ omen. This is not merely a rhetorical contradiction but is concretely performed in action. In order to understand the under­pinnings of this “performative contradiction,” I reconstruct a critical genealogy of the notion of economic in­de­ pen­dence as it emerged in dif­fer­ent waves of the feminist movement, and the related concepts of productive work as opposed to social reproduction. This critical genealogy suggests that it is precisely the tension between ­these two realms (i.e., production and social reproduction) and the devaluation of social reproduction by many western Eu­ro­pean feminists that have unwittingly contributed to the reconfiguration of social reproduction as a sector dominated by a very marginalized and vulnerable section of the workforce, namely, Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women. In the Name of ­Women’s Rights also documents the active role of right-­ wing governments and of some nationalist right-­wing parties in the early 2010s in directing t­ hese ­women into the care and domestic, or social reproductive, sector. I highlight the role of the 2007–2011 global financial crisis as the crucial backdrop against which the nationalist and neoliberal

Introduction 

15

r­he­toric of non-­western mi­grant men and ­women (Muslim and non-­ Muslim) as oppressors and victims needs to be understood. By documenting how pro­cesses of “commodification of care” during the crisis have impacted the expansion of the ­labor market of female mi­grant caregivers, this book examines the complex ways in which Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women have become the main providers of social reproduction in a context of growing demand for care. In addition, through a detailed analy­sis of data on non-­western mi­grants’ economic per­for­mance in terms of employment trends and sectors between 2007 and 2013, I demonstrate that Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women ­were not only spared during the crisis, but their employment and activity rates actually grew during ­these years. Unlike non-­western mi­grant men, who most often find work in economic sectors in which relocation and closure of productive sites can easily be used as “crisis-­management” devices to reduce the number of laborers, non-­western mi­grant ­women are in fact mostly employed in the care and domestic economy. This is the sector to which capital’s classic crisis-­management operations do not apply: social reproduction, quite simply, cannot be relocated or shut down during times of economic crises. Care work must continue even during periods of recession to guarantee the daily functioning of our socie­ties. Indeed, in the pres­ent context of western Eu­ro­pean ­women’s growing rates of employment, it is increasingly Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women who are providing care for ­children, the disabled, and the el­derly. This is occurring precisely at a historical moment in which western Eu­rope both is privatizing welfare ser­vices and is confronted with an ever-­larger aging population. I argue that the emphasis on non-­western mi­grant ­women overall as individuals to be helped in their integration and emancipation pro­cess, including through job offers, is pos­si­ble ­because they, unlike male mi­grant workers, currently occupy a strategic role in the social reproductive sector of childcare, el­derly care, and cleaning. Rather than “job stealers,” “cultural and social threats,” and “welfare system parasites”—­all designations regularly used for Muslim and non-­western mi­grant men—­Muslim and non-­ western mi­grant ­women seem to be t­hose who allow western Eu­ro­pean men and particularly w ­ omen to work in the public sphere by providing that care that neoliberal restructuring has commodified. In the Name of ­Women’s Rights thus suggests that the double standard applied to Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women in the public imagi16 Introduction

nary as individuals in need of special attention, and even “rescue,” operates as an ideological tool that is strictly connected to their key role in the reproduction of the material conditions of social reproduction. Femonationalism should be understood as part and parcel of the specifically neoliberal reor­ga­ni­za­tion of welfare, ­labor, and state immigration policies that have occurred in the context of the global financial crisis and, more generally, the western Eu­ro­pean crisis of social reproduction. The very possibility that nationalists and neoliberals can exploit emancipatory ideals of gender equality, as well as the convergence of feminists/femocrats with anti-­emancipatory, xenophobic politics, springs in large part from the specifically neoliberal reconfiguration of the western Eu­ro­pean economy in the past thirty years. A Note on Methodology

This book focuses on the Netherlands, France, and Italy as significant cases for the study of femonationalism. Since the early 2000s t­ hese three national contexts have gained international prominence as leading Eu­ ro­pean laboratories for the convergence among the nationalist right, neoliberal policies, and anti-­Islam feminists and femocrats. Despite the obvious distinctions between the Dutch, French, and Italian contexts— in terms of immigration histories, cultures of integration, nationalities, and types of migration, as well as differences in the respective traditions of nationalist and feminist movements, and application of neoliberal agendas—­they have nonetheless exhibited a striking resemblance and synchrony in the development of femonationalism. My objective is not to provide a discrete assessment of each country, or even a comparative typology. Rather, this book attempts to highlight the parallels among ­these national contexts and po­liti­cal actors and to disclose the transnational character of femonationalism within the local. Albeit specific to t­hese national settings, the theorization I offer provides a conceptual framework that may be useful for analyzing similar phenomena in dif­fer­ent national settings across western Eu­rope in par­tic­u­lar and in the West more generally.25 With this aim, I analyze the three most prominent right-­wing nationalist parties in each of the three countries (i.e., the pvv in the Netherlands, the fn in France, and the ln in Italy). While they do not represent the Introduction 

17

­ hole nationalist constellation in each context, they have played a crucial w role in each country’s po­liti­cal life since the mid-2000s. More impor­tant, ­these three parties have largely determined the right-­wing nationalist turn that has characterized Dutch, French, and Italian politics in the second de­cade of the millennium. Their emphasis on Muslims and non-­western mi­grants’ alleged negation of the nation’s au­then­tic roots, culture, history, and values, as well as their mobilization of ­women’s rights against non-­ western ­Others, have been widely covered by the mainstream media and invoked in public debate. Second, I analyze the claims made by feminists who have come to public prominence from the early 2000s onward due to their resolute embrace of anti-­Islam arguments. My exploration focuses on the most influential and vocal group of actors in each country: prominent feminist intellectuals; feminist politicians from left to right, including some of North African or Muslim background; ­women’s organ­izations; and key figures in state gender equality agencies, or femocrats. Fi­nally, this book analyzes the deployment of gender equality themes in anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns by examining the neoliberal philosophy underpinning the new civic integration programs promoted by the Eu­ro­pean Commission from the early 2000s onward. I detail the ways in which the neoliberal agenda of workfare prioritizes “skilled migration” and frames mi­grants’ integration as a ­matter of both individual responsibility and economic contribution, while showing how ­these agendas intersect with the stigmatization of non-­western (unskilled) mi­grant males in the name of ­women’s rights. My analy­sis of the rise of femonationalism employs diverse methods, including interviews with key respondents, participant observation, analy­sis of statistical data, and critical discourse analy­sis (cda). In par­tic­ul­ ar I have examined party programs, po­liti­cal speeches and interviews, visual materials (videos, posters, documentaries), official eu and national documents, immigration and integration laws and policies, as well as data on ­labor and migration from the ­Labor Force Survey, Organisation for Economic Co-­ operation and Development, and the International ­Labor Organ­ization. The analyses and arguments I pres­ent are also informed by many years of scholarly work on gendered migration, multiculturalism, and the gendered division of mi­grant l­abor in all three contexts.

18 Introduction

Chapter Overview

Chapter 1, “Figures of Femonationalism,” reconstructs a critical genealogy of the mobilization of w ­ omen’s rights in the Netherlands, France, and Italy from 2000 to 2013. It provides a detailed account of the ways in which three right-­wing nationalist parties have increasingly resorted to a rhe­toric of gender equality in order to advance their anti-­Islam/anti-­immigration po­liti­cal agendas. This chapter also traces the participation of several prominent feminist intellectuals and politicians, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats in the campaign against Islamic patriarchy and Muslim ­women’s “special exposure” to misogyny and gender vio­lence. The claim in this chapter is that the constitution of a common space in which seemingly oppositional forces such as feminism and right-­wing nationalism can voice concerns about gender vio­lence as the exclusive domain of the Muslim Other stems from a shared belief in the supremacy of western values. Chapter 2, “Femonationalism Is No Pop­u­lism,” begins with a discussion of how, in the past de­cade, sociologists and po­liti­cal scientists have understood right-­wing parties’ exploitation of gender equality as a form of pop­ u­lism. Challenging this approach, it argues that the concept of pop­u­lism fails to make sense of the centrality t­ hese parties assign to gender equality. Instead, I contend that if we want to grasp the reasons for the sudden and instrumental mobilization of feminist issues by ­these right-­wing parties, we need to draw on the theories of nationalism developed in the context of postcolonial feminism and critical race studies. To do this, I explore the emergence of femonationalism within the historical context of decolonization of non-­western countries and recolonization of non-­western subjects in Eu­rope and the West. I thus link ­these discussions to notions of “racialization of sexism” and “sexualization of racism.” Chapter  3, “Integration Policies and the Institutionalization of Femonationalism,” discusses the recent legislation on civic integration, implemented in the Netherlands, France, and Italy between 2006 and 2013 by neoliberal governments with the support of nationalist parties. Focusing on civic integration programs, I show how gender equality and ­women’s rights are among the most impor­tant values that mi­grants are expected to internalize and re­spect. While influential interpretations of civic integration policies have claimed that the theme of gender equality conveyed

Introduction 

19

by ­these policies demonstrates the liberal, as opposed to nationalist (and racist), character of ­these programs, I demonstrate that the opposite is actually the case. I show that civic integration policies are arguably the most concrete and insidious form of the institutionalization of femonationalism as an ideological formation. Chapter  4, “Femonationalism, Neoliberalism, and Social Reproduction,” focuses on one largely overlooked point of convergence between anti-­Islam feminist, nationalist, and neoliberal politics: namely, the policies pertaining to non-­western mi­grant ­women’s “economic” integration. I begin by showing that the demand that ­these w ­ omen participate in work is largely framed within a context of workfare. Second, I demonstrate that the implementation of t­hese policies, including by some prominent feminist politicians, ­women’s organ­izations, and state gender equality agencies, has functioned through actively directing non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen (Muslim and non-­Muslim alike) ­toward the care and domestic sectors (social reproduction), which has traditionally been conceived as “feminine.” The contradiction emerges when we recall that it is precisely against this gendered division of l­ abor—­men in the public sphere, w ­ omen in the private—­ that the feminist movement has historically strug­gled. To understand the conditions of possibility for, and the trajectory of such a contradiction, I propose that we reconstruct the complex feminist genealogy of economic in­de­pen­dence, and the related concepts of productive work, which has historically been placed in opposition to social reproduction. This critical reconstruction enables us to better grasp how some feminists and femocrats have converged with the ideology of femonationalism. Chapter 5, “The Po­liti­cal Economy of Femonationalism,” emphasizes that the double standard applied t­ oday to non-­western mi­grant populations—­ according to which men are the “dangerous Other” while w ­ omen are the “victims to be rescued”—­follows a political-­economic logic. I argue that we need to rethink and challenge the prevalent assumption that immigrants and w ­ omen constitute a “reserve army of ­labor.” Analyzing the strategic role of non-­western mi­grant ­women (Muslim and non-­Muslim alike) in the social reproductive sector of care and domestic work, in the context of the state’s retreat from public care provisions, aging populations, and growing participation of western Eu­ro­pean ­women in the l­abor market, I show that the cheap l­abor of mi­grant ­women has become essential for the reproduction of western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties and economies. Even during 20 Introduction

the recent economic crisis, the rate of employment of mi­grant ­women in the care and domestic sector grew, unlike (male) mi­grant employment in other sectors. This testifies to a fundamental difference between male and female mi­grant ­labor in con­temporary western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties: unlike their male counter­parts, immigrant w ­ omen now belong to what can be called a “regular army of l­abor.” This category enables us to lay bare the economic rationale ­behind the repre­sen­ta­tion of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women as “redeemable subjects.” Ultimately the analyses provided in t­hese pages underscore how the mobilization of w ­ omen’s rights within xenophobic campaigns has not been limited to po­liti­cal rhe­toric. A detailed analy­sis of the political-­economic foundations of ­these developments is essential not only to strengthen our critique but especially to help us find alternative po­liti­cal practices to confront their devastating consequences.

Introduction 

21

CHAPTER 1

Figures of Femonationalism

In this chapter I begin to lay out a critical genealogy of the mobilization of ­women’s rights in anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns in the Netherlands, France, and Italy from the early 2000s u ­ ntil 2013. In par­tic­u­ lar, the next sections ­will provide a detailed account of the ways in which three right-­wing nationalist parties—­the pvv in the Netherlands, the fn in France, and the ln in Italy—­have increasingly resorted to a gender equality lexicon to advance their xenophobic po­liti­cal agendas.1 This chapter also traces the participation of several feminist intellectuals and w ­ omen’s organ­izations, female politicians (including some of Muslim descent), and ­women’s equality agencies (or femocrats) in the campaign against Islam’s “patriarchy” and Muslim ­women’s alleged special exposure to misogyny and gender vio­lence.2 However, before I begin to describe the contours of ­these femonationalist figures, in what follows I ­will provide a brief historical framing of the ways in which the ste­reo­types of the non-­western mi­grant man as misogynist and of the non-­western mi­grant ­woman as victim to be rescued have gained currency in the western Eu­ro­pean imagery. It is impor­tant to highlight that the current stigmatization of Muslim men as enemies of gender equality and the foregrounding of Muslim ­women as oppressed victims both build on gendered prejudices that had been applied to non-­western, colonized subjects more generally in all three countries. As I mentioned in the introduction, the current positioning of Muslim men and w ­ omen, with the latter playing the role of the passive object of non-­western male congenital vio­lence who require protection, can in fact be regarded as a con­temporary face of a well-­known western topos, namely, that of the “white men [claiming to be] saving brown ­women from brown men,” to use Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s apposite formulation.3 I thus contend that, in the pres­ent context, Muslim ­women play the role of a synecdoche for the western Eu­ro­pean ste­reo­type of the female Other.

That is, Muslim w ­ omen currently personify in the western Eu­ro­pean imagery the homogenizing figure of the non-­western w ­ oman as the victim par excellence of non-­western male vio­lence. In this sense, the Muslim ­woman nowadays powerfully embodies the features of what Chandra Mohanty already in the 1980s famously called the Third World ­woman: that is, the repre­sen­ta­tion of w ­ omen from non-­western socie­ties as constituting a homogeneous “powerless” group defined by their status of victimhood.4 Muslim ­Women as Synecdoche

The mobilization of issues of gender equality to stigmatize non-­western mi­grant men in general has indeed a specific history and trajectory in the western Eu­ro­pean context. ­After World War II, when western Eu­rope began to recover from the devastations brought about by the horrific conflict, millions of mi­grants, mostly male, migrated to and through the continent to fill the demand for ­labor power in the reconstruction industry.5 A ­whole business grew up around ­these new mi­grants, with bilateral agreements signed between states and offices across northern Eu­ro­pean countries that ­were specifically designed to attract young males to be employed in manufacture and construction. ­Whether coming from the ex-­European colonies (or from countries that w ­ ere still u ­ nder colonial rule), or from the Mediterranean region (e.g., southern Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Yugo­ slavia, Turkey, and part of the Maghreb), ­these male mi­grants soon became the victims of widespread xenophobia and racism.6 Despite their crucial role in the reconstruction of western Eu­ro­pean economies, they ­were portrayed by the mainstream media and right-­wing parties, and perceived ­by many (northern) Eu­ro­pe­ans, in negative terms: lazy, uncivilized, aggressive, backward, unambitious, and so forth.7 It was only from the mid-1970s onward—­that is, ­after the 1973 oil crisis and the policies stopping further immigration flows to the majority of northern Eu­ro­pean countries—­that mi­grant ­women entered onto the stage of migration on an unpre­ce­dented scale (on which more in chapter 5). Fearing that they would not be able to come back to the “hosting” countries once they left, a number of t­ hese male mi­grants deci­ded to ­settle in northern Eu­rope and bring in their ­family members: spouses, ­mothers, or ­daughters. From the 1970s onward the geography of migrations also changed, whereby countries of emigration became countries of immigration—as in the case of southern Europe—­and Figures of Femonationalism 

23

­ ere admitted to the western Eu­ro­pean ­family. The presence of mi­grant w ­women from the ex-­colonies and the Global South in western Eu­rope thus, at least in its initial stage, was largely the unexpected and paradoxical outcome of policies that aimed to reduce, rather than to increase, the number of mi­grants pres­ent in the continent.8 And it was not long before ­these ­women too became the object of po­liti­cal scrutiny and stereotyping. Typical orientalist gendered dichotomies began to be applied to them: if mi­ grant males w ­ ere usually depicted as brutes and uncivilized, w ­ omen ­were portrayed as passive and submissive. In the Netherlands, Conny Roggeband and Mieke Verloo remind us that it was only at the beginning of the 2000s that Muslim w ­ omen started to attract increasing po­liti­cal and media attention and to be used as the chief example of the non-­western ­woman as victim of gendered oppression.9 Before then, ­women from minority groups in general ­were referred to as “allochthonous” and discussed in denigratory terms as retrograde—­without distinctions of nationality or religion—­when compared to the “autochthonous” Dutch ­women.10 ­Until the late 1990s, therefore, w ­ omen from former Dutch colonies (Surinam, the Antilles, and Indonesia), from eastern Eu­rope as well as from Turkey and Morocco (the biggest mi­grant communities in the country), w ­ ere all represented as backward and victims.11 For instance, discussing the status of Rus­sians in the Netherlands, Gudrun Willett points out that “the Dutch in par­tic­u­lar use [sex] trafficking and mafia images in order to define them [the Rus­sians] as ‘other’ in m ­ atters of migration, work, and crime.”12 Rus­sian ­women, and eastern Eu­ro­pean ­women in general, have thus usually been thought of as being “trafficking victims.” From the end of the 1990s onward, however, the hierarchy of backwardness became more layered, with Turkish and Moroccan ­women gradually being placed at the bottom of the emancipation scale, with Surinamese and Antillean w ­ omen being presented as less 13 backward in comparison. The relegation of Muslim ­women to the lower echelons of the emancipation league ­table became more pronounced in the early 2000s u ­ nder the center-­right Balkenende I (2002) and Balkenende II (2003–2006) cabinets. In 2002 the appearance on the po­liti­cal scene of the party named Pim Fortuyn List (on which more below), and its subsequent electoral success involving fierce anti-­immigration and anti-­Islam propaganda in the name of w ­ omen’s rights, redesigned the Dutch po­liti­cal landscape as well as the ways in which non-­western mi­grant ­women, above all Muslim w ­ omen, would be framed in subsequent years.14 As Minister 24 Chapter

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for Integration and Immigration in the Balkenende cabinets, the right-­ wing nationalist Rita Verdonk has been another key figure in the public con­temporary construction of Muslim ­women as the principal victims of backward and misogynist cultures. Verdonk’s interventions strongly contributed to spreading the idea that Islam amounts to unequal gender relations and vio­lence (with an emphasis on honor killings, domestic vio­ lence, and forced marriages).15 Thus, it was particularly in the 2000s that “emancipation policies bec[a]me ‘ethnicized’ ” and addressed above all to Muslim ­women.16 Unlike in the Netherlands, in France Muslim w ­ omen have played the role of the synecdoche for the western Eu­ro­pean ste­reo­type of the female Other from the outset, that is, from the beginning of mass immigration to the country in the 1950s and 1960s. Despite the fact that in the early 1980s—­ that is, when the presence of w ­ omen in migratory movements tripled due to ­family reunification—­mi­grants from Portugal ­were as numerous as ­those from Algeria, research and po­liti­cal discourses tended to focus on mi­grants from the latter country.17 Masima Moujoud notes how, from the very outset in the 1970s, so­cio­log­i­cal studies on gender and migration in France focused on the “effects” of migration on w ­ omen, particularly w ­ omen from the Maghreb.18 The common denominator among ­these studies was the assumption that migration was positive for ­these ­women since the transition from “traditional” to “modern” contexts would have an emancipatory impact on them.19 The evolutionary paradigm that informed studies on gender and migration also ­shaped the widespread conviction that rejecting the values of the society of origin was essential for w ­ omen’s integration into France.20 Capucine Larzillière and Lisbeth Sal, for instance, remind us that already in 1983—­long before the explosion of the controversy over the wearing of the Muslim head­scarf in public schools, culminating in their banning in 2004—­the journal Les cahiers du féminisme echoed this idea by referring to the example of a young ­woman born in France to Moroccan parents.21 The journal portrays the young ­woman as struggling in order to continue her studies as an “escape” from the type of “traditional” life that her f­amily had planned for her. “School thus is established as a place of liberation in which she does not experience ­either discrimination or racism.”22 Furthermore, ­there is a long history in France of applying a double standard in the repre­sen­ta­tion of Muslim men and ­women. Whereas the former are represented as violent and sexist, an image encapsulated in Figures of Femonationalism 

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the concept of the Arab boy (garçon arabe), Muslim young veiled w ­ omen ( filles voiles) stand for the submissive victims of traditional families and patriarchal cultures; ­those who do not conform to this model, instead, are called beurettes emancipées (emancipated girls of Maghreb origin) and regarded as the model that Muslim girls should follow.23 In this sense, then, in France ­there is a fundamental continuity between past and pres­ent, where Muslim ­women have consistently been identified as the quin­tes­sen­tial embodiment of the non-­western ­woman as backward and traditional. This notwithstanding, we should note that w ­ omen from postsocialist countries in France too have been consistently identified as victims, as in the case of discussions on sex trafficking. In 2009 for instance, Le Nouvelle Observateur devoted its November issue to the “explosion of sex traffic” with several articles focusing upon w ­ omen from eastern Eu­rope as the most numerous group in the sex industry ( filière).24 Fi­nally, non-­western mi­grant ­women in Italy started to become vis­i­ble— particularly in academic work—at the beginning of the 1980s. Unlike in the Netherlands and France, which have a longer history of being immigrants’ final destinations, and in which initially men had predominantly been the bridgeheads of the migratory chain, in Italy single w ­ omen constituted a significant number of mi­grants from the outset. Th ­ ese w ­ omen mostly came from countries with majoritarian Catholic populations (such as the Philippines, El Salvador, and Cape Verde) and tended to be employed as domestic workers (colf ) and/or carers (badanti; sing. badante) in private ­house­holds. During the 1970s and 1980s, scholarly work that focused on mi­grant ­women was dominated by the “tradition-­modernity” dichotomy.25 At the time, non-­western mi­grant ­women, no ­matter what their country of origin, w ­ ere systematically considered backward when compared to Italian ­women, and immigration was cast in t­ hese scholarly texts as an opportunity for them to enter a modern country and to acquire a more emancipated model of womanhood. From the beginning of the 1990s up ­until the pres­ent, however, the composition of mi­grants moving to Italy began to change dramatically. Entry restrictions put in place in other western Eu­ro­ pean countries, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the geo­graph­i­cal location of the peninsula, which makes it easily reachable from dif­fer­ent areas particularly for temporary migration, w ­ ere all ­factors that made Italy increasingly attractive for immigrants from eastern Eu­rope as well as from African and Asian countries. Repre­sen­ta­tions of, and policies targeting, non-­western 26 Chapter

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mi­grant ­women in the 1990s tended to concentrate on eastern Eu­ro­pean and Nigerian ­women, as victims of trafficking in the sex industry. In 1998, for instance, with the approval of the first law regulating immigration (Testo Unico Immigrazione), an article was introduced (article 18) allowing mi­ grant ­women who w ­ ere forced into prostitution to obtain a special visa if they denounced their exploiter. In the 1980s and especially the 1990s, therefore, two main figures dominated the public imagery regarding non-­western female foreigners: the badante, which referred to both care and domestic workers, and the trafficking victim. In the 2000s the ste­reo­type of victimhood associated with ­women of non-­western descent was “enriched” by a new figure: that of the Muslim ­woman qua victim of genital mutilations, honor killings, forced veiling, and arranged marriages. The case of Sanaa Dafani, the young ­woman of Moroccan origin murdered by her ­father in 2009, as well as similar cases of gendered vio­lence involving Muslim men as perpetrators, monopolized media attention in the 2000s and began to establish an equation between ­women’s oppression and Islam. Yet in ­those same years the number of Italian ­women killed and assaulted by Italian men (partners, f­ athers, relatives, e­ tc.) reached such heights that some commentators began to speak of a femicide emergency.26 All in all, while mi­grant ­women from the postsocialist countries have been foregrounded as sex-­trafficking victims, ­those coming from North and Sub-­Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the ­Middle East have gained the reputation of being victims of specific forms of gendered vio­lence (genital mutilations and honor killings in par­tic­u­lar).27 In short, the repre­sen­ta­tion of the non-­western mi­grant universe as one made of (male) masters and (female) slaves has been somewhat of a cliché from early on in all three western Eu­ro­pean countries. This notwithstanding, it is impor­tant to note that in the 1980s and most of the 1990s it was still a repre­sen­ta­tion that belonged to the rubric of ste­reo­types surrounding mi­grant communities from the Global South and postsocialist countries, alongside other prejudices, such as the idea that non-­western mi­grant males w ­ ere on average more prone to criminal activities than nonmigrant ones and w ­ ere parasitic on the welfare system or responsible for the low wages of nonmigrant workers. In other words, ­until relatively recently the ostensible lesser status of ­women within mi­grant enclaves was not perceived, and used, as a special reason for disliking non-­western mi­grants. In this sense, the con­ temporary emphasis upon gender inequalities and the obsessive invocation Figures of Femonationalism 

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of the ­violation of ­women’s rights within mi­grant (especially Muslim) communities particularly by the nationalist right, but also by several feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and neoliberal policy makers—or what I call the femonationalist convergence—­might well constitute a novelty of the new millennium. Since 9/11 and the subsequent bombing of Af­ghan­i­stan in par­tic­u­lar, which was justified—­among other t­ hings—by the claim that the West was liberating Muslim ­women from the oppressive conditions to which Islamic fundamentalists w ­ ere subjecting them, the issue of w ­ omen’s rights as a central tool for Othering and stigmatizing non-­western populations has gained unpre­ce­dented currency.28 The New Centrality of Gender for Right-­Wing Nationalism

One of the novelties of the pres­ent neoliberal conjuncture is the centrality that gender issues seem to have acquired within right-­wing nationalist parties’ agendas. Since the mid-2000s ­these parties have begun adopting the language of ­women’s rights and gender equality in anti-­immigration and anti-­Islam campaigns on an unpre­ce­dented scale. Seeking to cash in on the general shift of the po­liti­cal spectrum to the right that characterized the beginning of the millennium and to normalize their public image as “modernized” and trustworthy po­liti­cal forces, numerous right-­wing parties in western Eu­rope have begun to show concern for the status of ­women’s rights, especially within Muslim and non-­western mi­grant communities.29 Nationalist right-­wing parties’ newly found feminist “vocation” is in fact in sharp contradiction with their traditional antifeminist politics and ideology. While advocating w ­ omen’s emancipation as a central value of the Eu­ro­pean (Christian) social fabric, which Muslims and non-­western mi­grants allegedly lack, t­hese parties also promote policies that encourage the maintenance of traditional roles for w ­ omen. Despite their strong contradictions on the theme of gender issues, their exploitation of ­women’s rights has paid off. As I w ­ ill show in the next pages, the stigmatization of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant males as misogynists and backward has helped ­these parties not only become more acceptable in the mainstream but also obtain unpre­ce­dented success in recent elections. The following three sections draw mainly on an analy­sis of the pvv’s, fn’s, and ln’s positions that w ­ ere found on their official websites and in national newspapers and magazines and electoral materials between (roughly) 2005 and 2013. 28 Chapter

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Documents analyzed also included po­liti­cal posters, relevant parliamentary discussions, and interviews with party leaders that appeared in the national press.30

Geert Wilders and the PVV The sociologist Sarah Bracke identifies three phases of what she calls the “civilizational era” of Dutch politics, that is, the historical conjuncture in which the clash of civilizations between supposedly progressive, liberal western Eu­rope and the backward Islamic world has become a major topic of the po­liti­cal and economic agenda. Within such a civilizational era, the theme of gender equality has assumed a new centrality.31 The first phase was inaugurated by the Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Demo­cratie (vvd; ­People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy) with the center-­right politician Frits Bolkestein’s speech on the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.32 This is the phase during which multiculturalism began to be declared unviable as a proj­ect or ideal for Dutch society. The growing number of immigrants, particularly of Islamic faith, who deci­ded to reside in the Netherlands on a stable basis, thereby changing the demographics of the country, was declared to be a danger for liberal western values. The second phase between 2002 and 2004 was dominated by figures such as the right-­wing politicians Pim Fortuyn, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Rita Verdonk and the film director Theo van Gogh. During this phase, gender and gay equality ­were asserted as mainstays of Dutch culture and its social contract, something that Muslims’ alleged misogyny and homophobia w ­ ere seen to threaten. The third phase lasted from 2004 to 2012; it was inaugurated by the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004 and the subsequent and dramatic shift of the po­liti­cal axis ­toward the nationalist right, with the emergence of the right-­wing nationalist and Islamophobic politician Geert Wilders. Given its centrality to the consolidation of the femonationalist ideology in the Netherlands, in what follows I thus concentrate on delineating Wilders’s politics and on his mobilization of gay and gender equality in anti-­Islam/anti-­immigration campaigns in this third phase. Upon leaving the vvd in 2004 in protest against the party’s considering admitting Turkey to the eu, Wilders in 2006 founded his own po­liti­cal platform: the right-­wing nationalist pvv.33 Profoundly inspired and influenced by Pim Fortuyn’s xenophobic politics, Wilders has made the mainstay of his politics a campaign against non-­western immigrants and Muslims in Figures of Femonationalism 

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the name of western values of freedom and gay and gender equality.34 Its ideological manifesto—­“Een Nieuw-­Realistische Visie” (A new realistic vision)—­pres­ents the main tenets of his nationalist, xenophobic, and (neo) liberal ­recipe. Drawing on Hegel and Tocqueville, Hobbes, Fukuyama, and Leo Strauss, Wilders’s manifesto proposes a conservative and nationalist corrective that he conceives to be a cure to the excesses of liberal freedom, that is, to multiculturalism. His goal is to establish secure cultural and moral foundations for the new neoliberal credo.35 In this document, Islam was already identified as one of the main threats to the liberal western lineage of democracy and values. It was especially in subsequent years, however, with Wilders increasingly moving ­toward what Vossen calls “national pop­u­lism,” that he obsessively presented Islam as a dangerous ideology and way of life that threatens, above all, gay and gender equality.36 This theme had been pres­ent in Wilders’s agenda for a long time; in many ways, it drew on and was reinforced by his po­liti­cal collaboration with the Islamophobic, self-­proclaimed feminist politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with whom he authored a 2003 document calling for a “liberal jihad” against Islam.37 But it was ­after 2006, upon the foundation of his own party, that Wilders’s mobilization of gay and gender equality according to an anti-­ Islam script clearly became central to his po­liti­cal strategy. In an attempt to capitalize on the clamor that followed the release of the movie Submission I, and the subsequent murder of its director, Theo van Gogh, by a Muslim fundamentalist in 2004 (on which more shortly), in 2008 Wilders produced a short movie, Fitna. Like van Gogh’s film, Fitna also focuses on the theme of gender in­equality and vio­lence as inherent, central features of Islam. Throughout the movie, suras of the Koran suggesting that Islam is about the annihilation of the ­enemy (i.e., the infidel and the non-­Muslim) are accompanied by images showing the 9/11 terrorist attacks, rallies of Muslim fundamentalists celebrating Nazism and the killing of Jews, and the murder of van Gogh. All of its scenes convey the message that Islam, as a po­liti­cal ideology rather than simply a religious credo, wants to rule the world. U ­ nder the title “The Netherlands u ­ nder the Spell of Islam,” the second part of the movie portrays how the “Islamization of Eu­rope” is affecting the Dutch nation. H ­ ere, images of veiled w ­ omen walking through the streets of Dutch cities serve as the backdrop to Muslim fundamentalists’ declarations regarding the justness of punishing w ­ omen’s adultery with death. The movie closes with projections of chilly scenarios if Islam 30 Chapter

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­ ere to take over: gay p w ­ eople killed, w ­ omen stoned to death, and c­ hildren turned into terrorists. The release of Fitna on the video website LiveLeak in March 2008 sparked enormous controversies, including death threats against Wilders and a boycott of Dutch products or­ga­nized by Muslim organ­izations in several countries. At the 2010 Dutch general elections it became clear that Wilders’s extreme po­liti­cal style had served to establish him not only as the most discussed and controversial Dutch politician but also as the leader of a po­liti­cal movement able to touch the sensitive, Islamophobic nerves of Dutch society. Not surprisingly, the pvv’s party program for the June 9, 2010, elections was wholly directed against immigration, dual nationality, multiculturalism, and, of course, Islam and its homophobia and misogyny. An example is this excerpt from his electoral program: Anyone who thinks that Islam is just one issue cannot count. Mass immigration has huge implications for all facets of our society. It is eco­ nom­ically a disaster, it affects the quality of our education, it increases insecurity in the streets, leading to an exodus from our cities, it expels Jews and gays and flushes de­cades of ­women’s rights down the toilet.38 In the 2010 elections, the pvv turned out to be the third party of the Netherlands, with 15.4 ­percent of votes, almost 10 ­percent more than in the previous 2006 elections, thereby becoming a key force in the constitution of the new government. ­After two years of external backing for the conservative Rutte I government (formed by the vvd and Christen-­Democratisch Appèl, cda), in 2012 the pvv withdrew its support, which effectively led to a new election. The pvv’s po­liti­cal campaign for the 2012 general elections again used the by-­then-­familiar anti-­Islam watchwords, but it now included a stronger anti-­eu and anti-­immigration propaganda in which Eu­ ro­pean integration was depicted as the source of the economic and cultural decline that had affected the Netherlands since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2007 and immigrants from Eastern Eu­rope ­were declared unwelcome. For instance, in 2012 the pvv established a website in which Dutch citizens could send their complaints against immigrants from the new eastern member countries of the eu; Wilders depicted such immigrants as “criminals” and “rapists.”39 During the 2012 electoral campaign the usual anti-­Islam motifs in the name of gay and gender equality w ­ ere also maintained, while the party ridiculed the eu directive for quotas of Figures of Femonationalism 

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­ omen in the upper echelons of companies, a clear lapse that showed the w pvv’s ­actual ambiguities on gender issues.40 As Sarah De Lange and Liza Mügge argue, the pvv is virtually ­silent on more traditional gender equality issues (like the gender pay gap or w ­ omen’s participation in the public 41 sphere). Its main interventions on the theme of w ­ omen’s equality, indeed, surface when the pvv discusses immigration and Muslims. For instance, in its 2012 program the pvv proposed to limit child benefits to families who have no more than two ­children—­thereby attempting to exclude from welfare benefits immigrant families who are on average larger than Dutch ones—­and to tax Muslim w ­ omen wearing the head­scarf.42 At the general elections in September 2012, the pvv was again confirmed as the country’s third party, although it did not garner the support from two years earlier, losing almost five percentage points and nine seats. The instrumentalization of a pro-­ gay and especially pro-­ women agenda in his anti-­Muslim crusade intensified on the occasion of International ­Women’s Day in 2013. On March 8 Wilders marked the party’s cele­brations with the release of a document entirely devoted to vio­lence against ­women ­under Islam (Geweld tegen Vrouwen binnen de Islam).43 Beside the usual references to the suras of the Koran concerning the injunction that w ­ omen submit to men, one section of the document was entirely devoted to the occurrence of gendered vio­lence among Muslims in the Netherlands. Statistical data on honor killings in Turkish and Moroccan communities ­were accompanied by considerations on their difference from domestic vio­lence in Dutch ­house­holds: while domestic vio­lence taking place among Dutch ­people was described as most often “unpremeditated” (thereby making it less reprehensible though socially unacceptable), the type of vio­lence that occurs among Muslims was defined as inextricable from their culture. All in all, albeit not initiating the stigmatization of Muslims in the name of ­women’s rights, as the rest of this chapter w ­ ill discuss in more detail, the pvv has been key in the consolidation and further intensification of the femonationalist ideological space in the Netherlands since the mid-2000s. Its harsh Islamophobic lexicon was indeed instrumental to the declaration of the end of multiculturalism—­a po­liti­cal and economic proj­ ect that worked through the provision of social ser­vices and policies for minorities’ integration—­but also to the framing of mi­grants’ integration in

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general, and Muslims’ in par­tic­u­lar, as a ­matter of individual willingness and “cultural affinity,” in line with neoliberal conceptions of citizenship and the state. As chapter 3 ­will discuss at length. Wilders’s pvv thus largely contributed not only to the exploitation of feminist themes for racist and chauvinistic purposes but also to the ratification of the neoliberal agenda that was to become the new dogma of Dutch economy and politics on ­matters of immigration.

Marine Le Pen and the FN In France the 2002 victory of the fn over the Socialist Party, and its subsequent appearance in the run-­off elections against the recently founded center-­right party Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (ump), headed by Jacques Chirac, marked a shift to the right and a dramatic growth of anti-­ immigration and Islamophobic politics. As in the Netherlands, throughout the 2000s the question of w ­ omen’s rights became central to anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration politics in France as well. Gender equality was recast as a cornerstone of the French Republic, and the Muslim veil was subsumed ­under the rubric of backward, oppressive misogynistic practices. Unlike in the Netherlands, however, where new nationalist-­populist formations such as Wilders’s pvv appeared on the po­liti­cal scene and built their identity precisely on the issue of w ­ omen’s and gays’ rights vis-­à-­vis Islam, in France this role was played by an older nationalist formation, such as the fn. ­Toward the end of the 2000s in fact, the fn began to seize on the hot-­button issue of ­women’s rights within the context of its xenophobic po­liti­cal campaigns. The fn was founded in 1972 by Jean-­Marie Le Pen, who remained its leader ­until the end of 2010. Given its links to fascist organ­izations and its anti-­Semitic stance on the Holocaust, the party has monopolized, and been confined within, the far-­right space of the French po­liti­cal topography since its inception.44 With the stated goal of liberating the party from its po­liti­cal confinement and making it acceptable within the mainstream, from 2002 onward, Marine Le Pen—­the ­daughter of the party’s founder—­began what is now called the “de-­demonization” (dediabolisation) of the Front National, first in her role as coordinator of the fn’s electoral campaign and, since January 2011, as its new president. Le Pen’s operation of de-­demonization has followed two paths: first, the adoption of republican themes such as secularism and the Declaration of the Rights

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of Man and Citizen of 1789, once anathema to the party; second, the mobilization of ­women’s rights and (less prominently) gay rights in the cause of opposing Islam and non-­western mi­grants.45 Concerning the first path, although secularism (laïcité) had not previously been part of the fn’s agenda—­since the party has always been tied to the most conservative fringes of the Catholic Church—it was one of the themes most used by Marine Le Pen during the 2012 presidential campaign. On January 15, 2012, in Grand-­Quevilly, in the Rouen banlieue (Seine-­Maritime), Marine Le Pen proposed the creation of a ministry of immigration and secularism. According to Le Pen, secularism is currently ­under attack by immigrants, particularly by Muslims, who introduce communitarianism into French society and thus threaten not only a pillar of the republic, but also the unity of the nation. It is “mass immigration” that is responsible for such threats and indeed, according to Le Pen, “it ­will be easier to apply secularism once we stop immigration.”46 In Le Pen’s analy­sis, mass immigration itself is the result of globalization, which denies “national identities” and “transforms e­ very area, e­ very nation, ­every ­people into an empty globalized magma without identity, where trade reigns.”47 In order to avoid mass immigration, Le Pen proposes drastically reducing the number of immigrants allowed to enter the country to ten thousand each year, the majority of whom should be students and asylum seekers.48 Concerning the second path, already in 2007 when Marine Le Pen coordinated the presidential campaign for her f­ather, the mobilization of ­women’s rights as a means for opposing Islam and immigration more generally began entering the fn’s agenda. ­Under the motto “They have broken every­thing” (Ils ont tout cassé) to refer to the French po­liti­cal class, in 2007 the fn began disseminating a number of posters, including one that depicted a young w ­ oman clearly of North African origin, dressed in modern French attire, showing her belly and flowing hair.49 The image of the beurette emancipée supporting the fn’s electoral motto clearly aimed both to reaffirm the republican position on the “right” attire for young w ­ omen of Muslim background and, arguably, to reach a new female electorate that had not been a target of fn campaigns before. However, it is only ­really since her notorious 2010 statement that “in some areas, it is not good to be a w ­ oman or gay or Jewish, or even French or white” that Marine Le Pen has figured prominently in the right-­wing nationalist ­family that claims to 34 Chapter

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defend w ­ omen’s rights.50 The “appearance” of an opening of the fn to the theme of ­women’s rights in par­tic­u­lar has been further emphasized not only by the fact that its new president is a ­woman, but also by the growth of the female vote for the fn in the May 2012 presidential elections. On this occasion, the fn obtained 17.9 ­percent of the vote, positioning the fn as the third force in French politics. Marine Le Pen managed to obtain this result within ­little more than a year of becoming the new president of the party.51 Yet Le Pen’s positions on ­women’s rights are ambivalent and rather contradictory. When we look at the fn program and Le Pen’s statements directly addressing w ­ omen’s issues, it becomes clear that she considers ­women primarily as ­mothers. Initially she claimed to be in f­avor of the right to abortion but against abuses of this right, or what she calls “abortion of con­ve­nience.” “From the beginning of my campaign, I clearly said, against some ele­ments of my party, I was not ­going to challenge the law [on abortion]. But ­there are excesses and abuses. ­Women use abortion as a means of contraception.”52 The fn presidential program for 2012 states that “the ­free choice for ­women must be also that of choosing not to abort: better prevention and information are essential, parents’ responsibility is necessary, the possibility of prenatal adoption must be proposed, improved ­family benefits for large families must be established.”53 In a long interview given to Elle in 2012 Le Pen expressed her opposition to the idea of a special ministry for ­women’s rights, explaining that ­women are not an “endangered species.”54 This position is also reflected in Le Pen’s attack against “positive discrimination” in ­favor of meritocracy. Furthermore, Le Pen supports pro-­natality policies, to be achieved by encouraging “French” w ­ omen to have more than two ­children. ­These policies are of two types. First, the fn ­family policy calls for a parental income “intended to guarantee that . . . ​ ­mothers or ­fathers can choose freely between the exercise of a profession and the education of their ­children: income payments equivalent to 80% of the minimum wage for three years from the second child for an additional term of four years for the third child.”55 This also includes “­family allowances, reserved for families with at least one French parent, [to] be adjusted and indexed to the cost of living.”56 As sociologist Francesca Scrinzi notes, Marine Le Pen’s statements on w ­ omen’s rights are highly paradoxical, “alternating between defending w ­ omen’s liberation and defending the traditional ­family, with the latter viewed as the basis of the nation. Asked if she identifies herself as a feminist, Le Pen said that she could consider Figures of Femonationalism 

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herself as such to the extent that she defends w ­ omen’s rights, which are threatened by Islam.”57 According to Le Pen, indeed, France would not be a sexist country if it ­were not for the mi­grants’ enclaves. In the Elle interview, she in fact declared that sexism is a prob­lem only among non-­French communities. As she put it, ­ ere is, that’s for sure, in a certain number of schools, a cultural work Th that needs to be done to teach that [i.e., gender equality] to the ­children who ­were raised in a cultural environment where ­women are firmly inferior to men and who are presented as such. . . . ​(Public starts booing her). Well what are you booing at now? Yes you are booing the fact that you ­really know that. . . . ​Excuse me, but you refuse to see the real­ity! Well in that case we w ­ ill never resolve the prob­lem! We know that the girls in the banlieues. . . . ​Honestly ­there are places where sexism exists, I agree. The girls in the banlieues cannot wear short skirts. Th ­ ere. The girls in the banlieues are treated like objects. Therefore, yes, the best way to solve our prob­lems is first to detect them, to be able to apply a diagnostic on the prob­lems in order to solve them where they need solving. I ­don’t mind if you resolve prob­lems that do not exist [such as sexism in French schools among French pupils], but that’s not helpful.58 In the end, as Scrinzi notes, While the stigmatization of racialized men is still central in fn propaganda, ­today racialized ­women have acquired a new visibility, being exposed—by a female leader—as symbols of feminine oppression in the debates about the burqa, the Muslim head­scarf, and sexual vio­lence. . . . ​ The figure of the female Other thus seems to epitomize the paradoxes of Marine Le Pen’s propaganda. On the one hand, mi­grant ­women are represented as victims of patriarchal practices, which are condemned by the party. On the other, Marine Le Pen’s discourse and policy proposals on ­women and the f­amily echo findings on radical right organ­izations from across the world, where female activists may f­avor some rights for the w ­ omen of their “community” (variously defined on the basis of nationality, culture, religion, class . . . ​) while countering the same rights for the female ­Others.59 As for the issue of gay rights, the fn has more recently attenuated its traditional homophobic agenda. Presumably following the Wilders model, 36 Chapter

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since becoming president of the party Marine Le Pen has made not more than a few rhetorical openings to gay equality. Her general strategy, however, seems to be to keep a tactical silence on the issue in order to both keep happy its most conservative internal areas and constituencies and to gain some consensus from gay voters.60 Ultimately, by means of explic­itly equating sexual/gender vio­lence and non-­western mi­grant cultures, Le Pen has thus followed the strategy of other right-­wing nationalist parties for whom the mobilization of gender equality is arguably instrumental to vilifying non-­western mi­grant men, Muslim in par­tic­u­lar.

The Lega Nord The dawn of the new millennium saw a dramatic shift to the right in Italy as well. In 2001 Silvio Berlusconi’s right-­wing co­ali­tion Casa delle Libertà (House of Freedoms), won the general elections and inaugurated almost a de­cade of uninterrupted rule—­with the exception of a brief center-­left cabinet between 2006 and 2008 (i.e., the Prodi II government). Relying on neofascist and right-­wing nationalist and anti-­immigration parties like Alleanza Nazionale (an; National Alliance) and the Lega Nord (ln; Northern League), Berlusconi’s governments marked a turning point with regard to immigration and Islamophobic policies. In July 2002, it passed Law No. 177, the so-­called Bossi-­Fini law, by decree introducing extremely severe sanctions on immigrants and refugees. U ­ nder the new law, illegal immigration became a criminal offense; all foreigners applying for a residence permit ­were required to be fingerprinted; residency permits became strictly linked to a work contract (in a country in which black-­market ­labor imposed by employers is very widespread, particularly among mi­grant workers); and the time limit for seclusion in detention centers while waiting for extradition was extended from thirty to sixty days, with asylum seekers placed in detention while waiting for their asylum review, in contravention of the Eu­ro­pean Convention on ­Human Rights. The law took its name from its two initial proponents, Gianfranco Fini, the leader of an (a neofascist party founded in 1994 and dissolved in 2009), and Umberto Bossi (the then leader of the ln). The ln in par­tic­u­lar has played a key role within Italian politics not only in promoting harsh xenophobic policies but also in fomenting anti-­ immigration sentiments through the exploitation of the issue of w ­ omen’s rights. The analy­sis that follows ­will thus concentrate on this party. Figures of Femonationalism 

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Upon its foundation in 1991 ln presented itself as the party of a new era in Italian politics, denouncing the corrupt po­liti­cal elite and the theft of the northern regions’ resources and autonomy by the central government. In the 1990s, the ln was still bound to an ethnoregionalist ideology demanding the in­de­pen­dence of Padania (roughly corresponding to the Italian regions north of the Po River), based on the idea of it being a homogeneous nation with a common history and ethnic identity. In the 1990s, the ln’s regional nationalism led it to position southern Italians as the inimical Other. At the end of the 1990s and in the 2000s, particularly ­after its participation in the Berlusconi government, and therefore its co-­optation into national rather than regionalist politics, the ln moved from demanding secession to encouraging fiscal federalism, and the Other was increasingly identified as non-­Italian, non-­western mi­grants. From its entrance into the government in 2001 onward, the ln distinguished itself with its harsh anti-­immigration and increasingly anti-­Islam propaganda, as well as for resorting to a strongly nationalist and masculinist rhe­toric opposed to the integration of mi­grants into the Italian l­abor market and the welfare system. Non-­western mi­grants in general ­were depicted as a threat to national security, and Muslims in par­tic­u­lar ­were regarded as a danger not only to Christian Italian culture but also to w ­ omen. Muslim and non-­western mi­grant males w ­ ere constantly identified as violent and criminal and as rapists u ­ nder the Berlusconi governments, with the support of the ln.61 The mobilization of the issue of gender equality against Muslim mi­grants in par­tic­u­lar began—at least explic­itly and vocally—­with the ln’s 2005 campaign against negotiations for a pos­si­ble entry of Turkey into the eu. On that occasion the ln produced a poster, which was plastered on walls throughout the peninsula for many months. The poster portrays three ­women: the one on the left is veiled and appears ­behind prison bars. She is surrounded by darkness, but her state of suffering is clearly discernible. On the righthand side are two w ­ omen with short hair and western clothes, both sitting at an office desk and seemingly discussing work issues in a well-­lit environment. The caption on the left says “Them . . .”; the one on the right, “Us . . .”. Beneath the image is an almost rhetorical question: “Are you willing to take the risk? No to Turkey in Eu­rope.”62 The message is, of course, very clear: admitting Turkey to the Eu­ro­pean Union would mean allowing a country with an Islamic majoritarian culture into a tradition-

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ally Christian area and would therefore run the risk of exposing Eu­ro­pean ­women to a religion with po­liti­cal ambitions that subjugate the female sex. Such a move was startling ­because of the decidedly scant attention the party had paid to ­women’s rights ­until then. The ln, as I mentioned above, utilizes a strongly masculinist po­liti­cal rhe­toric and is bound to a traditional model of the f­amily. As Scrinzi notes, “Padanian masculinity is associated with sexual prowess and heterosexual normality. . . . ​The po­liti­cal conflict tends to be described in military terms as the Padanian masculinity is associated with strength, re­sis­tance and toughness in politics. Fi­nally, . . . ​ the gendered construction of Padania is associated with rationality, a modern work ethic, industriousness, honesty and individualism. . . . ​Padania is constructed as a masculine nation.”63 From 2006 onward in par­tic­u­lar, the ln has continued to position gender equality in opposition to migration from the Global South in general and Islam in par­tic­u­lar in instrumental and xenophobic ways. In February 2006 the then city counselor for the ln in Milan, Matteo Salvini (now leader of the party) proposed a “Decalogo delle libertà” (Decalogue of freedoms) to be presented to immigrants applying for Italian citizenship. Five out of ten questions focus on ­women’s issues and are motivated by the clear idea that non-­western mi­grants—­ presumably Muslims in particular—do not re­spect w ­ omen’s rights. The questions include the following: 1. Would you forbid your wife or d ­ aughter to dress like Italian w ­ omen? 2. What do you think of the statement according to which a w ­ oman must obey her husband, and that he can beat her in the case she does not obey him? 3. Do you think it is acceptable that a man locks his wife or ­daughter at home to avoid that she dishonors the ­family in public? 4. What would you do if your ­daughter or son wanted to marry a person from another religion? 5. Would you allow a male doctor to examine you (if you are a ­woman) or a female doctor to visit you (if you are a man)?64 In October  2009 the ln presented a bill to ban the burqa in public spaces. The proposal was meant to modify a previous mea­sure from 1975 allowing certain categories of p ­ eople to keep their f­ aces covered if t­ here is

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a “justified motive.” Officially presented as being motivated by security reasons, the antiburqa law was largely broadcasted in the mainstream media as a proposal that would enable Muslim w ­ omen—­who, it was assumed, ­were coerced into wearing the integral veil—to f­ree themselves from this imposition.65 The campaign against the burqa in public spaces at the end of the 2000s represented the main way in which the issue of gender in­ equality and vio­lence as the exclusive domain of the (Muslim) Other has dominated the ln’s Islamophobic propaganda. However, it is impor­tant to highlight that it is not only Muslim men who are singled out as ­women’s main enemies and it is not only Muslim ­women who are foregrounded as victims. In the xenophobic campaign in which the issues of sexism and gender vio­lence are strongly racialized, and where racism itself takes the form of a distinction between non-­western mi­grant men as “bad” and non-­ western mi­grant ­women as “victims,” the ln openly identifies all men from eastern Eu­rope and the Global South more generally as misogynists and especially as potentially rapists and all ­women from ­these regions as passive victims. For instance, in April 2013 the current president of the ln, Matteo Salvini, promoted on Twitter a new website called “Tutti i crimini degli immigrati” (All the immigrants’ crimes). The site exclusively hosts journal articles reporting cases of vio­lence in which an immigrant is the perpetrator, with cases of rape emerging as the most common crime among non-­ Italian, non-­western citizens. Non-­western mi­grant men in general are thus identified by the ln as a social threat that endangers the female sex.66 In spite of its rather disputable reputation and antifeminist policies concerning gender equality, the ln, just like the pvv in the Netherlands and the fn in France, has thus successfully instrumentalized w ­ omen’s rights as a power­ful weapon in the campaign against Muslim and non-­western mi­grants. The Constitution of a Heterogeneous, Anti-­Islam, Feminist Front?

Right-­wing nationalist parties such as the pvv, fn, and ln have not been the only ones invoking w ­ omen’s rights against Muslim males in par­tic­u­lar. Since the beginning of the 2000s in all three countries several well-­known feminist intellectuals and some prominent feminist politicians (some with a Muslim background) from both right and left, as well as ­women in gen40 Chapter

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der equality agencies and organ­izations (within and outside state bureaucracies), have denounced Muslim religious practices as infringements of ­women’s freedom. Whereas I analyzed right-­wing nationalism’s endorsement of a gender equality lexicon by focusing upon one single nationalist party in each country, I chose not to pinpoint any specific feminist current/ figures endorsing anti-­Islam positions in the name of ­women’s rights. My reasons ­were the following. First, the interest of looking at dif­fer­ent feminists’, femocrats’, and w ­ omen’s organ­izations’ arguments concerning their embrace of anti-­Islam campaigns lies in the possibility of providing an overview of the field that has so far been missing. Second, what is noteworthy in the embrace of anti-­Islam arguments by this array of w ­ omen is precisely the similarities among them in spite of their divergent positions, and divisions, on other issues. It is also worth noting that the multifarious ways in which feminism as an emancipatory proj­ect dedicated to ­women’s liberation (­whether liberal, radical, or leftist) has increasingly “converged” with nonemancipatory/Islamophobic and neoliberal po­liti­cal and economic agendas makes the femonationalist ideological formation all the more disconcerting. Third, the endorsement of anti-­Islam stances by some feminists, femocrats, and ­women’s organ­izations across the po­ liti­cal spectrum is arguably what has contributed to consolidating the idea that Muslim communities in par­tic­u­lar do not re­spect ­women’s rights and to creating what I call the femonationalist ideological formation. However, as I w ­ ill begin to show in the following sections and to explore more in chapters 3 and 4, the temporal coincidence between nationalists and some feminists voicing anti-­Islam slogans ­under the banner of gender equality is a case in point of a convergence rather than of a conscious po­liti­cal alliance, or of the constitution of a homogeneous anti-­Islam, feminist front. North American liberal po­liti­cal theorist Susan Moller Okin’s famous essay “Is Multiculturalism Bad for ­Women?,” published in 1997, arguably provided some of the main arguments that have been used by this rather po­liti­cally heterogeneous feminist front in its convergence with anti-­Islam campaigns. It is thus impor­tant to briefly turn to it. In a nutshell, in this text Okin argued that certain minorities within western socie­ties do not re­spect gender equality princi­ples. As examples she listed the wearing of headscarves by Muslim girls in schools, genital mutilations among African immigrants, and coerced marriages and honor killings among Asian and ­Middle Eastern immigrants in both Eu­rope and the United States. While Figures of Femonationalism 

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she acknowledged that “virtually all of the world’s cultures have distinctly patriarchal pasts,” she also maintained that “some mostly, though by no means exclusively, western liberal cultures have departed far further from them than ­others [i.e., Asian, ­Middle Eastern, and African cultures].”67 She thus proposed that female members with a non-­western background “might be much better off if the culture into which they w ­ ere born ­were ­either to become extinct (so that its members would become integrated into the less sexist surrounding culture) or, preferably, to be encouraged to alter itself so as to reinforce the equality of w ­ omen at least to the degree to which this value is upheld in the majority culture.”68 Okin’s position at the beginning of the 2000s became widespread among sectors of second-­wave, liberal, and left-­wing western Eu­ro­pean feminism.69 As the next sections show, a rather heterogeneous feminist front in all three countries resorted to some of Okin’s arguments in order to frame Islamic traditions as especially inimical for w ­ omen. Four main actors can be identified in each country as constituting this front: (1) feminist intellectuals and (2) feminist associations that champion secularism, (3) prominent feminist politicians (in some cases of Muslim descent), and (4) representatives of gender equality state-­funded agencies, or femocrats.

The Netherlands: Gender Equality Is a Mi­grant ­Women’s Issue As I mentioned earlier, in 2002 the right-­wing politician Pim Fortuyn forcefully initiated the mobilization of gender equality against the perceived violent patriarchy of Islam.70 In a February 9, 2002, interview with the Dutch national newspaper De Volkskrant, he declared the following: I want a very strong emancipation policy for Islamic ­women in disadvantaged neighborhoods. In par­tic­u­lar the highly-­educated Turkish and Moroccan girls get a sound thrashing from me. They leave their s­ isters in the lurch. Take an example from our feminists in the seventies. My ­mother, who came from a posh milieu, became emancipated ­because of ­those ­women. I expect the same from ­those Muslim girls, instead of putting on a head­scarf as some kind of protest. Take it off and make sure your ­sisters do not have only one right of existence: the kitchen.71 Fortuyn’s framing of emancipation as an urgent prob­lem in the case of Muslim ­women of Turkish and Moroccan descent was taken on by some prominent feminists. In the May 2002 issue of the Dutch feminist maga42 Chapter

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zine Opzji, the journal’s chief editor, Cisca Dresselhuys, devoted an editorial to Fortuyn’s new attention to w ­ omen’s issues. Dresselhuys had already sparked controversy a year earlier with the statement that she would not hire a ­woman wearing a veil for her journal.72 Albeit noticing the rather inconsistent rec­ord of Fortuyn in ­matters of ­women’s emancipation, Dresselhuys nonetheless called Fortuyn an “ally” of the feminist cause in the Netherlands.73 Fortuyn, according to Dresselhuys, had underscored the importance of promoting the emancipation of Muslim w ­ omen, whose strug­gle, she maintained, should initiate the “third wave” of Dutch feminism.74 Dresselhuys is a well-­known Dutch ­women’s rights public intellectual, who advocates a white, middle-­class, and liberal feminism as well as a rejection of multiculturalism in line with Okin’s position.75 Dresselhuys’s declaration of a necessary, albeit counterintuitive, “alliance” with Fortuyn on the issue of Muslim ­women’s emancipation was soon echoed by another (self-­declared) feminist: the Dutch-­Somali politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Beginning in 2003 and ­after being elected as an mp for the center-­right party vvd, Hirsi Ali regularly denounced Islam as a backward religion, the main danger of which lay in its promotion of vio­lence against w ­ omen, including female genital mutilations, forced marriage, and honor killing. The fact that Hirsi Ali is herself an “allochthonous” ­woman—­according to the Dutch definition, coming from a Muslim f­ amily—­has made her anti-­Islam utterances in the name of gender equality all the more “credible.” As an “insider,” she could claim “au­then­tic knowledge” and her “enunciation [was] protected from critique.”76 ­After joining vvd in 2003, Hirsi Ali was assigned the portfolio for emancipation issues. In 2004 she wrote the script for a short movie directed by Theo van Gogh, Submission I, in which we are told the story of four Muslim ­women who have been abused by men in vari­ous ways. The ­women recite their monologues in see-­through chadors; their naked bodies are covered with verses from the Koran that are deeply misogynist passages. The release of Submission I on the Dutch Public Broadcasting Network on August 29, 2004, sparked enormous controversy, with major protests from Muslim communities. Two months a­ fter the release of the movie, van Gogh was murdered by a young Dutch-­Moroccan member of an Islamic fundamentalist network. Hirsi Ali received death threats and went into hiding. Hirsi Ali’s interventions against Islam in the name of Muslim ­women’s emancipation deeply divided Dutch feminists. Whereas her positions w ­ ere Figures of Femonationalism 

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welcome by some sections of liberal/secular Dutch feminism (as in the case of the feminist sociologist Jolande Withuis) and even Muslim feminism (as in the case of the Dutch-­Egyptian writer and self-­proclaimed Muslim feminist Nahed Selim), they ­were not well received by feminists active in antiracist politics as well as by many of the Muslim ­women in the name of whom they claimed to speak.77 Anja Meulenbelt, an icon of second-­wave feminism and a politician in the Socialist Party, and Muslim w ­ omen’s organ­izations like zami or Al Nisa, as well as renowned feminist academics like Gloria Wekker, Rosi Braidotti, Baukje Prins, Sawitri Saharso, and Haleh Ghorashi, only to mention some prominent examples, strongly dissented from Hirsi Ali’s as well as Dresselhuys’s depictions of Islam and from their version of feminism.78 Yet Hirsi Ali’s positions—­and also ­those of Dresselhuys—­became t­ hose most echoed in the Dutch mainstream media. Both w ­ omen benefited from, and significantly contributed to forming, the general climate of consensus with re­spect to Islamophobia in the name of gender equality throughout the 2000s. The support they enjoyed in the mainstream media also coincided with, and benefited from a shift occurring within, the Dutch “state feminist” apparatus in the first half of the 2000s whereby public attention and funds ­were diverted from ­women’s rights in general to ethnic minority ­women’s rights in par­tic­u­lar. As Joyce Outshoorn and Jantine Oldersma report, between 2004 and 2006 ­there was a general call for the abolition of the main Dutch state feminist agency (i.e., the ­women’s policy network) “as supposedly ­women’s equality policy [was] now well-­integrated into mainstream policy.” As t­hese authors continue, such a proposal to stop funds for this state feminism agency occurred “in a context of the drastic shift to the right in Dutch politics. . . . ​Toughness [was] advocated on all fronts, gender discrimination and in­equality [­were] no longer issues which motivate politicians. In this discourse, only mi­grant and minority w ­ omen, especially when they [­were] from Muslim countries, are oppressed and need to be aided, suggesting gender in­equality among ethnically white Dutch has been eliminated.”79 Indeed, since the rightward turn in Dutch politics, most policies dealing with gender equality have been ethnicized.80 For instance, in ­those same years, the minister in charge of gender equality issues, Aart Jan De Geus (cda), together with Rita Verdonk, the Minister for Integration and Immigration (vvd), established a commission for the participation of 44 Chapter

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ethnic minority ­women, Participatie van Vrouwen uit Etnische Minderheidsgroepen (pavem; Participation of Ethnic Minority ­Women), in order to address issues related to mi­grant ­women’s cultural integration and participation in the ­labor market. Between 2003 ­until 2005, pavem worked to establish the main coordinates of what ­later in 2005 became the gender aspects of the integration package in the Netherlands, while subsidies for Dutch ­women’s organ­izations stopped. In 2005 pavem published a plan, “Emancipatie: Vanzelfsprekend, maar het gaat niet vanzelf!” (Emancipation: Of course, but it does not happen by itself!), according to which mi­grant ­women have to catch up with Dutch w ­ omen, particularly in the area of work and social participation. Consequently, state-­sponsored commissions for ­women’s equality in the Netherlands w ­ ere no longer the institutional and governmental apparatuses promoting equality between the sexes. Rather, as I ­will discuss more at length in chapters 3 and 4, they have been increasingly transformed into agencies for the education and assimilation of minority and non-­western mi­grant ­women into what are deemed to represent proper Dutch models of womanhood.

France: Feminism and the Republic without Veils The mobilization of gender equality in opposing Islam in France coincides with the controversies on the veil and burqa that began at the end of the 1980s.81 On October 3, 1989, three Muslim girls ­were expelled from their school in Creil, ­after they refused to remove their veils. This event generated huge media coverage, triggered by the fact that Islam was already ­under the spotlight on account of the Salman Rushdie affair, but also due to the fact that it was a way to remind the republic of one of its pillars, that is, laïcité, during the year of cele­brations of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. The issue was taken to the Council of State (the highest administrative court in France), which rejected the demand that the veil should be banned from public schools. However, following the strong success of the right in the Eu­ro­pean elections in 1994, the issue resurfaced and a bill was presented by the right-­wing mp Eugene Chenier proposing to ban “ostentatious” religious symbols from public schools.82 Again, Chenier’s proposal enjoyed huge media coverage, but it too was rejected by several courts across the country as well as by the Council of State. Although in t­ hese earlier head­scarf controversies the question of laïcité had been connected with equality between the sexes, it was still the supposed Figures of Femonationalism 

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infringements of secularism that was in question. It was indeed not u ­ ntil the beginning of the 2000s that gender equality took center stage in the discussion. In July 2003 President Jacques Chirac appointed a commission chaired by Bernard Stasi—­a former government minister and deputy—in order to explore the possibility of introducing a law to ensure secularism in public schools. A law was eventually approved in March 2004, applying the ban of ostentatious religious symbols to all of the country’s public schools.83 Fi­nally, in 2009 the conservative Fillon government appointed a special commission chaired by André Gérin to investigate the practice of “full veiling” (voile integral). In September 2010 a law was fi­nally passed banning the use of face-­covering garments in public spaces.84 As Joan Scott notes, the chronology of the legislative mea­sures against the Islamic veil— an instance of a more general Muslim question taking place in France, as I have argued elsewhere—­coincides very closely with that of the fn’s successes.85 But the same chronology in recent French history also coincides with another timeline: that of French feminists’ public interventions and increasing internal divisions. On November 2, 1989, following the case of the veiled students expelled from school in Creil, Le Nouvel Observateur published a letter by five phi­los­o­phers, including the well-­known feminist phi­los­o­pher Élisabeth Badinter, which was addressed to the then Minister of Education Lionel Jospin. As they put it, To tolerate the head­scarf is not to host a ­free agent (in this case a girl), it is to open the door to ­those who have deci­ded once and for all, without discussion, that she must cover up. Instead of giving this girl an area of freedom, it signifies that ­there is no difference between the school and the home of her ­father. If you allow the Islamic head­scarf as a symbol of female submission, you give carte blanche to f­ athers and b ­ rothers, that is to say the hardest in the world of patriarchy. Ultimately, it is no longer re­spect for gender equality and f­ree w ­ ill that is law in France. In one sentence, you have disarmed the thousands of young Muslim w ­ omen 86 who are everywhere fighting for their dignity and freedom. In December 2003, during the works of the Stasi commission that had to provide a report on feasible mea­sures for implementing secularism in public schools, the magazine Elle published an appeal to President Chirac signed by sixty-­eight public figures, again including Badinter, but also the former socialist minister for the rights of ­women, Yvette Roudy, and the 46 Chapter

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president of the organ­ization Ni Putes Ni Soumises (npns; Neither Whores, nor Submissive), Fadela Amara. The appeal was to demand a law banning the veil, “this vis­i­ble symbol of female submission,” from public schools, “a place in which the state should be the guarantor of a strict equality between the sexes.”87 Fi­nally, on the occasion of the appointment of the Gérin commission to propose a law banning the burqa from public places, Badinter and Amara ­were heard as “experts” and well-­informed members of civil society, and some of their arguments ­were subsequently used in the 2010 law officially banning the burqa from public spaces. Whereas Amara insisted on the patriarchal nature of this practice and the lack of freedom experienced by Muslim w ­ omen who are subjected to full veiling, Badinter invoked the notion of pathology and perversion. According to Badinter, the practice of full veiling is contrary not only to western civilization and its valorization of the “face,” but also to the princi­ples of the republic—­freedom, equality, and fraternity—­since it denies reciprocity in the relationship between the unveiled person who allows his/her face to be seen, and the veiled one who denies the other this option.88 She concluded: “In this possibility of being looked at without being seen, and to look at the other without him/her being able to see you, I see the satisfaction of a ­triple perverse enjoyment: the enjoyment of one’s supremacy over the other, the enjoyment of the exhibitionist, and the enjoyment of the voyeur. . . . ​I think we are dealing with very sick ­women and I do not think we have to be determined according to their pathology.”89 The relegation of fully covered ­women to insane and perverted individuals reinforced the idea that the state had to intervene not only to discipline Muslim ­women but also to “liberate” them from the false consciousness of their distorted psyche. From 2004 onward, therefore, the feminist antiveil and anti-­Islam front in France has become very vocal and also very composite. Not only well-­known feminist secular intellectuals like Badinter, Jeannette Bougrab, Caroline Fourest, and Fiammetta Venner—­ the latter two found­ers of the feminist magazine ProChoix, which accused the opponents of the veil ban of “cultural relativism”—­but also feminists within some left organ­izations, such as Lutte Ouvrière, (some members of the) Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, and, more recently, the Front de Gauche, have endorsed antiveil arguments.90 It is impor­tant, however, to note that feminist opposition to the antiveil law, as well as alternative feminist stances concerning the mobilization of gender equality against Muslim citizens in France, has not been absent. Figures of Femonationalism 

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On the contrary, it has been perhaps the most vigorous in Eu­rope. For instance, the feminist sociologist Christine Delphy—­one of the found­ers, together with Simone de Beauvoir, of the Nouvelles Questions Féministes and of so-­called French materialist feminism—­denounced the dilemma between antisexism and antiracism put forward by the pro-­law feminists as false and misleading.91 In 2005, following the approval of the law against headscarves in public schools and the huge media coverage and controversies it provoked, the feminist phi­los­o­pher Elsa Dorlin authored a manifesto against the appropriation of feminism by Islamophobes, racists, and secular feminists: “Not in our name!” (Pas en notre nom!).92 Houria Bouteldja, the founder of the Mouvement des Indigènes de la République (Movement of the Indigenous of the Republic) called the ban of the veil in public schools the “colonial and neo-­colonial instrumentalization of ­women’s rights,” accusing organ­izations such as npns of being part of the “state apparatus,” a position soon echoed by the feminist sociologist Sylvie Tissot and by feminist and antiracist activists and authors like Félix Boggio Éwanjé-­Épée, Stella Magliani-­Belkacem, Capucine Larzillière, Lisbeth Sal, and ­others.93 And yet, like in the Netherlands, Badinter’s and Amara’s positions gained currency in the mainstream. The consensus for their anti-­Islam stance was in fact reinforced in large part by the support they received from the French state, both ideologically, but also financially.94 The npns, for instance, has been funded with public monies since its foundation in 2002; its president, Fadela Amara, was made a ju­nior minister for urban policy in François Fillon’s first conservative government ­under the Sarkozy presidency in 2007, and inspector general for social affairs in January 2011. The presence within npns of w ­ omen of North African descent, such as Amara herself and also Loubna Méliane, Chaddortt Djavann, and Jeannette Bougrab, also helped to create the impression that they w ­ ere speaking for Muslim ­women. Arguably, the public prominence accorded to ­women of migratory background who joined the feminist secular front in denouncing Islam’s alleged “exceptional” misogyny and the practice of veiling has contributed to push into the shade the many w ­ omen and Muslim organ­izations who protested the antiveil laws—­for instance, Mamans Toutes Égales, the collective of ­mothers, which includes many Muslim ­women; the group Le Collectif des Féministes pour l’Égalité; and Femmes dans la Mosquée, a collective of Muslim ­women.95 In this context it is impor­tant to notice also 48 Chapter

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the position taken by the most impor­tant representatives of French state feminism—­that is, the official agencies/departments in charge of w ­ omen’s rights at state level—on the legislative mea­sures against the Muslim veils in par­tic­u­lar. During the discussions about banning the veil from public schools in 2003, Nicole Ameline—­then a delegate for the Ministry for Parity and Professional Equality between men and w ­ omen—­declared the veil to be the “expression of sexist discrimination . . . ​and a confiscation of individual freedom.”96 In spite of Sarkozy’s numerous criticisms of Muslim and immigrants’ communities in France as disrespectful of ­women’s rights and of his campaign against face veils in public spaces—­eventually leading to the 2010 law mentioned earlier—­under his presidency the place of the delegate ministry in charge of gender equality issues remained vacant. A Ministry for the Rights of ­Women with full rights was fi­nally reestablished in 2012 ­under the center-­left presidency of François Hollande. The designated minister between 2012 and 2014—­the socialist Najat Vallaud-­Belkacem, of Moroccan and Algerian origins and herself born in Morocco—­sparked controversy ­after she intimated in 2013 that teachers at crèche (nursery) levels might also be banned from wearing religious veils at work.97 The most prominent representatives of state feminism at the governmental level thus—­regardless of their po­liti­ cal colors—­have consistently denounced Muslim religious practices as against ­women’s rights and have supported legislative mea­sures that forbid Muslim ­women from wearing the veil in public schools or the full veil in public spaces. As Larzillière and Sal aptly note, although the stated goal of the French feminist secular intelligent­sia from right to left was the promotion of a “universalist” feminism, guaranteeing equal rights for men and ­women, their positions on Muslim w ­ omen’s religious practices in France have been marked by what Christelle Hamel calls the “racialization of sexism.”98 This is a discourse according to which “the enunciation by the majoritarian group [French white ­people] of favorable discourses in the case of the ­daughters of mi­grants, but unfavorable ones in the case of their sons, is often the sign of a form of racism that makes the denunciation of sexism a tool of its domination and sexuality one of its forms of expression.”99

Italy: From Left to Right, United against Islam Like in the Netherlands and France, in Italy too some feminist intellectuals and organ­izations, feminist politicians of immigrant and Muslim ­backgrounds, as well as femocrats in charge of gender equality at state level Figures of Femonationalism 

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have endorsed anti-­Islam positions in the name of ­women’s rights. On the intellectual front, several well-­known feminist journalists have embarked upon the journey of denouncing Islam’s oppression of ­women by invoking secularism in par­tic­u­lar as the best antidote against fundamentalists’ antifeminism. The most well-­known example outside Italy is certainly that of Oriana Fallaci. Though she did not call herself a feminist, Fallaci supported some impor­tant feminist ­battles (for abortion and divorce) in the 1970s and had been associated ever since with liberal feminism. Particularly in her two books The Rage and the Pride (2002) and The Force of Reason (2006), Fallaci, though calling herself an atheist and secularist, depicted Islam as an inferior civilization as compared to western Chris­tian­ ity. She accused Muslims of turning Italian cities into “filthy kasbahs” and denounced the treatment of Muslim w ­ omen by men as barbaric. Another feminist journalist who denounced Islam in the name of secularism and ­women’s rights is Monica Lanfranco. A founder of the feminist magazine Marea, Lanfranco in 2005 coauthored Senza velo: Donne nell’Islam contro l’integralismo (Without the veil: ­Women in Islam against fundamentalism). Not unlike ProChoix in France, Lanfranco’s critique of the condition of ­women in Islam particularly targets relativistic thought: “Cultural relativists go so far as to say that universal ­human rights are a western concept. But why, then, when he uses a telephone or a car does the Mullah not say that it is western stuff, incompatible with Islamic society?”100 In more recent interventions, Lanfranco—­approvingly quoting the work of the Ira­ nian ­human rights activist Maryam Namazie—­has directly invoked secularism as a “­human need,” which is especially urgent in Sharia-­dominated countries where ­women are subjected to men.101 Still in 2003, the influential left-­liberal journalist and feminist Barbara Spinelli wrote, “The veil does not have the same meaning as the cross or the kippah. In much of the world it is a symbol of oppression and she who does not wear it is considered by ­people of the same religion as an apostate, against whom they decree the death penalty. . . . ​The veil means, most of the time, the order established at school by families and clans, against the freedom of the individual.”102 Another well-­known journalist associated with the communist newspaper Il Manifesto, Giuliana Sgrena, published the book Il prezzo del velo: La guerra dell’Islam contro le donne (The price of the veil: Islam’s war against ­women) in 2008, which is entirely devoted to a debate about the Muslim female garment. Repeating a familiar leitmotif con50 Chapter

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cerning the nature of the Muslim veil as a symbol of oppression, Sgrena’s campaign against Islam and Muslim w ­ omen’s alleged lack of right to self-­ determination greatly contributed to spreading the idea among the left that Islam equals misogyny and gender vio­lence. Indeed, the same repertoire was used by the Unione Donne in Italia (udi; Union of W ­ omen in Italy), one of the most impor­tant organ­izations for w ­ omen’s rights founded a­ fter World War II and traditionally associated with the left and the Communist Party ­until the beginning of the 1980s. The udi openly supported the bill to ban the burqa and niqab from public spaces, which was presented to Parliament by the right-­wing politician Souad Sbai in 2009.103 Originally from Morocco, with a past as a journalist for vari­ous Italian magazines, Sbai, who calls herself a feminist, was elected in 2008 as a member of Parliament for Il Popolo della Libertà (pdl; ­People of Freedom). As a right-­wing deputy, Sbai was one of the sponsors of the 2009 bill proposing to ban the burqa and niqab from public spaces and has since emerged as one of the harshest critics of Islam and of gender in­equality in Islamic countries and communities. In 2010 she published the book L’inganno: Vittime del multiculturalismo (The lie: Victims of multiculturalism), in which, clearly echoing Okin’s famous essay, she accuses western multiculturalism of failing to defend mi­grant and Muslim ­women’s rights. While considering ­these prominent right-­wing self-­appointed feminists and rescuers of Muslim ­women in Italy, it is impossible not to mention Daniela Santanchè. As an mp for the postfascist party an ­under Berlusconi’s government, Santanchè in 2006 proposed to ban the veil in public schools. In 2007, she embarked upon a harsh Islam-­hatred campaign ­after the murder of Hina Saleem by Saleem’s Pakistani ­father and other ­family members, a case that shook the country for months. As Ruba Salih puts it, “Hina was to become the emblem of a national campaign against what was represented in the media as genetically-­based Islamic gendered vio­lence. Particularly striking ­were the photo­graphs circulating in the media. One in par­tic­u­lar became the official picture, and portrayed Hina wearing blue-­jeans and a very tight green undershirt showing her belly, like ­those very fash­ion­able among Eu­ ro­pean teen­agers. Evidently the choice of that specific photo­graph was not accidental, but part and parcel of the fabrication of the super-­empowered Muslim ­woman, the heroine who pays the highest price for her desire to challenge Islam and tradition and to be secularized, one of us.”104 Albeit instrumentalizing the cause of Muslim ­women for her personal po­liti­cal Figures of Femonationalism 

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­ attles inside her party, Santanchè’s positions gave her enormous popub larity, allowing her to run in the 2008 national elections for a postfascist co­ali­tion for the position of prime minister. Through an analy­sis of some of the main Italian w ­ omen’s magazines published between 2001 and 2008, Simona Stano showed how Italian feminists predominantly associate the Muslim veil with submission, vio­lence, passivity, and suffering.105 Throughout the 2000s explicit anti-­Islam positions w ­ ere endorsed also by most ministers and representatives of the main state feminism agency in Italy, that is, the Ministry and the Department for Equal Opportunities between Men and ­Women. In 2007, ­under the brief center-­left government led by Prodi, Minister Barbara Pollastrini—­a member of the Demo­cratic Party (pd) and former member of the Italian Communist Party—stated that “the face veil is an offence against the dignity of ­women [and] . . . ​­there should not be any ambiguity [on the burqa question]. Only a straight no!”106 Critical positions against Islam’s alleged backwardness vis-­à-­vis ­women’s rights had been expressed a year earlier by Livia Turco—­then a minister for health and a historical representative of ­women’s rights within the center left. Intervening on the debate on the veil as a symbol of male oppression, Turco proposed to create a “pink lobby” in order to defend the rights of autonomy for Muslim ­women. Her proposal was echoed by the young ­women within the pd who urged Muslim ­women to “adapt to the autonomy and freedom of western w ­ omen.”107 In 2010, the Berlusconi government’s Minister for Equal Opportunities between ­Women and Men, Mara Carfagna, a member of the right-­wing party pdl, commented on the case of Sanaa Dafani—­a young ­woman of Moroccan origin murdered by her ­father—­with the following words: “The story of Sanaa is not a painful exception, but represents the widespread plight of ­women in Islamic countries: a condition of submission and segregation, which they are trying to introduce into our country. In this way, the rights of freedom are denied.”108 Again, the most prominent representative of state feminism in the country, from both right and left, upheld the equation between Islam and ­women’s lack of rights by linking gender vio­lence to ostensibly traditional Muslim practices. All in all, the feminist anti-­Islam front in Italy thus appears rather heterogeneous but nevertheless univocal. Most voices associated with the feminist movement have, indeed, a­ dopted a clear stance against the veil and Islam as quintessentially patriarchal and opposed to western moder52 Chapter

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nity. Critical voices have not been entirely absent, however, although they have been marginalized in a mainstream dominated by t­ hese femonationalist convergences. For instance, young Muslim ­women of immigrant descent, such as ­those associated with the organ­ization Giovani Musulmani d’Italia (Young Muslims of Italy), have promoted initiatives to show how Islam and w ­ omen’s rights are not incompatible.109 In 2008 Sumaya Abdel Qader, who has Jordanian-­Palestinian parents, published a book titled Porto il velo, adoro i Queen (I wear the veil, I adore Queen [the band]), which was widely received as a challenge against repre­sen­ta­tions of Muslim w ­ omen as backward and passive objects at the hand of their oppressive cultures.110 Furthermore, a younger generation of feminists has strongly condemned the Eurocentric and Islamophobic character of the current framing of positions on Muslim ­women. Well-­known antiracist feminists like Vincenza Perilli, Chiara Bonfiglioli, Lidia Cirillo, and Sonia Sabelli, as well as the scholar of Islam Anna Vanzan or Francesca Koch, the president of the Casa Internazionale delle Donne (International House of ­Women), have all attempted to break the hegemonic consensus around Islamophobic antisexism that dominates among numerous Italian feminists, w ­ omen’s 111 organ­izations, and femocrats. In a context of diffused gendered vio­lence, where the murders of ­women perpetrated by Italian men are described in newspapers on a daily basis, the condemnation of Muslim men as the repository of all misogyny and sexism—­these critical feminists maintain—­ amounts to nothing but plain racist instrumentalization. Synchronicities of Femonationalism

To be sure, ­there are several differences between the three contexts ­under examination and the ways in which nationalist right-­wing parties, feminists, and femocrats have articulated this femonationalist convergence. To begin with, when we look at the strategies ­adopted by right-­wing nationalist parties, for instance, we see that whereas the pvv in the Netherlands has endorsed a pro-­gay stance alongside a pro-­women agenda in its stigmatization of non-­western mi­grant and especially Muslim communities, the fn in France has very timidly and contradictorily begun to take distance from its traditional antigay lexicon, and the ln in Italy continues to stick to harshly homophobic language and politics. Furthermore, whereas both the fn and the ln have developed plans and policy proposals on gender issues, Figures of Femonationalism 

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albeit marginal ones with re­spect to their overall po­liti­cal agenda, and have mostly remained conservative in ­matters of reproductive rights and supportive of a traditional idea of the ­family and ­women’s role, the pvv does not have a clear program on ­women’s issues. For the pvv, the lack of gender equality concerns mainly ethnic minorities, a view that has gained increasing currency among Dutch right-­wing and centrist politicians throughout the 2000s. Fi­nally, whereas the fn and the ln have increasingly moved from a strong nationalist lexicon to western supremacist slogans, which are more acceptable in the mainstream media, the pvv’s po­liti­cal rhe­toric has shifted from strong westocentrism to a more explicit ethnic nationalism.112 Yet in spite of ­these disparities, the similarities and astonishing synchrony among the three parties in their invocation of ­women’s rights in anti-­Muslim campaigns seem to prevail. Dif­fer­ent interpretations have been offered to shed some light on this phenomenon. While some scholars consider the instrumentalization of gender equality as an electoral strategy to gain the female vote (usually low for t­hese parties), o ­ thers consider the mainstream focus on the “clash” between cultures as a terrain that facilitates attention to gender issues.113 For ­others the centrality assigned to Muslim and non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen in discussions on mi­grants’ integration into western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties is the result of the general shift of the po­liti­cal spectrum to the right and the latter’s strategic relocation between neoliberal laissez-­faire programs on the economic side, and nationalist anti-­immigration politics on the po­liti­cal side.114 Other scholars maintain that the attention to ­women’s issues in anti-­immigration/anti-­ Islam campaigns demands that we update our understanding of t­hese parties’ new ideology as one dominated not by nationalism, or classical right-­wing motives, but by pop­u­lism. All t­hese interpretations certainly provide impor­tant insights into the femonationalist turn. However, I believe they also tend to overlook the historical and ideological legacies and material interests underpinning t­hese parties’ framing of Muslim and non-­western ­women as victims and redeemable subjects. As I ­will discuss extensively in the next chapters, an examination of the role Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women increasingly play within con­temporary western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties as “potential” cultural and social reproducers of the nation enables us to shed light on the political-­economic dimensions of femonationalism.

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Concerning the feminist side, in all three countries as we have seen, the femonationalist field has been occupied by four main actors: some well-­ known feminist intellectuals and associations endorsing secularist arguments; female right-­wing politicians, including self-­proclaimed feminists of North African or Muslim background, some w ­ omen’s organ­izations and key figures within state w ­ omen’s equality agencies, or femocrats. From the right to the left, thus, ­women within the femonationalist field have become particularly vocal in reinforcing the notion of sexism and misogyny as prob­ lems that primarily affect Muslim communities. It should be noted, however, that ­women’s voices in the 2000s have addressed their concerns about Muslim practices in par­tic­u­lar, and not against mi­grants more g­ enerally— as in the case of the right-­wing nationalist formations I analyzed. It is to Muslim ­women in fact that t­hese feminists, right-­wing politicians, and femocrats have offered help, thereby engaging in what Sarah Bracke aptly termed “rescue narratives.”115 In spite of the numerous differences among them, what seems to unite all t­ hese feminists in a common b ­ attle against Islam is the fundamental belief that western values of emancipation, individual rights, and secularism are best suited to guarantee gender equality. As the previous sections described, Dutch, French, or Italian feminists such as Badinter, Lanfranco, and Dresselhuys; right-­wing feminist politicians of Muslim background like Bougrab in France, Sbai in Italy, and Ali in the Netherlands; or femocrats and equality agencies in all three countries thus share the idea of the supremacy of the western culture when it comes to ­women’s rights. I further discuss this crucial point in chapter 4 when I analyze the concrete ways in which some figures within this anti-­ Islam feminist front have e­ ither implemented, or supported, policies aimed at the emancipation of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women. In conclusion, as the intention to save Muslim ­women from their seeming barbaric culture seems to animate this heterogeneous anti-­Islam feminist front, one should equally ask, “Do Muslim ­women need saving?,” to put it in the anthropologist Lila Abu-­Lughod’s words.116 Did they demand this kind of repre­sen­ta­tion from Dutch, French, and Italian feminists and femocrats? As I noted earlier, in all three countries, antiracist feminist activists and scholars as well as several Muslim ­women’s organ­izations have begun to question the legitimacy of t­hose representing Islam as a homogeneous misogynist entity as well as to challenge the widespread repre­sen­ta­tion that

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sees Muslim w ­ omen only as passive objects and victims. In this sense, the fact that some feminists’ “patronizing” stances in western Eu­rope have now been unveiled and are being exposed to the trenchant critique of Muslim ­women speaks to us of impor­tant transformations taking place within Eu­ ro­pean socie­ties in general and the feminist movement in par­tic­u­lar. The growing presence, visibility, and public engagement of second-­and third-­ generation mi­grant (Muslim and non-­Muslim alike) ­women within ­these socie­ties begins, indeed, to shake the westocentric and falsely universalist foundations of some of the continent’s most dearly felt convictions, challenging feminists to articulate their critique of gender inequalities with a critique of racial oppression and also class exploitation. In chapters  3 and 4, I further discuss how the participation of some feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats in the femonationalist ideological space can be regarded as the expression of that westocentric paternalism that black, antiracist, and non-­western feminists have denounced since the rise of the feminist movement, especially in the Anglophone world. But I ­will also show the deep contradictions that traverse this heterogeneous anti-­Islam feminist front when it practically engages in, or supports, rescuing initiatives addressed to Muslim as well as non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen.

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CHAPTER 2

Femonationalism Is No Pop­u­lism

All nationalisms are gendered; all are in­ven­ted; and all are dangerous. —­anne mcclintock, “No Longer in a ­Future Heaven,” 89

In the second half of the 2000s sociologists and po­liti­cal scientists who sought to understand why the pvv, fn, and ln began to mobilize issues of ­women’s rights in anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns resorted to theories of pop­u­lism.1 A number of ele­ments ­were noted as strikingly dissimilar to traditional far-­right or fascist leitmotifs: the adoption of themes such as gay and w ­ omen’s rights; the emphasis on not just the Christian but also the Jewish roots of Eu­rope; the parties’ growing capacity to attract voters who do not position themselves on the right, or who w ­ ere not a traditional constituency (particularly w ­ omen); the appeal to the ­people as the only legitimate sovereign; and an emphasis on the community rather than the state. A turn to the conceptual apparatus of pop­u­lism was thus regarded as necessary for a clearer understanding of t­hese parties’ seemingly philogynist agendas.2 ­Whether comprehended as the primacy of the charismatic leader over the po­liti­cal program, or the abandonment of classical and outdated ideologies of the twentieth ­century, most theories of pop­u­lism have agreed on a characterization of the populist party as one that attempts to foment the ­people against a challenger to their interests (the state, the po­liti­cal elite, the immigrant, and so forth). In other words, although the term “pop­u­ lism” has been conceptualized in a variety of ways, all definitions concur in what I would call a “formalistic” understanding of pop­u­lism. According to this perspective, pop­u­lism ultimately is the politics of dichotomizing the po­liti­cal space into an “us” (the pure ­people) versus “them” (the corrupt elite or the foreigner). Populist politics, that is, is not defined by its content, but by its form. The instrumental mobilization of w ­ omen’s rights

in anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns by the Dutch, French, and Italian parties I examine in this book could thus be understood in terms of ­these parties’ identification of a clear e­ nemy (the male Muslim and immigrant in this case) against whom the p ­ eople can articulate their anger and demands. The Schmittian formalistic logic of friend/enemy, which defines politics as a battlefield between two supposedly internally homogeneous and conflictual parties—­regardless of the nature of the demands of t­hese parties—is thus regarded as the core of the populist ideology. One should note that it is precisely the formalism of the predominant definition of pop­ u­lism that enables both left-­wing and right-­wing parties and movements to be labeled as populist. Ernesto Laclau—­particularly in his book On the Populist Reason—­has played a central role in establishing and deepening this formalistic approach to the study of pop­u­lism.3 In this chapter I aim to demonstrate that the concept of pop­u­lism is unable to help us to analyze why right-­wing parties support ­women’s rights. In order to lay out my argument, I first reconstruct some of the most influential interpretations of right-­wing pop­u­lism in western Eu­rope. ­Here I pay par­tic­u­lar attention to Laclau’s impor­tant and influential contribution, arguing that its limitation becomes apparent when we consider right-­ wing parties’ sudden embrace of feminist-­friendly themes. On this basis I show that theories of nationalism, particularly as developed by postcolonial feminists and within critical race theories, are better suited to decipher both the novelty of the way in which Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women are represented as victims to be rescued, as well as the historical regularities upon which such repre­sen­ta­tions draw. Ultimately, I contend, if we want to grasp the reasons for the sudden and instrumental mobilization of gender issues by ­these right-­wing parties—­that is, one fundamental dimension of femonationalism—we need to understand pop­u­lism not as the master signifier of con­temporary right-­wing politics vis-­à-­vis ­women and non-­ western mi­grants, but rather as a po­liti­cal style or a rhetorical device whose conceptual signifier lies in nationalism and its historical (racist) institutions. Pop­u­lism in Western Eu­rope

Following in the wake of the debate on western Eu­ro­pean pop­u­lism that began in the 1990s, partly resulting from the appearance of new po­liti­cal formations across the continent a­ fter the fall of the Soviet Union and the 58 Chapter

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crisis of several po­liti­cal systems, the beginning of the new millennium saw a renewed wave of discussions on pop­u­lism.4 This latter debate largely responded to the growth of preexisting right-­wing formations (ln and fn) or the rise of new ones (pvv), in the context of the acceleration of the pro­ cess of integration and expansion of the Eu­ro­pean Union, but also particularly a­ fter 9/11.5 From 2003 onward, it became common to read articles by po­liti­cal analysts and well-­known public intellectuals in the main national newspapers in the Netherlands, France, and Italy that promised to reveal the secret populist ingredient in the success of right-­wing forces.6 Likewise, the number of scholarly publications devoted to the populist phenomenon multiplied. Alongside the astonishing number of definitions referring to pop­u­lism as the distinctive mark of an era—­populism as pathology of democracy, populist Zeitgeist, populist moment—­the label of pop­u­lism has been used for the most varied phenomena, from the Michelin Guide to Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology and the Internet.7 As Dézé pointed out, the word seems to run the risk of falling into that list of terms that “by signifying every­thing, end up signifying nothing at all.”8 Yet as Murray S. Davis might have remarked, it may be that it is precisely the vagueness and ambiguity of pop­u­lism that have nourished the fascination for it among academics and public intellectuals.9 Sociologists and po­liti­cal analysts in par­tic­u­lar have engaged in what is arguably an overextension of the concept of pop­u­lism, proposing that it allows us to understand the heterogeneity and yet uniqueness of the constellation of western Eu­ro­pean parties and movements that do not have their roots in traditional far-­right or fascist organ­izations (with an exception made for the fn in France). Above all, it is the unmediated appeal to the p ­ eople in a demagogic rather than demo­cratic manner that is presented as the main feature of con­temporary populist propaganda, especially in the Netherlands, France, and Italy. Not surprisingly, ­these countries in par­tic­u­lar have witnessed a multiplication of publications on pop­u­lism since the beginning of the 2000s, alongside the growing list of definitions and interpretations. Despite their heterogeneity, most of them can nevertheless be classified according to four main types. First, many scholars consider the identification between the party, or the po­liti­cal movement, and the charismatic leader to be the main feature of pop­u­lism. For t­hese interpretations, the distinguishing mark of con­temporary pop­u­lism is the figure of the meneur des foules (leader of Femonationalism Is No Pop­u ­l ism 

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crowds), which was pop­u­lar­ized by Gustave Le Bon at the end of the nineteenth ­century. According to Jacques Rancière, for instance, “The notion of pop­u­lism restages an image of the ­people elaborated at the end of the 19th c­ entury by thinkers like Hippolyte Taine and Gustave Le Bon, scared by the Paris Commune and by the growth of the workers’ movement: the image of the ignorant crowds moved by the resounding words of the ‘leaders.’ ”10 The meneur des foules is another name for the charismatic leaders who are able to attract and mobilize the masses, to make them believe that they speak through them, that their words are the echo of the vox populi. The notion that the charismatic leader is the most impor­tant ele­ment of con­temporary pop­u­lism seems to be confirmed in the three examples in this book. Without Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders, and the Le Pen dynasty, it would be hard to think in the same way of t­ hese three parties. Furthermore, not only are ­these parties strongly identified with their respective po­liti­cal leaders, but they also pres­ent another classical feature of charismatic power, at least in its Weberian articulation: the claim to constitute a rupture with the previous, dominant po­liti­cal and party system.11 For instance, both the pvv and the ln are relatively recent po­liti­cal formations, which arose in a moment of crisis of credibility of previous po­liti­cal parties and of the legitimacy of the po­liti­cal system in general. The older fn, on the other hand, has more recently coupled its traditional claims of breaking with the mainstream of the French po­liti­cal landscape with a pro­cess of “self-­renovation,” ­under the leadership of Marine Le Pen. The second cluster of definitions argues that the main trait of pop­u­lism consists in its antipo­liti­cal stance, namely, the denunciation of the bureaucratization of politics as the cause for the po­liti­cal system’s distance from the real needs of the ­people. Populist parties pres­ent themselves as the true and only representatives of the grievances that come from below, against betrayal by the po­liti­cal elites. Yet as Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan ­McDonnell correctly point out, the antipo­liti­cal stance is not antisystemic. Populist parties “do not promote values which are extraneous to the system. . . . ​What populists propose to establish is not a new po­liti­cal or economic order. On the contrary, they pres­ent themselves as parties which w ­ ill restore an order that, in their discourse at least, existed in the past and which the errors and misdeeds of the po­liti­cal class, trade u ­ nions, public bureaucrats, big business and high finance have disrupted.”12 In this perspective, it is worth noting that pop­u­lism operates through a precise temporal register. By calling for 60 Chapter

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instant solutions and the restoration of the immediate connection with the p ­ eople, pop­u­lism opposes the longue durée of politics and demands an acceleration of the decisionist moment.13 The pro­cess of Eu­ro­pean integration at the beginning of the 2000s and its impact upon national economies (particularly upon the ­middle and working classes, who w ­ ere the most immediately affected by the introduction of the common currency in terms of a reduction of their purchasing power) is considered to be one of the main reasons for the growth of pop­u­lism. Populist parties did indeed condemn the technocracy of the Eu­ro­pean Union and demanded re­spect for national economies and national po­liti­cal rhythms. As Mabel Berezin puts it, “By moving the centre of po­liti­cal gravity from the polity to the person, from the State to the market, Eu­ro­pe­anization has compromised the bonds of demo­cratic empathy and provided an opportunity for right-­wing populists to articulate a discourse of fear and insecurity.”14 Third, following from the previous characterization, some scholars define pop­u­lism as an “ideological scheme,” which is dif­fer­ent from other po­liti­cal ideologies such as Marxism, liberalism, socialism, fascism, and anarchism.15 One of the main points of differentiation, then, would be pop­u­lism’s lack of an elaborated po­liti­cal doctrine and especially of clear (or at least, explicit) references to specific class interests. Albertazzi and McDonnell, for instance, define pop­u­lism as “an ideology which pits a virtuous and homogeneous ­people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘­others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign p ­ eople of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice. . . . ​This view deliberately avoids conceiving of pop­u­lism in terms of specific social bases, economic programs, issues and electorates. . . . ​ [Thus] pop­u­lism should not just be seen against such backgrounds, but beyond them.”16 Similarly, Cas Mudde defines pop­u­lism as “a thin-­centered ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups: ‘the pure ­people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite.’ ”17 According to ­these interpretations, pop­u­lism’s ideological scheme operates by blending individualism and collectivism together with “an ‘ambivalent’ interpretation of equality.”18 Authors who emphasize the ideological nature of con­temporary pop­u­lism thus usually focus upon the class heterogeneity of its electorate.19 Fi­nally, Laclau has famously attempted purely formalistic definitions of pop­u­lism. Accordingly, par­tic­u­lar parties or movements can be classified Femonationalism Is No Pop­u ­l ism 

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as populist not on the basis of their specific po­liti­cal program and agenda, but rather on the basis of the formal articulation of their demands. For this approach, what makes the emergence of the “­people” pos­si­ble is the specific way in which demands arising from dif­fer­ent subjects come to construct a chain of equivalences. That is, a party or po­liti­cal movement qualifies as populist insofar as it is able to foreground the similarities rather than differences among apparently diverging demands and groups of p ­ eople. It is through the unification of such demands “into a stable system of signification” that pop­u­lism can then blossom.20 Due to its widespread diffusion and particularly its capacity for extension—to such a degree that the three previous characterizations can easily be subsumed to it—­I ­will devote more space to considering this formalistic approach to pop­u­lism. A detailed analy­sis of its strengths and shortcomings ­will enable us to shed light on the limitations of the category of pop­u­lism for understanding the phenomenon of femonationalism. The Limits of Populist Reason: On Ernesto Laclau

In his book On Populist Reason, Laclau developed a sophisticated theory of pop­u­lism as a specific logic of the po­liti­cal. Reacting against the criticisms leveled against pop­u­lism, as the irrationality of the masses or limbo of po­liti­cal indeterminacy, Laclau attempted to demonstrate that pop­u­lism possesses its own “reason.” Thus, it should not be treated ­either as a pathology of democracy or as a marginal epiphenomenon that emerges in determinate moments and that, therefore, is destined to dis­appear once the normality of the po­liti­cal is reestablished. On the contrary, for Laclau, pop­u­lism should be understood as a “po­liti­cal logic” that is distinct from a “social logic.” As he put it, By “pop­u­lism” we do not understand a type of movement—­identifiable with ­either a special social base or a par­tic­u­lar ideological orientation—­ but a po­liti­cal logic. All the attempts at finding what is idiosyncratic in pop­u­lism in ele­ments such as a peasant or small-­ownership constituency, or re­sis­tance to economic modernization, or manipulation by marginalized elites are . . . ​essentially flawed: they ­will always be overwhelmed by an avalanche of exceptions. What do we understand, however, by a “po­liti­cal logic”?  .  .  . ​While social logics consist in rule-­following, po­liti­cal 62 Chapter

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logics are related to the institution of the social. Such an institution, however, as we already know, is not an arbitrary fiat but proceeds out of social demands and is, in that sense, inherent to any pro­cess of social change. This change, as we also know, takes place through the variable articulation of equivalence and difference, and the equivalential moment presupposes the constitution of a global po­liti­cal subject bringing together a plurality of social demands. This in turn involves, as we have seen, the construction of internal frontiers and the identification of an institutionalized “other.”21 In its succinct way, this passage provides us with all the ingredients of Laclau’s definition of pop­u­lism. First, pop­u­lism is not rooted in a determinate sector of society, nor does it represent specific class interests. Consequently, according to Laclau, an “economistic” Marxist framework is unable to grasp its complexity. Second, pop­u­lism possesses its own logic, which is dif­fer­ent from the logic of the social. While social logics follow rules, po­liti­cal logics relate to the “institution of the social.” Thus, Laclau seemed to suggest, the po­liti­cal logic establishes the rules that the social must follow. The po­liti­cal, however, establishes the social through the articulation of demands that are themselves primarily social; it does so according to a chain of equivalences and differences. It is such an articulation that brings about the constitution of a po­liti­cal subject: that is, the p ­ eople, as the populist actor. The po­liti­cal, therefore, can be regarded as the organ­ izing princi­ple of the social. Fi­nally, the constitution of the po­liti­cal subject through the moment of equivalence involves the construction of internal frontiers and the identification of an institutionalized “other.” This latter point is crucial, insofar as for Laclau, “we only have pop­u­lism if t­ here is a series of politico-­discursive practices constructing a popu­lar subject, and the precondition of the emergence of such a subject is . . . ​the building up of an internal frontier dividing the social space into two camps.”22 The dichotomization of the social space takes the form of an “us” counterposed to a “them,” in which the “us” is homogenized and its internal differences are neutralized, at least temporarily, ­because a logic of equivalence prevails over a logic of difference. The dichotomization of the social space into two camps is crucial, for “frontiers are the sine qua non of the emergence of the ‘­people.’  ”23 The latter ele­ment, namely the identification of the Other, or the ­enemy, against which the populist subject constructs its identity, was

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not only a crucial component of Laclau’s theory but in many re­spects was also a common denominator of all theories of pop­u­lism. Indeed, despite the disagreement among scholars with regard to the precise features that define pop­u­lism, the one ele­ment that all of them do identify is its extreme simplification of the social and po­liti­cal space. Accordingly, the simplification of the con­temporary po­liti­cal space operated by most right-­wing populists in western Eu­rope, with immigrants and particularly Muslims called upon to play the role of the Other against which the ­people are mobilized, seems to provide evidence for all ­those theories that see the dichotomizing strategies of populist parties as one of their most impor­tant ele­ments. But can this characterization of pop­u­lism help us understand the mobilization of feminist ideas by con­temporary populist parties? While the identification of an e­ nemy against which the populist subject coalesces might seem to be able to describe accurately the con­temporary anti-­Islam and anti-­immigrant campaigns that so strongly mark populists’ propaganda, how do we then explain how Muslim ­women, and non-­western mi­grant ­women more generally, have come to constitute an exception? In other words, on what basis are they seemingly subtracted from the ­enemy camp? If the identity of the ­people, which is forged in the construction of the populist moment, requires the identification of the Other—­the ­enemy—­then ­under what conditions can this ­enemy be split into two dif­fer­ent camps, that is, the camp of the (male) ­enemy and the camp of the (female) victim? The Schmittian Dimensions of Populist Reason

In order to answer the above questions or, more precisely, in order to show how such questions cannot be adequately answered with formalistic approaches, we can begin by noting that Laclau’s formal definition of pop­u­lism as the politics of the constitution of the p ­ eople into a po­liti­cal subject that homogenizes demands and forges its identity through the identification of an e­ nemy is open to at least three main objections. First, the idea that the ­people is constituted by means of an operation of homogenization through the chain of equivalential demands obfuscates differences and divisions—in par­tic­u­lar, gender differences, but also differences of class, race, and sexual orientation—­that inhabit the supposedly uniform po­liti­cal body called “the p ­ eople.” Second, the claim that it is pos­si­ble to characterize the populist po­liti­cal proj­ect (or indeed any po­liti­cal proj­ect) 64 Chapter

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in a formalistic fashion without analyzing its specific content or po­liti­cal agenda—­namely, without engaging at the “ontic level,” in Laclau’s words—­ risks being profoundly misleading. As Slavoj Žižek duly noted, “The series of formal conditions [Laclau] enumerates are not sufficient to justify calling a phenomenon populist; one needs also to consider the way in which populist discourse displaces the antagonism and constructs the e­ nemy.”24 The formalistic approach tends to abstract from the concrete determinations in which ­these parties articulate their po­liti­cal action and to obscure the specific complex of ideas, princi­ples, and myths by means of which they express their societal vision. It is in fact only by examining the very specific features around which populists attempt to mobilize and create a specific ­people as a definite po­liti­cal subject that it is pos­si­ble to shed light on their recent emphasis on w ­ omen’s rights and on Muslim ­women as victims to be rescued. Fi­nally, Laclau’s formal definition of pop­u­lism in terms of the construction of the ­people by means of the creation of an internal frontier separating it from an Other strongly recalls Carl Schmitt’s characterization of the po­liti­cal as founded in the opposition of friend/enemy. According to Schmitt, “The specific po­liti­cal distinction to which po­liti­cal actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and e­ nemy. This provides a definition in the sense of a criterion and not as an exhaustive definition or one indicative of substantial content.”25 As I discussed above, for Laclau pop­u­lism and the po­liti­cal coincide. Pop­u­lism, that is, seems to be a “kind of transcendental-­formal po­liti­cal dispositif that can be incorporated into dif­fer­ent po­liti­cal engagements,” in Žižek’s effective formulation.26 Just like in Schmitt, the po­liti­cal for Laclau possesses its autonomous logic; it is designated at the formal and not substantial level; above all, the friend/ enemy dichotomy that constitutes its defining mode describes a type of antagonism that is dif­fer­ent from the antagonism derived from economic or class interests.27 But what is impor­tant h ­ ere is that noting the Schmittian dimensions of Laclau’s definition of pop­u­lism allows us to discern at least some of the reasons I believe Laclau’s theory of populism—as well as most accounts that stress the populist core of ­these parties—is inadequate to provide an account of con­temporary right-­wing parties’ “treacherous sympathy for Muslim ­women” (to borrow Leila Ahmed’s characterization of western concerns for Muslim ­women).28 First of all, the shortcomings of Laclau’s definition of pop­u­lism when it comes to explaining the parties’ xenophobic Femonationalism Is No Pop­u ­l ism 

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mobilization of ­women’s rights become apparent when we recall Derrida’s interpretation of the Schmittian concept of the po­liti­cal. For Derrida, Schmitt’s vision of politics is a “full absolute desert teeming with p ­ eople,” a desert where “no ­woman is in sight.”29 In other words, Derrida’s meta­phor acutely points to the fact that the conceptualization of the po­liti­cal as the space of antagonism between friend and e­ nemy (which we find in both Schmitt and Laclau), in its clear resort to a military meta­phor, represents a strong masculine-­muscular conception of politics from which w ­ omen are arguably excluded from the outset. This is not surprising, for, as Tereza Orozco has pointed out, Schmitt’s vitalistic concept of the po­liti­cal was based upon “an authoritarian and repressive masculinity,” one that was so interwoven with his overall model of politics as to make it “the inter-­ discourse of the po­liti­cal.”30 When politics is comprehended as muscular antagonism—as in the friend/enemy metaphor—it seems that w ­ omen can only enter onto the Kampfplatz in order to play the ancillary role of nurses for injured soldiers, or to figure as the victor’s spoils of war, whereby the male winner humiliates his defeated male counterpart by taking possession of “his” w ­ omen. Laclau’s adoption of a Schmittian formalistic and male-­centered dichotomy thus seems to me to limit our understanding as to why right-­wing parties such as the pvv, fn, and ln mobilize ­women’s rights in order both to depict foreign non-­western males as an (often sexual) threat and foreign non-­western ­women (Muslim and non-­Muslim alike) as victims. In other words, Laclau’s resort to masculinist meta­phors of the po­ liti­cal as a battlefield among (implicitly) male enemies does not lend itself easily to decipher both the reasons “national” w ­ omen are enlisted in ­these campaigns and the reasons the ­enemy’s ­women are addressed as casualties to be rescued rather than merely as spoils of war. In opposition to this formalism, I argue that it is only by analyzing the concrete slogans and policies deployed by ­these parties—­that is, their content and not simply their form—­that we can begin to comprehend the above reasons. As I showed in chapter 1, the ­people that is called upon to act against the Other is not, in fact, a shapeless demos, but a specific ethnos, or natio. Accordingly, the ­enemy against which populists call on the p ­ eople to forge their identity is not an empty signifier that could be filled by any collectivity or group but, in the con­temporary context, a determinate po­ liti­cal, national, and economic signifier: namely, the non-­western mi­grant and especially the Muslim.31 They are outsiders first and foremost b ­ ecause 66 Chapter

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they are non-­nationals and ­bearers of differences (cultural, religious, historical, economic, and so forth) that interfere in the chain of equivalences that constructs the ­people as one political-­national subject. In order to make use of the concept of pop­u­lism in any meaningful way to describe parties like the pvv, fn, and ln, therefore, it must be embedded within the conceptual apparatus provided by theories of nationalism. On the one hand, the nationalist perspective, as Alexandre Dézé notes, “offers the possibility of highlighting two dimensions inherent in right wing parties . . . ​their style and po­liti­cal rhe­toric, populist and contestational,” and “their doctrine centered on the defense of national identity and on the xenophobic, preferentialist or directly racist treatment of themes like immigration.”32 Albeit sticking to the definition of pop­u­lism as key to defining radical right parties, Mudde also believes that the “populist radical right is a specific form of nationalism.”33 I thus propose to understand pop­u­lism as a po­liti­cal style or a rhetorical device rather than as the main conceptual signifier that explains the politics and ideas endorsed by right-­ wing parties.34 On the other hand, the identification of the nationalist matrix under­ lying the politics of ­these parties enables us to understand the potent constructions of gender ­orders that nationalism entails. As Anne McClintock puts it, “Despite nationalism’s ideological investment in the idea of popu­lar unity, nations have historically amounted to the sanctioned institutionalization of gender difference. . . . ​Rather than expressing the flowering into time of the organic essence of a timeless ­people, nations are contested systems of cultural repre­sen­ta­tion that limit and legitimize p ­ eople’s access to the resources of the nation-­state.”35 A focus on the gendered side of nationalist ideologies can thus help us comprehend the pvv’s, fn’s, and ln’s increasing attention to ­women’s issues and their proclaimed sympathy for the sufferings of Muslim ­women in par­tic­u­lar. “National” ­Women and the Long Shadow of Nationalism

As I discussed in chapter 1, the right-wing parties paid increasing attention to ­women’s issues in the last de­cade while si­mul­ta­neously embarking upon the denunciation of Muslim and immigrant males as sexual threats. Some of the policies they proposed concerning gender—­particularly in the case of the fn and the ln—­however, related to classical right-­wing concerns for Femonationalism Is No Pop­u l­ ism 

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­ omen’s fertility rates. At the end of the 2000s, Italy witnessed the implew mentation of vari­ous mea­sures to increase “national” w ­ omen’s birthrates. For instance, the Fondo Nuovi Nati (Fund for Newborns) scheme pioneered by the Berlusconi government (which, it should be remembered, included the participation of the ln) entitled ­those who became ­mothers during 2009–2011 to apply for subsidized bank loans and to access benefits aimed at easing the financial difficulties of parenthood. Immigrant parents without Italian nationality, however, ­were excluded from some of ­these benefits, which ­were explic­itly reserved for Italian citizens.36 In France, the fn has begun campaigning for family-­oriented policies, supposedly as a response to a dramatic drop in the fertility rate, particularly among “­women of French nationality.” As they are e­ ager to report, “Of the 832,799 babies born and registered in 2010, only 667,707 of them ­were born to parents who ­were both of French nationality.”37 In the Netherlands, Wilders was at the center of media—­and judicial—­attention for his characterization of Muslims’ fertility rates and ­family reunification as leading to a “tsunami of Muslims” that threatens to overwhelm the country.38 As ­these examples show, t­ hese parties’ alarm over the fall in western Eu­ro­pean ­women’s fertility is strictly related to their privileging of national/ethnic criteria of inclusiveness as well as to their call for national w ­ omen “to reproduce” the nation in a literal sense. The parties are all strong advocates of a type of nationalism based on Volk and Kultur (i.e., ethnicity and culture), which promotes an idea of the nation as an organic ­whole supposedly homogeneous in religious, cultural, and racial/ethnic dimensions.39 Th ­ ese parties articulate a po­liti­cal program that privileges national (or regional) economic interests versus Eu­ro­pean or international interests. Furthermore, they fabricate references to common origins, ethnos, and culture in order to instantiate the bonds of mythical, lost communities, thereby excluding immigrants from this space. For instance, the slogan “Stopper l’immigration, renforcer l’identité française!” (Stop immigration, strengthen French identity!), once adorned the fn’s web page, with a link to its program on immigration policies. Likewise, the pvv proposes to put an end to the entrance of newcomers into the country, to prohibit dual nationality, and to establish national control of state immigration policies: “We bestrijden de dubbele nationaliteit! Nederland moet zelf over het immigratiebeleid gaan, niet Brussel!” (We oppose dual nationality! The Netherlands should decide on immigration

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policies, not Brussels!).40 Fi­nally, the ln, besides endorsing an Islamophobic and anti-­immigration agenda, has also manufactured an entirely new “nationality” by constructing a myth of the origins of northern Italians (i  Padani), who are supposedly descended from the Celts and should therefore worship pagan gods like the Dio Po (the God of the Po River).41 Recognizing that notions such as the Volksnation and Kulturnation constitute the fundamental po­liti­cal substrate of ­these parties’ policies enables us to address the gender dimensions of nationalism. They can already be detected at the iconographic level. The repre­sen­ta­tion of the nation, or the city, by means of a female body is found in numerous ancient cultures. The tendency of Romance languages to attribute the female gender to both nation and city is a further instance of the incipient sexualization of the national community. It was only in the modern era and in the historical-­ political context of the rise of the modern nation-­state, however, that the construction of nationalist ideologies coincided with the elaboration of a specifically gendered imaginary.42 Marianne in France; a ­woman with a crown modeled on the city walls in Italy; a virgin (Stedemaagd) as the personification of the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands: in all of ­these countries ­women have come to embody, or to symbolize, the nation.43 But which ­women and for what purpose? According to Massimo Leone, the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the bourgeoisie coincided with the repre­sen­ta­tion of the modern nation with the body of a w ­ oman “from the p ­ eople,” rather than the traditional figures of goddesses or queens.44 With the loss of the sacral aura that used to surround the monarchy, citizens of the modern state could no longer identify with the power of royalty. Instead, they now needed more mundane and popu­lar symbols.45 This, however, is not the only reason. The portrayal of the nation in the guise of a ­woman enables the naturalization of the nationalist po­liti­cal proj­ect. Unlike the modern state, which was conceived as an “artificial product of an agreement between rational individuals for the tutelage of their rights, the nation is presented as an almost natu­ral datum of history.”46 Though the nation is a social and historical determination—or ­imagined community, in Benedict Anderson’s power­ful definition—­its naturalization allows and reinforces its legitimation since its supposed naturalness entails its necessity, immutability, and entitlement to loyalty.47 As Tamar Pitch argues,

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Although from an historical viewpoint many modern nations are the product rather than the presupposition of the state, they are lived as what legitimizes the latter. In princi­ple, the state is inclusive: anybody can enter the agreement, while the nation is exclusive. One belongs to it by being born into it. The state disregards bodies, while the nation is constituted of bodies. . . . ​The state does not have a body, while the nation does. Which bodies and which body? The bodies of men who are asked to die to defend it and the bodies of w ­ omen, on which its ­future depends. The body of the nation is exclusively female, just as, obviously, its mind is male.48 Therefore, the nation becomes a source of identity and an object of dutiful commitment, on the one hand, due to its identification with the ­mother, the s­ ister, the feminine familial princi­ple that must be safeguarded; and, on the other hand, by means of its association with the natu­ral nuclear ­family, that is, the “­mother” and the “­father” conceived in their hierarchical roles, body and head, motherland and fatherland. Loyalty to the nation equates to filial obedience, as in the image of soldiers and citizens as sons of the nation, enfants de la patrie. In McClintock’s words, the ­family trope “offers a ‘natu­ral’ figure for sanctioning social hierarchy within a putative organic unity of interests.”49 We could also note that the depiction of nations through the iconography of the f­ amily entails their identification with the domestic space: home, Heimat, homeland, and so forth. Consequently, non-­national citizens on national soil remain foreigners, not at home; further, in t­hose nation-­states where the bloodline is the condition for the acquisition of nationality (jus sanguinis), like in Germany and Italy, they are “guests”—as in the well-­known label for immigrants in 1960s Germany, Gastarbeiter (guestworker)—­thus entailing their permanent foreignness to the family-­nation. The repre­sen­ta­tion of the nation as a female body also evokes notions of “genesis,” “birth,” and the “ancestry,” thus operating as a power­ful performative meta­phor for nationalism’s invocation of myths of common origin, common blood, and kinship. Even when, as in settler socie­ties like the United States and Australia, “common destiny” rather than “common origin is the organ­izing princi­ple of nationalism,” as Nira Yuval-­Davis argues, “­there would be an implicit, if not explicit, hierarchy of desirability of ‘origin’ and culture which would underlie the nation building pro­cesses, 70 Chapter

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including immigration and natal policies.”50 For instance, the infamous “white Australia policy,” which extended in dif­fer­ent forms through at least the second half of the twentieth ­century, and the Immigration Act of 1924 in the United States, including the National Origins Act and the Asian Exclusion Act, all aimed at restricting the entrance of non-­European or non–­ north Eu­ro­pean immigrants.51 The iconographic and symbolic centrality of ­women to the nation, however, is deceiving, for while it has constantly been affirmed, ­women ­were at the same time “relegated to the margins of the polity.”52 This is the “paradox” lying “at the heart of most national narratives,” as McClintock puts it, for the role of ­women within nationalist po­liti­cal proj­ects has historically been a “meta­phoric” one, unlike the metonymic role accorded to men.53 The symbolic importance attributed to w ­ omen by nationalist discourses does not in fact refer to woman-­as-­singularity, but rather as part of an organic ­whole whose subjectivity and social role are established on the basis of the functions of the female body.54 For nationalist ideology and its categorizing customs, w ­ omen “­were homogenized, considered not as individuals but as types.”55 The ideal type of femininity as an aestheticized and social construction, whose chief function lies in reproduction, became a power­ful normative ste­reo­type from the eigh­teenth ­century onward. It coincided with the rise of the nation-­state and the development of nationalist rhe­toric, alongside the institution of the f­amily as the center of the national community and of the ­house­hold as the allegory of the private sphere where w ­ omen allegedly find their appropriate role. The rise of modern nations and nationalisms in the eigh­teenth c­ entury went together with the development of what Michel Foucault called the “po­liti­cal economy of population.”56 The nation, its “­future and its fortune,” ­were strictly linked to “the number and the uprightness of its citizens, to their marriage rules and ­family organ­ization,” as well as to their sexual practices.57 Preoccupation with population control was the result of the construction of nation-­ states as sovereign entities whose wealth and power strictly depended on the number and compliance of their citizens. In this context, ­women have been linked to the nation in a twofold manner: qua members of the collectivity, and therefore subjected to the duty of loyalty required from all members, and qua w ­ omen, thus b ­ earers of ascribed roles and distinct tasks, above all that of reproducing the nation. Likewise, ­there are abundant twentieth-­century examples of birthrate policies figuring among the Femonationalism Is No Pop­u l­ ism 

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chief concerns of nationalist movements. One of the most pressing tasks of the Vichy Regime u ­ nder its “national revolution” was the creation of the Commissariat General for the F ­ amily (1941), which aimed to increase the birthrate and to establish the (large) ­family as the basic cell of society.58 “The Nation is not a group of individuals, but a group of families!” wrote Georges Pernot, president of the Fédération des Associations des Familles Nombreuses in his “Note on F ­ amily Policy” in 1940. Similarly, in fascist Italy the National Organ­ization for Maternity and Childhood was instituted with the goal of promoting an increase in the birthrate. The obsession with birthrates u ­ nder Mussolini reached such an extent that unmarried ­people ­were heavi­ly taxed and strongly discriminated against in the ­labor market, whereas families with at least seven ­children ­were tax exempt.59 Yet the control of w ­ omen’s sexuality through the establishment of the female role as that of ­mother, guardian of tradition and continuity, and ­bearer of the collective also marks the trajectories of nationalist proj­ects that cannot be equated to the authoritarian and racist models of Pétain’s France or Mussolini’s Italy. Even when nationalism has played the role of a liberating force, such as in the context of the decolonization movements, and the issue of ­women’s rights has accompanied that of national in­de­pen­dence, the results for ­women have often been disappointing. ­After in­de­pen­dence, ­women’s role has frequently been reaffirmed as that of biological reproducers of the (new, liberated) nation. For instance, despite their key role during the Algerian war of in­de­pen­dence in the National Liberation Front, at the end of the conflict Algerian w ­ omen did not gain the equality and rights for which they wished. One of the reasons for this limitation was, as Valentine Moghadam argues, that the strug­gle was one for “national liberation, not for social (class/gender) transformation.”60 The identification of ­women not as individuals but rather as “­bearers of the collective” and “biological reproducers of the nation” thus lies at the very heart of nationalist proj­ects.61 It is precisely in this capacity that the aforementioned con­temporary mea­sures to give benefits to “national” families for newborns, as advocated by the pvv, the fn, and the ln should be understood. They are designed to encourage “national” w ­ omen to be ­mothers for the nation’s f­ uture generations and thus to ensure the nation’s ethnic homogeneity.

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Nationalism and Non-­National ­Women: Sexualization of Racism and Racialization of Sexism

The questions that we still need to address are why t­hese parties—­while clearly aiming both to keep foreign males apart from “national” ­women and to encourage the latter to reproduce the nation—­si­mul­ta­neously endorsed arguments presenting Muslim and non-­western ­women as victims to be saved? In other words, how can the femonationalist rhe­toric of rescuing Muslim and other non-­western mi­grant ­women possibly combine with an emphasis on defending “national” w ­ omen? If nationalist right-­wing parties aim to preserve the purity of the nation along ethnic and racial lines, why would they want to save non-­national ­women from non-­national men? Do they limit themselves to evoking “rescuing” narratives, or do they propose concrete rescuing policies as well? And ultimately, to what do ­these rescuing discourses and policies amount? While I w ­ ill address the last two questions fully in the next chapter, let me now try to answer the previous questions by discussing how theories of nationalism can help us to explicate con­ temporary right-­wing parties’ portrayal of Muslim and non-­western mi­ grant ­women, unlike their male counter­parts, as redeemable subjects. To make sense of the reasons right-­wing nationalist parties conceive of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant men as oppressors and of ­women as victims to be rescued, I argue that we need to foreground how racism is squarely involved in this dichotomizing pro­cess. My claim ­here is that racism—as both the pro­cess of categorization of certain groups of p ­ eople as inferior according to phenotypical and/or cultural markers, and as the practice of their exclusion—is the necessary corollary of the type of Volk and Kulturnation nationalism that characterizes the parties.62 However, the type of racism t­ hese parties exhibit, as I detailed in chapter 1, operates si­mul­ta­neously and paradoxically through the exclusion of the male and the (conditional) inclusion of the female Other. In order to decode this type of racist double standard that nationalist right-­wing parties apply to non-­western mi­grant men and w ­ omen, we can turn to two intertwined conceptual tools developed by critical race scholars: the “sexualization of racism” and the “racialization of sexism.” On the one hand, the notion of sexualization of racism emphasizes that racism is sexed ­because it relies on dif­fer­ent ste­reo­types of Othered men and ­women—as oppressors and

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sexual threats, and as victims and sexual objects/property, respectively. But it is also sexualized insofar as the racist imagery operates through power­ful sexual meta­phors and desires. That is, racist ideologies express the desire to dominate the Other through the fantasies of possessing the body of the racialized ­woman and of sexually humiliating the racialized man. On the other hand, the notion of racialization of sexism foregrounds the ways in which racism operates through the portrayal of sexism and patriarchy as the exclusive domains of the (non-­western and Muslim) Other. The racist stigmatization of the Other thus depends on the description of the Other’s culture as a sexist hell for ­women, thereby implying the danger of importing such nefarious sexist practices and relations into the West if foreign men are allowed to enter its borders. It is particularly in the United States and France that scholars used ­these notions explic­itly to describe the racist under­pinnings of nationalisms (and colonial imperialism) in the way they portray the Othered man as the “violent misogynist unredeemable Other” and the Othered ­woman as the “submissive victim and physical property” of the white, western male “master.”63 The American sociologist Calvin Hernton, for instance, was the first to use the notion of sexualization of racism in Sex and Racism in Amer­ic­ a (1965) in order to describe sexual ste­reo­types and prejudices about African American men and ­women, which he believed to be part and parcel of racial relations in US history. The myth of African American men’s savagery, their alleged perverse desire for white w ­ omen, and the vivid depiction of the large genitalia of black male bodies in order to emphasize their bestial and dangerous nature ­were all functional, Hernton stressed, to intensifying racist feelings among the white population. Similarly, for Coramae Richey Mann and Lance Selva, “Sexualized racism is not in­de­pen­dent of the issues of power and domination. The manifest character of sexualized racism may best be understood within the context of exploitation and control. To generate white hegemony, Black ­people have been (and are still exploited), and to be the exploited they must be controlled ­either by direct or indirect means. . . . ​One means of controlling the Black man has been the creation and perpetuation of the ‘Black as rapist’ image, which has been most prone to erupt when the power relationship between Blacks and whites has been threatened.”64 The corollary to the image of the black man’s sexualized body as one with incessant lust for white w ­ omen’s flesh was the portrayal of the black w ­ oman’s sexualized 74 Chapter

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body as one endlessly accessible to the white man’s sexual desire, the black ­woman having no other function than to serve white needs. As Hernton put it, “The racism of sex in the United States is but another aspect of the unequal po­liti­cal and economic relations that exist between the races.”65 Or to put it differently, as the white man occupies a position of economic and social power in relation to African American men and ­women, he claims for himself the right of access to the body of the racialized ­woman, which he regards as his property. Hernton also attempted to think of the sexualization of racism as a phenomenon that transcends US borders, a kind of “universal” pattern of racism.66 As he puts it, “If racism is a societal phenomenon, and sexual prejudice is a necessary aspect of racism, then no m ­ atter when or where this phenomenon occurs ­there ­ought to be, despite variations, certain identifiable characteristics which are always pres­ent.”67 In his description of the French colonial brutality in Algeria, Frantz Fanon also captured the sexualized character of racism, or the ways in which images of the Othered sexualized body as a competitor (male) or a possession (female) shape racist nationalist ideologies. Fanon foregrounded in par­tic­u­lar the sexual meta­phor underpinning the obsession the French colonizers had for unveiling the Muslim w ­ oman, which revealed itself more vividly during the “emancipation strategy” that the French regime carried out in the late 1950s.68 One of the main features of the “emancipation strategy” was the unveiling of Muslim w ­ omen, which was also used by psychological warfare experts to humiliate the Algerian liberation army.69 As Fanon put it, “­After each success the authorities w ­ ere strengthened in their conviction that the Algerian w ­ oman would support western penetration into the native society. ­Every rejected veil disclosed to the eyes of the colonialists horizons ­until then forbidden, and revealed to them, piece by piece, the flesh of Algeria laid bare.”70 As noted by Meyda Yeğenoğlu, who draws on Fanon, the sexual fantasy of penetrating the territory and mysteries of the colonies through the unveiling of the w ­ omen was thus also a rape fantasy. In the dreams of the Eu­ro­pean colonizer, the “rending of the veil” of the Muslim ­woman—as Fanon puts it—­“was followed by her rape.”71 And yet one of the most successful means of “repressing any acknowledgement of rapacious intent,” writes Myra Macdonald, “was to construct colonial or imperial interventions as missions to rescue ­women from the brutality and oppression signified by the veil.”72 Femonationalism Is No Pop­u ­l ism 

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The fixation of some po­liti­cal forces in con­temporary western Eu­rope with unveiling Muslim ­women in order to save them from their patriarchal cultures, or with rescuing non-­western w ­ omen from their “exceptional” patriarchy, as I showed in chapter  1, could thus be seen as an instance of sexualization of racism and racialization of sexism. As the previously mentioned examples indicate, the arguments deployed to justify the need for unveiling the Muslim ­woman, or to possess the body of the racialized ­woman as property of the male (white) master, are not novel. The history of western Eu­ro­pean imperialism—­that is, one of the f­aces and pages of “official nationalism” in Anderson’s words—is replete with “civilizing and emancipating missions” that purported to liberate colonized w ­ omen.73 In the case of discussions on the veil, while its portrayal as a symbol of patriarchal oppression is meant to convey the message that sexism is the exclusive domain of the Muslim Other, the proposal (or ­actual laws) demanding Muslim ­women take the veil off performs the “sex fantasy” of dominating their bodies.74 In the French context, several scholars have linked the con­temporary adoption of rescuing narratives aimed at Muslim w ­ omen in par­tic­u­lar to the colonial and racist legacies and institutions of which they are reminiscent.75 When Marine Le Pen complains that immigrant neighborhoods are not safe places for w ­ omen, she is explic­itly invoking the all too nationalist and racist idea that sexism is primarily a prob­lem within non-­western collectivities.76 In the Netherlands and Italy, also, scholars have linked the current framing of Muslim ­women as victims to be saved to the po­liti­cal rhe­toric that was used during colonial times to justify imperialism as a civilizing mission. The Dutch scholars Sarah Bracke and Sarah van Walsum, for instance, commented on the way con­temporary nationalists framed non-­ western communities as enemies of western sexual freedoms by re-­evoking the racist techniques of domination used by the Dutch regime in the colonies.77 Another Dutch scholar even suggests that right-­wing nationalists such as Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders might resort to this sexualized colonial repertoire due to their personal connections with the Dutch East Indies.78 In Italy, too, recently several analysts traced the con­temporary foregrounding of the non-­western and Muslim man as a sexual predator to similar repre­sen­ta­tions of colonial male subjects during fascism. Accordingly, they explored the neglected history of Italian colonialism in Oriental Africa and its sexualized tools of oppressing colonial subjects.79 76 Chapter

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Referring to the racist under­pinnings of the Dutch, French, and Italian right-­wing parties u ­ nder focus in this book as well as to the colonial legacies and sexual fantasies b ­ ehind their nationalist, xenophobic repertoire is thus key to understanding the foregrounding of Muslim and non-­ western mi­grant ­women as victims to be rescued. Above all, it enables us to see how the legacy of ­those fantasies in the context of the metropoles reenacts the unresolved conflict between ex-­colonial subjects and western Eu­ro­pean nationalisms. As the next chapter ­will discuss at length, this is a conflict that right-­wing nationalists in all three countries continue to address by foregrounding male mi­grants as a sexual and sexist threat and female mi­grants as passive objects to be assimilated to models of western womanhood.

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CHAPTER 3

Integration Policies and the Institutionalization of Femonationalism

To legislate culture, without transforming it into a state ideology, is impossible. —­marka valenta, “Pluralist Democracy or Scientistic Monocracy?,” 32 Nationalist claims of particularity and the i­ magined singularity of national formations only become intelligible against and within a global grid of formally similar nations and nation states. —­manu goswami, “Rethinking the Modular Nation Form,” 785

In chapter 2 I discussed the discursive appropriation and mobilization of themes of gender equality by right-­wing nationalist parties, in terms of the re-­proposition of the classic theme of w ­ omen and the nation. “National” ­women are meta­phor­ically central to the nationalist proj­ect, I argued, ­because they are identified as “­bearers of the collective” and “biological reproducers of the nation.”1 Understanding the nationalist trope, I further maintained, helps us also account for the narratives that identify Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women as victims to be rescued ­because the type of nationalism ­these parties exhibit operates through a specific gendered and sexual racist binary. I thus drew on notions of sexualization of racism and racialization of sexism to explicate how and why far-­right nationalists apply dif­fer­ent ste­reo­types to male and female foreigners, and portray sexism as the exclusive domain of the racialized Other. Some questions, however, still remain to be answered: have right-­wing nationalist parties in all three countries limited themselves to evoking rescuing narratives, or do they propose concrete rescuing policies as well? And what do t­ hese rescuing discourses and policies mean in practice? This chapter attempts to respond to ­these questions. In par­tic­u­lar, I chart how the theme of gen-

der equality in the context of widespread discourses depicting Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women as “redeemable subjects” has been discussed and concretely implemented within the so-­called civic integration policies for third-­country nationals (tcns). Pioneered by the Netherlands at the end of the 1990s and then ­adopted at both the Eu­ro­pean and member-­state levels from the mid-2000s onward, civic integration policies have become increasingly gendered.2 The main purpose of ­these policies has been to make non-­eu/non-­western immigrants’ long-­term residence dependent upon tested results, or a certified commitment to learn the language, culture, and values of the destination country, in some cases already in the country of origin.3 Practically, this has resulted in several member-­states elaborating integration and pre-­integration procedures that succinctly package what each nation-­state regards as the institutional and moral pillars of their socie­ties, all while led by right-­wing governments. H ­ ere, gender equality and w ­ omen’s rights appear at the top of the list as the most impor­tant shared values of the nation, ones that mi­grants should know and re­spect. Particularly in the Netherlands—­which was the first country to introduce integration programs effectively already in the mi­grants’ countries of origin, as well as to assert that ­women’s and gay rights are tenets of its i­ magined community—­this aspect of civic integration policies has received significant attention within dif­fer­ent strands of scholarly lit­er­a­ture.4 Influential analysts of civic integration policies, particularly in the fields of the sociology of citizenship and multiculturalism, have read the theme of gender equality conveyed by them as the demonstration of the liberal, as opposed to nationalist, character of the new trend in eu member-­states. The po­liti­cal sociologists Christian Joppke and Yasemin Soysal have been among the most prominent supporters of this interpretation in recent years. In a series of texts monitoring the development of new policies concerning the integration of immigrants, ­adopted by the Eu­ro­pean Union and its member-­states since the early 2000s, Joppke has provided impor­tant analyses of what he termed a “seismic shift” from multiculturalism to civic integration.5 Joppke maintains that the “civic integration turn” has represented above all “the weakening of national distinctiveness and a convergence to the general direction and content of integration policy.”6 In the place of the national models of immigrants’ incorporation to which we ­were accustomed up u ­ ntil the 1990s—­the “republican” model in France, the “multicultural” model in the Netherlands, and so forth—­the 2000s, INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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according to this author, marked the transition ­toward a postnational model, driven above all by the pro­cess of Eu­ro­pe­anization.7 Joppke sees the convergence ­toward the postnational model of integration, or civic integration, taking place chiefly in terms of a “cultural standardization” of Eu­ro­pean integration policies. According to his reading, all t­ hese policies require non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants to be familiar with and re­spect values that are not peculiar to a specific nation, but that are “the joint stock” of liberalism: liberty, democracy, and ­human rights, including ­women’s rights and the rights of c­ hildren, as well as the rule of law.8 Even though he recognizes that the implementation of this Eu­ro­pean agenda at the national level might be pursued by means of illiberal and even repressive means—as we ­shall see soon—­nevertheless Joppke insists that such policies “are not born of sources extrinsic to liberalism, such as nationalism or racism, but are inherent in liberalism itself.”9 For Joppke, t­ here are two main considerations that rule out the possibility that civic integration policies have any connection with nationalism. First, they allegedly pres­ent a cognitive rather than a normative character, requiring immigrants to know, but not necessarily to intimately share, such liberal values as w ­ omen’s and gay rights.10 Second, ­these policies, in his view, aim to enhance social inclusion within the l­ abor market, which “is a world apart from old notions of cultural assimilation and nation-­building.”11 Similarly, Soysal argued in a recent article that despite the symbolic status they command, current citizenship and integration tests do not reveal anything distinctive about the particularities of the nation (bar the questions about ordinary symbols such as the flag, the national anthem, the national poet) or a nationally distinct philosophy of integration. A systematic review of the content of ­these tests finds that the largest thematic category addresses the notions of individual rights and democracy. . . . ​The questions to appraise values are primarily related to the rights of the individual, such as civic freedoms, and the rights of the underprivileged sections of society such as ­women and the disabled.12 Thus, “integration, as conveyed by t­hese national-­and European-­level frameworks,” she concludes, “is not a nation-­centered proj­ect.”13 Instead, Soysal argues that civic integration policies both prescribe the individual, rather than the state, as the main ­bearer of responsibility for social cohesion and rely on his or her capacity to be a productive member in the polity. 80 Chapter

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In separate ways and through dif­fer­ent trajectories, both scholars thus maintain that the shift ­toward emphasis on mi­grants’ individual responsibilities and productive capacities is the landmark of the civic integration turn. As a consequence, the focus on individuals’ ­human rights, among which ­women’s rights figure prominently, attests to the truly liberal soul of t­hese policies. To put it differently, ­these authors suggest that the issue of ­women’s rights, with which newcomers are asked by civic integration policies to acquaint themselves and to re­spect, is not peculiar to a national proj­ect and does not mark a nationalist turn. The new civic integration policies thus represent a further step t­ oward the consolidation of Eu­ro­pean states’ liberal vocation and increasingly postnational character, as against the resurgence of nationalism, which Joppke and Soysal regard as a po­liti­ cal proj­ect and ideology extrinsic to liberalism. Though their analyses have received several criticisms, the importance of Joppke’s and Soysal’s position lies, first, in the fact that they have established the terms of the debate on the philosophy that underpins the civic integration turn, such that their perspective stands as a point of reference even for t­hose aiming to take a distance from it.14 In par­tic­u­lar, their analyses have taken hold in arguing that nation-­states’ idiosyncrasies no longer play a discretionary, distinctive role in their policies ­toward the integration of immigrants. Second, and more impor­tant in the context of this book, they managed to make a persuasive argument in locating the shift ­toward the postnational, liberal state of the civic integration policies in the centrality that t­ hese policies assign to the theme of ­women’s individual rights. This chapter aims to challenge this influential interpretation and to demonstrate instead that the opposite of what Joppke and Soysal maintain is actually the case. In par­tic­u­lar, I contend that the concrete national articulation of the themes of gender equality and ­women’s rights within the civic integration national programs is precisely what attests to the per­sis­ tence and even strengthening, rather than the disappearance, of a nationalist (and racist) trope, which I conceive as intrinsic and not extrinsic to liberalism.15 Nationalism and liberalism as well as neoliberalism are indeed historically and socially related po­liti­cal ideologies and political-­economic strategies, rather than being poles apart, as Joppke in par­tic­u­lar argues. In order to begin unraveling how the complex interlocking between nationalism, racism, and (neo)liberalism underwrites the resort to ­women’s rights in both discourses and policies on the integration of non-­eu/non-­western INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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mi­grants, this chapter interrogates in par­tic­u­lar the arguments regarding the purely liberal telos and po­liti­cal vocation of t­hese policies. Chapter 4 then explores in more detail the arguments concerning their economic liberalism. I ­will first reconstruct the recent Eu­ro­pean agenda on the integration of tcns, which has “ratified,” albeit not inaugurated, the civic integration policies increasingly ­adopted by a number of member-­states.16 Second, I ­will illustrate the national translations of the Eu­ro­pean agenda on mi­grants’ integration in the Netherlands, France, and Italy and pay par­tic­u­lar attention to the ways in which the theme of gender equality has been mobilized in integration materials within each of t­hese countries. The evidence drawn from an in-­depth analy­sis of the articulation of the theme of gender equality that appears in national-­level civic integration policies and materials, I argue, is precisely what indicates the considerably nationalist (and racist) po­liti­cal matrix of the civic integration turn, as against t­ hose interpretations that deny the presence or per­sis­tence of such a matrix. Implemented by right-­wing neoliberal governments with the direct support of right-­wing nationalist parties (as in Italy) or strongly influenced by the rising nationalist and xenophobic climate that intensified in the second half of the 2000s (like in France and the Netherlands), civic integration policies are arguably the most concrete and insidious form of the institutionalization of femonationalism. Nowhere ­else as within ­these policies, in fact, is the femonationalist ideological formation more plainly presented as a narrative of rescue targeting mi­grant ­women (Muslim and non-­Muslim alike) according to a nationalist register. Furthermore, nowhere e­ lse does femonationalism more concretely appear as a gendered and racialized interpellation of ­these ­women by the nation-­state apparatus. Civic Integration in the Eu­ro­pean Agenda: L ­ egal Immigration and Formal Equality

Between 2005 and 2011 the Eu­ro­pean Commission (ec) issued three documents regarding the integration of tcns that are of par­tic­u­lar importance for reconstructing the recent Eu­ro­pean agenda on civic integration: (1) the 2005 and (2) 2011 communications from the Commission to the E ­ u­ro­pean Parliament, the Council, the Eu­ro­pean economic and social committee, and the committee of the regions—­hereafter referred to, respectively, as the 82 Chapter

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“2005 Communication” and “2011 Communication”—­and (3) the “Commission Staff Working Paper 2011” that accompanies the 2011 Communication and hereafter referred to as the “2011 cswp.” Th ­ ese documents are significant ­because they both synthesize the decisions taken at the eu level regarding mi­grants’ integration, and they outline the philosophy that informs the new integration agenda across the continent. Due to its importance for analyzing especially the first stages of the implementation of integration policies in the Netherlands, France, and Italy, in this chapter I concentrate mainly on the 2005 Communication, whereas in the next chapter I w ­ ill document the changes introduced by the 2011 Communication and the 2011 cswp. The 2005 Communication, entitled “A Common Agenda for Integration—­ Framework for the Integration of Third-­Country Nationals in the Eu­ro­pean Union,” was the first step at the eu level t­oward establishing a new strategy on the integration of non-­European citizens, ­after the indications contained in the Tampere Program of 1999. The 2005 Communication was focused above all on instituting the common eu framework for integration through the adoption of the so-­called common basic princi­ples (cbps), a list of eleven general guidelines that ­were agreed upon by the Justice and Home Affairs ministers of the eu member-­states in the November 2004 Council of the Eu­ro­pean Union. Notably, the ministers who approved the Eu­ro­pean Council Agreement of 2004 included the right-­wing nationalist Rita Verdonk, minister for Integration and Immigration of the Netherlands from 2003 ­until 2006.17 Overall, the aim of the cbps was to “assist Member States in formulating integration policies” and to be used to “set priorities and further develop” member states’ own goals on integration.18 The eleven cbps all rest upon cbp 1, which frames integration as a “dynamic, two-­way pro­cess of mutual accommodation by all Third-­Country Nationals and residents of member states.” Based on the two-­way princi­ple, the remaining ten cbps articulate the ways in which the main actors involved (i.e., mi­grants and receiving socie­ties) should enact the pro­cess of mutual accommodation. On the one hand, the former are required to “re­spect the basic values of the Eu­ro­pean Union” (cbp 2), to contribute to the “host society” with their “employment” (cbp 3), and to acquire a “basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history, and institutions” (cbp 4). On the other hand, residents of the member-­states and especially institutions at the member-­state level are invited to make “efforts in education” (cbp 5), INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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to adopt antidiscriminatory policies in access to public and private institutions (cbp 6) and demo­cratic arenas (cbp 9), and to create moments of cultural interaction (cbp 7). Freedom of religion should be guaranteed, “­unless practices conflict with other inviolable Eu­ro­pean rights or with national law” (cbp 8).19 In terms of the cbps that emphasize the role of tcns in the integration pro­cess, cbp 4 deserves par­tic­u­lar attention. The requirement that mi­grants acquire “basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history, and institutions” has in fact inspired the policies that now inform a number of countries’ concrete arrangements for integration. In terms of gender equality, what is noticeable in this initial document is the relative paucity of references to it, when compared to the center-­ stage status gender equality w ­ ill acquire in subsequent eu documents (on which more in chapter 4) and within national legislations, as I ­will argue in the next sections. Indeed, t­ here are five mentions of gender in the 2005 Communication. Such references mainly occur in order to recommend the gender mainstreaming of all initiatives aimed at the integration of tcns, particularly in terms of nondiscrimination in the ­labor market and in terms of demo­cratic participation in public and private institutions. At the eu level, in other words, gender equality for non-­eu mi­grant ­women is conceived mainly in terms of equal opportunities and equal access to the public sphere, particularly to the paid workforce. In the following section I ­will illustrate how the Dutch, French, and Italian governments have translated the eu guidelines into concrete provisions. First, I ­will provide an overview of the main changes affecting the Dutch, French, and Italian models of integration ­after the introduction of the civic integration guidelines; second, I w ­ ill explore the gender dimensions of each national program and analyze what they convey in terms of ideas on gender equality and repre­sen­ta­tions of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women. National(ist) Translations of Civic Integration

Between 2005 and 2012, clearly inspired by the Eu­ro­pean guidelines, the Netherlands, France, and Italy ­adopted new laws on non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants’ integration. All of them, however, chose—­particularly at the initial stages of the new laws’ implementation—to privilege the eu indications on cultural integration, in ways that mark a definite turn ­toward 84 Chapter

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cultural assimilation and the exclusion of cultural difference. In the Netherlands from the 1990s onward, successive governments had already begun to develop policies that defined integration as the mi­grant’s commitment to acquiring knowledge of Dutch language and society. ­Until then t­here ­were no integration policies as such, since it was generally thought that mi­grants would eventually return to their countries of origin. Programs for familiarization with Dutch society and culture ­were developed only for Dutch citizens who returned to the Netherlands from the Dutch colonies. Ethnic Dutch ­women in par­tic­u­lar ­were given courses on domestic arrangements and proper Dutch h ­ ouse­keeping.20 With the establishment of “ethnic minorities policies” (Minderhedennota) in the early 1980s—­that is, the policies at the basis of Dutch multiculturalism—­some ethnic minority groups ­were recognized and funded by the state to or­ga­nize schools and recreational activities, thereby complying with the pillarization model.21 In accordance with such a model, integration was conceived as a pro­cess of “emancipation” taking place not within Dutch society but within separate institutions like religious schools and ethnic-­minority broadcast networks that ­were funded by the state. Though “ethnic minorities policies” registered the fact that the Dutch governments had begun regarding immigrants as nontemporary settlers, the maintenance of their native languages was still considered as a way to facilitate their return to their homelands.22 Partly following the release of statistics on mi­grants’ unemployment and social marginalization, and partly due to the international concern with Islamic fundamentalism, in the 1990s multiculturalism was no longer believed to be feasible and integration assumed new meanings, above all that of learning the Dutch language.23 Individualized rather than collective/ethnic group–­based policies for inclusion began to be established by stressing integration programs as ways for non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants to achieve active citizenship and become autonomous individuals. A number of events in the 2000s further contributed to spreading the sense that multiculturalism had failed and that integration policies had to become stricter and more selective. Beside the impact of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, anti-­immigration sentiments w ­ ere also nourished by dramatic domestic events like the murders of the right-­wing anti-­immigration politician Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and of the film director Theo van Gogh in 2004, both related to their anti-­Islam statements (see chapter  1). The assassination of Fortuyn, during the national election campaign in which INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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he was r­ unning for a list taking his name, occurred in the context of (and fueled) a general shift to the right. Playing a prominent role in the ­conservative governments that followed the 2002 elections was Verdonk. In par­tic­u­lar, she was able not only to pass the most restrictive policies on integration in the history of the country, but also to influence the Eu­ro­ pean and other member-­states’ agenda on immigrants’ integration policies. Thus in December 2005, the Balkenende II cabinet, with Verdonk among its ministers, passed the Civic Integration Abroad Act (Wet inburgering in het buitenland), which came into force in 2006. The new law required non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants seeking to migrate to the Netherlands for ­family reunification or for religious ser­vices to demonstrate a basic knowledge of the Dutch language and of Dutch society prior to their arrival. This was the first act of this type by an eu member-­state and set the pre­ce­dent for its adoption in other countries. According to the new provision, pre-­ integration became a precondition for admission into the country, particularly for certain types of mi­grants. As Saskia Bonjour and Doutje Lettinga report, in the parliamentary discussions from 2004 onward, the government referred to certain categories of f­ amily mi­grants as “unfit” for Dutch society. “An impor­tant part of ­these [­family mi­grants] has characteristics that are averse to a good integration into Dutch society. Most prominent among ­these . . . ​is the group of marriage mi­grants from Turkey and Morocco.”24 The selective intent of the policies was concretely implemented by making the Civic Integration Abroad test compulsory for all except ­family members from western nations: eu/Eu­ro­pean Economic Area (eea) citizens, and ­those from Australia, Canada, Japan, Monaco, New Zealand, South ­Korea, the United States, and the Vatican City. Furthermore, f­ amily members of persons holding a visa permit for high-­skilled work (a “blue card”) ­were not required to take the exam abroad. In short, the restrictions on ­family reunification conveyed by t­hese rules did not apply to western nationals, “nor to mi­grants occupying a privileged position on the transnational ­labor market.”25 The Civic Integration Exam abroad is divided into three parts, aiming at examining knowledge of Dutch society (Kennis van de Nederlandse Samenleving), language skills in spoken Dutch (Gesproken Nederlands), and the understanding of written Dutch (Geletterdheid en Begrijpend Lezen). In order to pass the pre-­integration test abroad, applicants are invited to acquire a self-­study kit (which costs €110 at the time of writing) containing self-­study materials aimed at enabling the ap86 Chapter

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plicants to familiarize themselves with the exam requirements. Applicants who pass the exam abroad and receive the machtiging tot voorlopig verblijf (provisional residence permit) in their country of origin must pass the Civic Integration test in the Netherlands within three and a half years of arrival, in order to obtain a permanent residence permit. In January 2007 a new law, that is, the Civic Integration Act (Wet inburgering), followed, regulating the integration procedure upon arrival in the Netherlands. The new law aimed to strengthen the “civic integration” components of the previous 1998 law that had established mandatory participation in language courses for newcomers, but without testing the outcome. Instead, the 2007 law applied a new definition of integration (inburgering) in which participation in courses was no longer sufficient; in the new legislation, integration (which was defined as knowledge of Dutch society and language) needed to be demonstrated through an exam result.26 The Civic Integration exam in the Netherlands is compulsory for all foreigners, with exceptions made for minors and the el­derly, eu citizens, and ­people who had lived in the Netherlands for at least eight years before the age of sixteen. The Civic Integration exam consists of two parts: a practical part and a central part. The practical part evaluates the language skills of the applicant as well as his or her ability to arrange life in the Netherlands.27 The central part includes an electronic practical exam, an oral Dutch-­language test, and a test of knowledge about Dutch society.28 The passing of the exam is certified by an integration diploma, which enables the mi­grant to apply for a permanent residence permit. Unlike in the case of the Civic Integration Abroad exam, ­there is no official self-­study package, so applicants must rely on one of the many study kits available on the market at their own expense.29 At this point, we should recall that the leader of the pvv, Geert Wilders, was a member of Verdonk’s vvd party ­until 2004, that is, the po­ liti­cal force promoting civic integration in Eu­rope, before he founded his own group (the pvv) in 2006. Although advocating an even stricter turn against immigration and demanding the closure of borders for non-­western mi­grants, Wilders mostly supported the civic integration policies’ main provisions for settled mi­grants. The new mea­sures ­were thus largely influenced by a broad set of alliances within the Dutch nationalist right. As in the Netherlands, in France too the adoption in 2006 of a new law on immigration and integration required demonstration of mastery of French and knowledge of the country’s history, institutions, and values in INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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order to acquire ­legal residence in the country.30 The new law, proposed by the then–­Minister of Interior Nicolas Sarkozy (ump), sought to redesign French legislation concerning immigration and integration in three directions: (1) to adopt the strategy of “selective immigration” (immigration choisie) as opposed to “inflicted immigration” (immigration subie) and to ­favor the entry of high-­skilled mi­grants; (2) to promote mandatory “republican integration” (intégration républicaine) for potential long-­term residents through the establishment of the Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration (cai; Contract for Reception and Integration); and (3) to adopt the strategy of codevelopment to achieve “true partnership” with the countries of origin in migration management. The main novelty introduced by the 2006 law is the mandatory signing of the cai. Already established in 2003 on a voluntary basis, since 2006 tcns who intend to ­settle in France have to sign a contract with the state in order to obtain l­egal residency for up to four years before they can be granted permanent residency and become candidates for naturalization. The contract applies to all foreigners with the exception of nationals of Eu­ro­pean Union states, of the eea, and of the Swiss Confederation; of foreigners who have been educated for at least three years in a French secondary education institution overseas; and of foreigners between the ages of sixteen and eigh­teen born in France to foreign parents who already live in France, or whose stable residence has been in France for at least five years since the age of eleven. This law was supplemented in November 2007 with two new provisions: the first establishes an integration contract for the ­family within the framework of ­family reunification (Contract d’Accueil et d’Intégration pour la Famille; caif), and the second introduces mandatory civic integration in the country of origin for f­ amily members.31 The caif requires spouses and parents to sign a contract in which they commit to attend a one-­day training session concerning the rights and duties of parenthood in France. The Civic Integration Abroad exam applies only to ­family members seeking to join their spouses, partners, or parents who had lived in France for at least one year. The exam consists of an assessment of their language skills and knowledge of republican values. If their language skills are deemed insufficient, the applicant is obliged to attend language courses, provided by the French state for ­free. The establishment of the new law on mandatory integration in France resulted from a number of ­factors. Partly, it followed the Eu­ro­pean directives on the rights of non-­eu mi­grants as long-­term residents, on f­ amily re88 Chapter

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unification, and on the f­ ree movement of persons; partly, it was influenced by the indications contained in the 2005 Communication. However, it was also rooted in domestic ­factors (po­liti­cal and institutional) and the history of the French national model of citizenship and inclusion.32 On the one hand, like in the Netherlands, the electoral success of the far right in the 2000s contributed to a general shift t­ oward more restrictive policies on immigration.33 On the other hand, the new discourse of “republican integration” in many re­spects represented the most recent configuration in a longer history of policies and approaches to immigrants’ inclusion in French society marked by an always-­present republican assimilationist temptation.34 Though the term “assimilation” is not used in France—­becoming taboo in the 1960s ­because it was considered too reminiscent of the colonial past, and thus substituted by the less ideologically charged “insertion”—at the end of the 1970s the term “integration” began to be regularly used by the right to demand immigrants’ commitment to French society.35 By the end of the 1980s, however, it extended from the right-­wing vocabulary to the official lexicon of the socialists, who employed it in reference to settled mi­grants, mostly of Maghreb origin. Between 1989 and 1991 a ­whole apparatus on integration was constituted. This included a general secretary for integration, the creation of an inter-­ministerial committee on integration, and the Haut Conseil à l’intégration (hci; High Council for Integration). According to Françoise Gaspard, it was the Muslim head­scarf controversy that provoked “the passage from the discourse to the institutionalization” of integration.36 From the end of the 1980s onward, therefore, integration has been advocated as the antidote against the alleged increasing “communalism” of immigrants, particularly Muslims, of which the female head­scarf was taken to be the most evident sign.37 In Italy too the integration of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants has become a central component of policies and public discourses on migration, particularly following the establishment of the first comprehensive law regulating immigration, the Law N. 40 of March 6, 1998, known as the Testo Unico Sull’Immigrazione (Single Text on Immigration), or “Legge Turco-­Napolitano.” It would not be u ­ ntil the beginning of the 2000s, however, that the link between immigration management and integration consolidated. On the one hand, this was due to the Italian po­liti­cal landscape shifting to the right. ­Here, as discussed in chapter 1, migration was increasingly linked to securitarian concerns and Islamophobia.38 On the INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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other hand, the definitive conflation of migration and integration policies ­toward the end of the 2000s was due to the late reception in Italy—­late when compared to the Netherlands and France—of the Eu­ro­pean guidelines on civic integration. Indeed, a decisive step was taken in the direction of the adoption of civic integration policies u ­ nder Roberto Maroni, the Northern League Minister of the Interior in the Berlusconi IV cabinet. In 2009 Maroni passed law 94, part of a “security package” (pacchetto sicurezza), which introduced the obligation for non-­eu mi­grants applying for a visa to sign an “agreement of integration” (accordo di integrazione) with the Italian state. All non-­eu mi­grants aged sixteen and older entering Italy for the first time and applying for a residence permit of at least one year had to sign the agreement of integration. The applicant then receives sixteen credits, which attest to the signatory having a mastery of spoken Italian corresponding to the a1 level and sufficient knowledge of Italian culture and society. The credits can be reduced if the applicant is accused of crimes or administrative fraud. By signing the agreement, the mi­grant commits to achieve an a2-­level mastery of Italian and sufficient knowledge of the “Italian constitution,” “public institutions,” and “civic life” (i.e., school and health system, social ser­vices, ­labor market, and fiscal obligations) within two years from the date of the signature. She or he also commits to send ­children (if any) to school, to achieve a total of thirty credits within two years, and to adhere to the “charter of the values of citizenship and integration” (carta dei valori della cittadinanza e dell’integrazione). If the total number of thirty credits is not reached by the second year, the authorities can grant the applicant one more year to do so. If the signatory is believed to have made no effort to achieve them and the number of credits is zero (or below), the applicant ­will be denied the renewal of the permit and ­will be expelled from the country. With the establishment of the agreement, the philosophy under­lying integration policies in Italy underwent a dramatic change. Integration was now conceived as a “duty” rather than a “right.”39 Furthermore, the difference between immigration and integration policy dis­appeared, and mi­grants had to demonstrate being integrated in order to renew their stay in the country. Italy had become a destination country for mass immigration particularly in the 1990s, and, having established its first extensive law regulating migration issues only at the end of that de­cade, its integration policies have tended to be rather erratic.40 As I mentioned above, it was only at the be90 Chapter

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ginning of the 2000s that integration became a ­matter of debate and po­ liti­cal concern. The reception of the Eu­ro­pean civic integration guidelines in a country with a “weak” tradition on the ­matter, and particularly in a conjuncture dominated by the securitarian and racist agenda of right-­wing nationalists, has thus turned integration policies into a discursively harsh but also practically rather confused pro­cess. Whereas the “regulation concerning the discipline of the agreement of integration between the foreigner and the state” (regolamento concernente la disciplina dell’accordo di integrazione tra lo straniero e lo stato), passed in March 2012, established the main procedures of the agreement of integration, the civic integration component of the new law—­that is, the didactic material to be taught to mi­grants, the courses to be followed in order to improve the Italian language, history, and culture—­has been characterized by confusion and regional idiosyncrasies.

­ ere are significant differences among the three countries in their legTh islation on integration. For instance, while the civic integration didactic program in France is centralized and homogeneous, it is decentralized and heterogeneous in the Netherlands and Italy. Similarly, the existence and severity of the pre-­integration test to be undertaken in the country of origin varies according to the par­tic­u­lar receiving country, as does the category of mi­grants that are required to take the pre-­integration test abroad (excluding, for instance, western citizens in the case of the Netherlands). Nevertheless, they all share an under­lying guiding philosophy: namely, one that establishes knowledge of the country’s language, institutions, history, and “dominant” culture as the fundamental tenet of the ­whole new regulation’s infrastructure. In other words, what­ever the concrete form taken by the civic integration programs in ­these contexts, what is notable is that civic integration policies have an obligatory character, and their nonobservance can be punished by e­ ither financial penalties or denial of a l­ egal residence permit. Furthermore, the requirement that mi­grants possess the knowledge considered crucial to integration in the receiving country turns integration into an a priori condition rather than a pro­cess that occurs over time.41 The new dogma of civic integration since the end of the 2000s in fact conceives of it not as a pro­cess that begins in the country of destination and follows a longue durée of ­trials and mediations—­that is, the natu­ral component of any pro­cess of adjustment to a new societal order, the responsibility INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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for which should fall, above all, on the shoulders of the receiving society’s institutions. Instead, civic integration programs turn the state of “being integrated” into an entirely individual affair as well as, paradoxically, into a prerequisite that the mi­grant should possess before the ­actual contact with the new society begins. This is the case in the Netherlands, where non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants must familiarize themselves with the Dutch language, history, and “culture” before they are allowed entry to the country, and in France and Italy, where newcomers’ integration becomes both a pro­cess of assessing the possession of certain linguistic skills and commitment to re­spect the nation’s values, and a mechanism of “republican indoctrination” whose pace and stages are standardized and monitored by means of contractual obligations. The similarities among the three countries, in other words, do not testify to a shift ­toward a cosmopolitan and nation-­ neutral system of acquaintance with standard, allegedly liberal rules equal among all of them, as Joppke maintains. Rather, both the form (i.e., the integration mechanism “as injunction” that is repeated in all contexts) and the content (the idiosyncrasies and peculiarities of each nation, taught to newcomers through integration materials, as we s­ hall see in the following sections) of the new civic integration devices only attest to the per­sis­tence of a substantially nationalist motive. This latter is further demonstrated when we look at the way in which the value of gender equality—­according to Joppke and Soysal, the nation-­neutral ele­ment of the civic integration turn par excellence—­has been concretely translated into ­actual policies and didactic materials for integration. The Gender Dimensions of Civic Integration

As I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the theme of gender equality has become so central to new policies on civic integration that influential po­liti­cal sociologists like Joppke and Soysal interpreted it as an indicator and demonstration of the postnational and liberal (as opposed to nationalist or assimilationist) character of the new turn in the Eu­ro­pean integration agenda. But how is equality between w ­ omen and men concretely discussed and implemented within t­ hese policies? What kind of equality is put forward, and who are the ­women and men targeted by ­these programs at the nation-­state level? For the purposes of an analy­sis of the gender aspects within the new civic integration programs in the three countries, 92 Chapter

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I have employed a multimethod approach. In order to detect the main ways in which w ­ omen’s rights have become an integral part of the new provisions, I used critical discourse analy­sis (cda) of relevant policies, visual materials and didactic materials, in-­depth interviews with key respondents, and participant observation at the introductory sessions that are part of some of the civic integration programs.42 Given that visual materials, didactic materials, and integration sessions are the resources that states have developed in order to portray what they regard as the shared and most impor­tant values of their socie­ties to be shown or taught to newcomers, they constitute the privileged locus for concretely disclosing the ideas of gender equality, the repre­sen­ta­tions of mi­grant men and ­women principally targeted by ­these policies, and, ultimately, the self-­image of the nation offered to the foreigner, as well as the (ste­reo­typical) image of the foreigner held by the state policy makers. In the Netherlands, the emphasis that the new civic integration programs have put upon gender equality as a pillar value of the Dutch social contract is readily detectable in the materials used for not only the Civic Integration Abroad exam but also for the exam required within three and a half years of the mi­grant’s ac­cep­tance in the country. Concerning the exam abroad, one of the most impor­tant documents for the preparation of the exam is the movie Naar Nederland (­Going to the Netherlands). The movie is included in the official self-­study package, which applicants abroad must acquire in order to prepare for the examination.43 Naar Nederland deals with dif­fer­ent aspects of life in the destination country—­history, customs, health, work, childrearing, language, and the exam itself—­emphasizing quite strongly the difficulties of integrating and, thus, the importance of the mi­grant’s goodwill.44 Throughout the movie, mentions of gender equality as a key value of Dutch society are very frequent. For instance, the movie shows topless ­women sunbathing on Dutch beaches, or pictures of ­women in bikinis, presumably in order to convey the message that Dutch ­women enjoy sexual freedom and that nudity is not taboo.45 In one scene images of a man undertaking domestic chores in the kitchen are accompanied by the narration, “­Don’t be surprised if you see a man standing at the cooker with an apron on ­because in many families men and ­women fulfill the same roles.” In another section, the narrator stresses how be­hav­iors that non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants might consider culture-­based (like genital mutilations) or private business (like domestic vio­lence) are forbidden by INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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Dutch law and severely sanctioned in the country. But the longest sections of the movie, conveying clear messages addressed to non-­eu/non-­ western mi­grant ­women, concern work and ­children’s education. While I ­will deal with the former in chapter 4, let me now briefly examine the latter. The movie explains that the best upbringing comes from a ­mother—­and it is especially ­mothers who are mentioned ­here—­who gets involved in her c­ hildren’s education by ­going into the school, engaging in its activities, and talking to the teachers. This ­whole message is expressed by showing the example of a young ­mother of Moroccan origin who wears a scarf and organizes playtime in her child’s school. The ­whole section on ­children’s education is designed to communicate that “normal” families in the Netherlands are nuclear ones, composed of two parents or sometimes just one, but not enlarged families. Mi­grant ­mothers, thus, are put center stage as essential vectors of integration. The exam material’s focus on proper motherhood stems from the emphasis put by the Participatie van Vrouwen uit Etnische Minderheden (pavem; Participation of Ethnic Minority W ­ omen) commission on privileging the mothering role as an antidote against the failures of multiculturalism. As already mentioned in chapter 1, the pavem commission was established in 2003 by the right-­wing politician Rita Verdonk when she was minister for Integration and Immigration. The stated goal of pavem was to elaborate policies to tackle the alleged “isolated position of ­women from ethnic minorities” in Dutch society. However, as Kate Kirk notes, “The guiding philosophy ­behind the efforts of the commission was ‘If you educate a m ­ other, you educate a f­amily.’ ”46 The main target of pavem, and of the civic integration policies, was in fact non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant and ethnic minority w ­ omen qua ­mothers. Although the requirements for ­family reunification set by Dutch law u ­ nder the Civic Integration Abroad act had as one of their goals reducing the number of f­ amily members, the pragmatic approach of the new provision on the integration of incoming mi­grant ­women was to target them as key mediators in integrating the second generations: that is, to teach them how to become good “Dutchified” parents.47 The gendering of the civic integration turn by means of the targeting of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women as ­mothers had its roots in the conviction that second-­generation mi­grant ­children’s poor educational and work outcomes ­were due to their ­mothers’ supposedly poor societal integration and Muslim background.48 By the same token, 94 Chapter

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f­amily members applying for reunification in the Netherlands had to be obliged to acquire a certain degree of integration (translated as knowledge of Dutch language and society) in order for the country to avoid importing “bad ­mothers.”49 In this way, as Kate Kirk and Semin Suvarieriol note, the “ ‘culturalization’ of the integration debate resulted in more emphasis being placed on issues in the private realm, such as ­family, sexuality, dress, and vio­lence against ­women.”50 The focus on the non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­mother as the key agent of integration is clear also in the logic of the Dutch exam that newcomers must undertake within three and a half years from their arrival in the Netherlands. The practical part of the exam is of par­tic­u­lar interest ­here. One of the ways this part can be passed is through evidence collection, that is, through the preparation of a portfolio demonstrating the applicant’s knowledge of Dutch language and society. Although in princi­ple applicants can choose the subject on which they prepare their portfolio, they are often directed down specific paths during the initial intake meeting at the municipality where they are assigned for their exam.51 Interestingly, the portfolio “Education, Health and Parenting,” or ogo (Onderwijs, Gezondheid en Opvoeding), which covers topics illustrating good parenting models and requires the collection of documents demonstrating the fulfillment of good parenting tasks, is attended mostly by w ­ omen. “As such, not only are the ogo tasks defined as ­women’s tasks, but the contents of this portfolio mainly prepares mi­grant ­women to assume roles as ­mothers.”52 In the Electronisch Praktijk Examen (epe; practical civic integration exam) many of the same themes concerning good parenting are repeated and visually represented by ­women, thereby supporting the idea that parenting is, in the end, the w ­ omen’s job. As Kate Kirk rightly emphasized, ultimately the emancipation of mi­grant ­women is understood as a means to improve the socio-­economic per­for­mance of second generation immigrants through educated mothering and a way to ameliorate social decay in mi­grant neighborhoods through ­women’s participation in civil society. W ­ omen are thus addressed as m ­ others . . . ​ not as individual po­liti­cal and social actors. The quality of a w ­ oman’s citizenship is largely determined by her per­for­mance as a parent and as a neighbor, while that of her husband is mea­sured by his ­labor market participation.53

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Though presented as a tool to promote gender equality and the emancipation of mi­grant ­women, the Dutch civic integration infrastructure in fact supports a traditional and rather unequal idea of the sexual division of ­labor and, ultimately, womanhood. All in all, whereas equality between w ­ omen and men is foregrounded as an achievement that belongs to the fabric of Dutch society—­seemingly in opposition to non-­western cultures where it is often explic­itly assumed to be neglected—­non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women are also sent contradictory messages in which they are encouraged to be both emancipated, nontraditional subjects and good m ­ others. Such an ambivalence, as we ­will see further in chapter 4, traverses the ­whole civic integration program. In France, the emphasis upon re­spect for gender equality as a key component for mi­grants’ successful integration was a foundational moment in the design of the ­whole civic integration proj­ect from the outset. The idea of establishing integration as a “contractual obligation” for non-­eu mi­grants became operative ­after the release of the report entitled Le contrat et l’intégration (The contract and integration), which was prepared by the hci in 2003.54 Crucially, in the report the hci addressed mainly the youth from difficult neighborhoods and ­women with an immigrant background as the priority targets of the contract of integration. Although the hci, unlike the pavem in the Netherlands, was not established specifically to address non-­eu mi­grant ­women’s issues, the working group that elaborated the long section of the 2003 report on gender equality was composed mostly of w ­ omen. Furthermore, the president of the hci in that year was the well-­known female phi­los­o­pher Blandine Kriegel, an advisor to Jacques Chirac and a strong advocate for the French secularist feminist tradition. The prominence assigned to the issue of mi­grant ­women’s rights in the development of the guidelines on the contract of integration was partly the result of the feminization of the issue of mi­grants’ integration dating from the 1989 head­scarf controversy (see chapter 1); but it also emerged from the mobilization of some French feminists who from the 1990s onward endorsed the cause of secularism as the most impor­tant antidote against what they regarded as the constitutively oppressive nature of Islam for ­women. Throughout the hci report, the prob­lems of integrating ­women from a migration background ( femmes issues de l’immigration) ­were mainly identified with their lack of access to, or knowledge of, their civil rights in relation to issues such as forced marriages, polygamy, and genital muti96 Chapter

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lations. Non-­eu mi­grant ­women’s rights w ­ ere thus strongly affirmed in opposition to a ste­reo­typical image of non-­eu and non-­western ­women more generally as victims of gender-­based vio­lence stemming from their religious or cultural affiliations, as well as from what was represented as their oppressive f­ amily life. As article 5 of the 2006 law reads, “Civic education includes a pre­sen­ta­ tion of French institutions and values of the Republic, including equality between men and ­women and secularism.”55 Gender equality is thus given a prominent role as a pillar of France, alongside and even listed before what has been defined as the quin­tes­sen­tial value of the French Republic, namely, secularism (laïcité). As noted by Éric Fassin, French civic integration has become “no longer about equality between races, nor between classes: republican equality has become equality between the sexes.”56 Accordingly, the ­whole integration infrastructure, from the introductory meeting to the civic integration session, repeatedly and explic­itly mentions equality between ­women and men as a key value of French society and also implicitly conveys messages with strong gender dimensions. The integration materials available to mi­grants applying for a visa are mainly of two types: a booklet with a range of general information on how to live in France and a video, which is shown to newcomers during the integration introductory session. The booklet entitled Vivre en France (Living in France), which constitutes the basis for the civic session, includes every­thing that applicants are expected to follow as part of their contractual obligations.57 Divided into seven main parts (France; work; ­family; school; health; social life; practical life), equality between men and ­women appears in the very first part discussing the institutions of France, right ­after the introductory section recalling the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. However, a specific interpretation of gender equality emerges from the section devoted to this topic. Gender equality is, in fact, mentioned mainly in reference to the f­amily. Husband and wife are equal, as the booklet recites, and make impor­tant decisions as equal partners. For instance, the booklet notes that even when the w ­ oman does not work, she signs the ­couple’s tax declaration and she does not need her husband’s authorization to work or to open a bank account. The booklet also refers to parents’ joint authority over ­children and to their joint role in deciding about education. The other parts of the section refer to freedom of marriage and INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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state that forced marriage and polygamy are illegal. The section concludes with the following warning: “In general, remember that housing conditions and resources of polygamous families in France are not conducive to good integration in par­tic­u­lar for ­children.”58 The short video Vivre Ensemble, en France (Living together in France), which newcomers must view during the integration introductory meeting at the integration offices, or the Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration (ofii), mainly repeats the booklet’s contents regarding gender equality in the f­ amily.59 Up ­until 2005 civic integration policies in France targeted especially ­family members, who constituted 50 ­percent of non-­eu mi­grants granted a residence permit.60 Therefore, like in the Netherlands, while the tightening of the entry criteria must be read in light of the new discourse on immigration established by right-­wing governments in the 2000s (one that aimed to stop “inflicted immigration” [immigration subie] and to give priority to “selective immigration” [immigration choisie]), the main goal ­behind the establishment of new policies for integrating ­those who ­were allowed to enter the country was to turn them into emancipated ­women and, above all, good ­mothers.61 As I noted above, the cai was followed in 2007 by an integration contract, the caif, for the f­amily within the framework of ­family reunification. Th ­ ose signing the latter must attend the one-­day course on the rights and duties of parents; failure to do so can be sanctioned with the cessation of f­ amily social benefits (allocations familiales) and could lead to a refusal to renew their temporary visa (carte de séjour) or to grant them a residence permit (carte de resident) and even to expulsion from the country.62 As in the Netherlands, in France the increasing focus upon the ­family as the central unit of integration stems from the idea that the failures of “multiculturalism” began in the deviant mi­grant f­amily.63 The 2005 riots, for instance, which ­were invoked as one of the main indicators of prob­lems in the integration of second-­and third-­generation mi­grants in French society, ­were explained in terms of a lack of discipline or clear parental roles in non-­western mi­grants’ polygamous anomic families.64 Once again, non-­eu mi­grant ­women in par­tic­u­lar are targeted in their role as ­mothers, or cultural reproducers of the ­future generations. As could be read on the website of the Ministry of the Interior, “­Women play an essential role within the pro­cess of integration, especially of their families and c­ hildren.”65 However, the centrality attributed to m ­ others and their role in the integration of ­children, and the portrayal of integration as an opportu98 Chapter

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nity for them and the ­family, is not without strong ambiguities. Whereas non-­eu mi­grant ­mothers, particularly Muslims, are called upon to take responsibility for integrating their ­children, French schools have also become fortresses that are not accessible to many of them, ­unless they accept to also be “like French w ­ omen.” One of the consequences of the 2004 law banning religious symbols from public schools has been that of turning the school premises into spaces in which Muslim ­mothers in par­tic­u­lar are not welcome. All across France t­ here have been numerous cases of Muslim veiled ­women—­sometimes of French nationality—­who ­were not allowed to enter schools ­because of their clothing. The gender equality rhe­toric that informs the civic integration pro­cess in France is thus traversed by deep contradictions: on the one hand, non-­eu mi­grant ­women are strongly encouraged to liberate themselves from the patriarchal cultures supposedly preventing them from knowing their civil rights; on the other hand, they are invited to be good ­mothers, whereby “good motherhood” means conforming to strictly sanctioned models of French parenthood and, above all, womanhood. The foregrounding of gender equality as a pillar of the national social contract is pres­ent also in the Italian case, though the very recent implementation, as well as a certain confusion, of the civic component, makes an in-­depth analy­sis of ­these materials more difficult and of a provisional character. Though the law establishing the agreement of integration was passed in 2009, it became operational only in March 2012. Furthermore, the civic component of the agreement—­that is, the type of materials used in order to make the signatories of the agreement acquainted with the language, history, and culture of Italy—­has not been defined homogeneously, often leading to very dif­fer­ent programs and visual devices being used in dif­fer­ent regions and provinces throughout the country.66 This notwithstanding, we can identify three main sites within which the theme of equality between men and w ­ omen has thus far been operative in the Italian integration agenda: (1) the “charter of the values of citizenship and integration” (Carta dei valori della cittadinanza e dell’integrazione), which newcomers must commit to re­spect and to follow when signing the agreement of integration; (2) the video on the institutions of Italy, which was conceived as the official visual material to be shown to non-­eu mi­grants during introductory sessions held in so-­called permanent territorial centers (centri territoriali permanenti) a­ fter signing the agreement;67 and (3) the INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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i­ nitiatives funded by the Eu­ro­pean Fund on the Integration of Third Country Nationals regarding the insertion of mi­grant ­women into the l­abor market. Whereas I ­will explore this third point in the following chapter, ­here I focus on the first two. The charter puts special emphasis on gender equality in the private realm. Accordingly, “Men and ­women have equal dignity and enjoy the same rights within and outside the f­ amily,” but also “marriage is based on the equality of rights and responsibilities between husband and wife, and therefore it is a monogamist structure. Monogamy unites two lives and makes them co-­responsible of what they realize together, starting from the raising of the ­children. Italy prohibits polygamy as opposed to the rights of w ­ omen.”68 The prominence of the idea of gender equality in the charter therefore seems to suggest that w ­ omen who come from non-­eu (and implicitly non-­western) countries are subject to unequal treatment, especially in the ­family. This assumption is further maintained in three other key passages of the charter. The first concerns domestic vio­lence and forced marriages, which are thereby implicitly assumed not to be unusual in the non-­eu mi­grant f­ amily: “The Italian law forbids any form of coercion and vio­lence within and outside the f­amily; it protects the dignity of w ­ omen in all its manifestations and in any moment of associative life. Freedom of marriage is the foundation of conjugal ­union; it forbids coerced and forced marriage, or marriage between minors.”69 The second concerns the princi­ ple that public areas are not gender-­segregated, thereby alluding to the fear that mi­grants’ (especially Muslims’) backward conceptions might expect the sexualization of space: “The princi­ple of equality cannot be reconciled with the demands to separate, for religious reasons, ­women and men, boys and girls in public ser­vices and at work.”70 The third point concerns the freedom of dress, according to the idea that non-­eu mi­grant ­women, particularly ­those wearing the full veil, do not freely choose their attire. This idea is implicitly contained in the following passage: “In Italy t­ here are no restrictions on p ­ eople’s dress, as long as the attire is freely chosen and does not damage the dignity of the person. Forms of dress that cover the face are not acceptable b ­ ecause they impede the recognition of the person and prevent him/her entering into [a] relationship with other ­people.”71 The video on Italian institutions in the official material shown to mi­ grants during introductory sessions held at so-­called permanent territorial

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centers has the format of a civic education session on the Italian constitution, its fundamental princi­ples, and the civic and po­liti­cal rights of the citizen.72 Though its content does not disclose anything specific about gender equality, a visual semiotic analy­sis reveals impor­tant gendered patterns of symbolism. The setting of the video is that of a tv news show: we see one man and one w ­ oman standing ­behind a desk with a monitor in the background that magnifies the key passages of their “lesson in integration.” They are both of migratory background, speak fluent Italian, albeit with a slightly detectable non-­Italian accent, and address directly an i­magined mi­grant audience. The man, Constantin, is a Bulgarian journalist who has lived in Italy for a long time. He introduces himself to the public and proceeds for five long minutes to introduce the main goals and sections of the session. Constantin also introduces the ­woman, Alison, who “­will support him” in the illustration of the main Italian institutions. We already notice that whereas he introduced himself, she is introduced by him, as an Eritrean “new Italian citizen” who is an expert on migration issues in Italy. She does not say a word and silently waits for five minutes for her turn to speak. Whereas he is dressed in a sober and rather anonymous way, her casual and feminine clothing seemingly emphasizes her “exotic” beauty. All in all, the script and setting of the video reproduce the pattern of gender relations that is typical of the Italian public sphere, particularly in the visual media, whereby the role of ­women is usually that of the tele­ vi­sion presenter’s assistant (valletta), rather than of an equal copresenter. Furthermore, the emphasis upon the Eritrean w ­ oman’s beauty, enacted by means of frequent close-­ups of her face as well as by the contrast between his sober and her colorful clothes, seemingly performs the function of pointing to the male Italian imaginary of the foreign ­woman (from the ex-­ colonies!) as a sexualized and exotic object of desire. Although the still “in-­progress” status of the Italian civic integration pro­ cess does not allow us to infer more complex gender dimensions within its materials and procedures, ­there seem to be at least two ele­ments emerging: first, as in the Netherlands and in France, the idea of gender equality is emphasized, particularly in the private sphere. Ideas of backward and misogynistic practices (forced marriages, polygamy, ­etc.) are implicitly attributed to mi­grants and contrasted with images of Italian and western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties as ­bearers of egalitarian relations between the sexes.

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Second, the ­actual translation of portions of the civic integration component into visual didactic materials betrays the per­sis­tence of rather unequal gender relations within the Italian imaginary and society, as well as of colonial repre­sen­ta­tions of foreign ­women as sexualized objects. Non-­Western Mi­grant ­Women as Cultural Reproducers of the Nation

From this survey of how gender equality has concretely been translated in the civic integration materials of ­these three countries, I argue that civic integration policies foreground non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen according to the two complementary registers proper to nationalist (and as we s­ hall see, colonialist) ideologies. First, non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women are seen as victims to be rescued, injured and exotic subjects lacking autonomy to whom western countries promise shelter and liberation. Second, they are regarded also as the main carriers of the non-­western mi­grant culture itself, the depositaries and reproducers par excellence of its codes, especially on account of their role as m ­ others. It is on the basis of this double nationalist register that current policies on mi­grants’ integration and the centrality they assign to w ­ omen become intelligible. In par­tic­u­lar, by identifying non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women as si­mul­ ta­neously the victims and primary recipients of their “cultures,” integration policies both take for granted their “permeability” to the rescue narratives of the vari­ous Eu­ro­pean saviors and also pinpoint their key role in the potential assimilation of mi­grant communities. Indeed, inasmuch as they are regarded as recipients of culture, non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women, ­these policies arguably maintain, could become allies in the West’s strug­ gle against the oppressive practices of which non-­western communities are deemed to be carriers, if only ­these ­women ­were educated in ­these western Eu­ro­pean cultural values, which could then be transmitted to the second generation. Bearing t­ hese assumptions in mind, we can understand why in all three countries the centrality of ­women to the integration of the mi­grant ­family and community in general, and ­children in par­tic­u­lar, has principally presented two antinomic tiers: one of exclusion and one of inclusion—an antinomy that, as Foucault noted, characterizes any disciplinary norm.73 The tier of inclusion targets non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women as victims, and it emphasizes the importance of gender equality in the ­family 102 Chapter

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and of prioritizing the integration and inclusion of t­hese ­women qua ­mothers. H ­ ere we can see that in spite of the ­great emphasis placed on integration as an individual responsibility, a m ­ atter of personal willingness to integrate, as well as a viaticum for gender equality and w ­ omen’s individual rights—­which Joppke maintains to mark the liberal (albeit repressive) register of the new integration policies—­non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women are not addressed as individuals. They are the “vectors” of integration, the “­bearers” of the collective, and the “bridges” between the hosting and the hosted communities: that is, they embody the mediating role that is assigned to ­women as cultural reproducers of the nation.74 The integration of their ­children depends on them, and the willingness of the community to integrate is mea­sured through them—­for instance, through their willingness to get rid of the Muslim clothing regarded as a clear sign of difficult inclusion.75 The tier of exclusion regards non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women as the symbolic markers of their nation of origin. When civic integration policies demand that non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women adopt a western Eu­ro­pean mothering style, ­these policies see ­these ­women as the embodiment of the other nation. Immigrant w ­ omen, in other words, are seen as the “Trojan h ­ orse” of other identities, other domestic arrangements, other ­children’s education, and other religious practices. The familiarization of immigrants from non-­eu and non-­western countries with the codes of the nation of “destination” must, therefore, proceed by way of the neutralization of their nation of origin. All in all, the new integration policies thus function as a mea­sure that aims si­mul­ta­neously at the de-­nationalization and re-­nationalization of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women. By addressing ­these ­women not as individuals but as ­mothers, wives, and bridges between the western society and the mi­grant community, their equality and autonomy are predicated on recalling the “cultural,” or “national,” difference from which they have to divest themselves in order to comply with the standard of womanhood established in western Eu­ro­pean countries. As Alaoui notes in the French case, The values, as they are presented in the cai, adopt the register of demo­ cratic citizenship but their translation in public discourse remains strongly marked by culturalism. . . . ​The systematic confrontation between “our Republic” and “­these customs” recalls implicitly a repre­sen­ta­tion of

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two systems of values, two visions of the world that are radically dif­fer­ ent, incompatible. On the one hand, pure subjects of rights; on the other hand, pure subjects of culture, ­bearers of a disquieting difference.76 ­ ose interpretations that exclude nationalism from the matrix of Th the civic integration turn, particularly in light of the latter’s emphasis on ­women’s rights, thus clearly miss the point. Though in the pres­ent structuring of the debate ­women are placed center stage, it is the very nationalist register of this debate that in fact overwhelms and overshadows them; their national idiosyncrasy and religion are the particularities that western Eu­ro­ pean states ask non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women—­especially Muslim ­women, in the pres­ent conjuncture—to overthrow in order to be considered qua ­women.77 In a sense the “­woman question” is thus strongly culturalized, or nationalized. And its nationalization, which plays out through the imposition of one national feminine identity over another supposedly antipodal and inferior one, in the end means the racialization of the “­woman question” (see chapter 2). To be sure, the centrality that ­women seem to assume within the civic integration policy turn is therefore one that further reveals both the instrumental nature of the foregrounding of gender equality as well as the racializing dimensions of the femonationalist convergence. Resurrecting the Colonial Civilizing Missions

One of the arguments put forward by Joppke in par­tic­u­lar concerning the liberal vocation of the civic integration turn is that, “in most instances, civic integration is self-­limited to instilling and testing cognitive knowledge, while abstaining from intervening in the inner sphere of morality.”78 Interestingly, he invokes one of the most commented-­upon cases of the mobilization of the theme of w ­ omen’s rights as an illustrative example of the “cognitive” rather than “normative” character of integration policies. As he puts it, “Even the Dutch model—­arguably the harshest civic integration variant in Europe—­shares this self-­limitation: although it strongly insists on re­spect for ‘Dutch norms and values,’ it does not demand adoption of t­ hese same values. For example, when Muslim immigrants are confronted with sexual libertinism in the notorious Dutch information video that many newcomers watch, the gist is not that Muslims are being asked 104 Chapter

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to undress at chilly Dutch beaches but that they are aware this is common practice in this ‘liberal’ country.”79 Such a conviction in the fundamental cognitive aim of ­these policies follows from Joppke’s prediction that, like in the United States, the Eu­ro­pean model of immigrants’ inclusion is moving ­toward a form of Rawlsian po­liti­cal liberalism in which “the integration of society can only occur in terms of a procedural consensus on what is ‘right,’ not in terms of a substantive consensus on what is ‘good.’ ”80 Excellent contributions have compellingly challenged Joppke’s claims by pointing to the “assimilationist” rather than only “integrationist” intentions of civic integration policies, especially in relation to the theme of sexuality and ­women’s and gay rights. It is this theme in par­tic­u­lar that has come to precipitate the “thick public moral,” as Thomas Spijkerboer called it, which immigrants are not simply expected to know but also to share.81 Furthermore, we should note that the images of gender equality conveyed in ­these materials are predicated on the basis of highly derogatory images of non-­western immigrants’ cultural practices, particularly Muslim practices, thereby putting forward the value of gender equality not simply as information that immigrants are required to know, but as an instance of key western values that they must re­spect and to which they must pledge allegiance. Whereas the language of contractualization, as in France and Italy, or examination, as in the Netherlands, might be designed to speak according to a juridical and civic register, asking for mere civic re­spect and not love for the nation, the po­liti­cal language that has pushed ­these policies forward not only explic­itly demands love, but is also strongly marked by “ideological culturalization” that endorses assimilation as the primary requirement for successful integration.82 Joppke’s idea that t­hese policies are not leaning ­toward assimilation is thus highly contestable. However, I would like to take this critique a step further and argue that not only are t­ hese policies vectors of strong normative injunctions, and not simply of cognitive demands, but also that their normative side is further revealing of a nationalist and racializing repertoire, which can be traced back to a colonial legacy. As I illustrated in both the French and the Dutch cases in par­tic­u­lar, the content of the integration material regarding gender equality and w ­ omen’s rights focuses above all on the f­ amily. In France such a focus was strongly advocated by the hci in its 2003 report entitled Le contrat et l’intégration, which as previously noted provided the guidelines for the implementation of the integration contract (cai). In a long section INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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on the rights of mi­grant ­women, the hci stated that its main objective was particularly to advise the legislature on how to enhance ­these w ­ omen’s civil rights, namely, ­those “rules concerning the person (personality, status, capacity), goods (property, owner­ship and transfer of property), ­family (birth, marriage, patrimonial rights of the ­family).”83 According to the hci, one of the most pressing prob­lems that mi­grant w ­ omen face in France is the fact that the application of the law of nationality in m ­ atters of personal status and bilateral agreements limit ­women’s rights. The concept of “personal status” [statut personnel] established by private international law is that the person’s status cannot change even though s/he moves from one country to another. . . . ​This rule, designed to facilitate the return to the country of origin, is problematic when applied to persons permanently settled in the country of immigration, or who have acquired citizenship and do not want to return to their country of origin.84 For the hci this is particularly concerning ­because “the conception of personal status is profoundly dif­fer­ent in Muslim countries as compared to that of the French ­legal framework: being of religious inspiration, its content is more extensive in Muslim legislation.”85 The “conflict between foreign ­family law, the international agreement signed by France and the fundamental values of the Republic” affects ­women in par­tic­u­lar. That is ­because “­women are placed at the heart of cultural conflicts that they have to take on and overcome in order to achieve successful integration into French society.”86 On this basis, the hci recommended, first, to privilege the law of residence (loi du domicile) over the law of nationality for immigrants who reside in France on a stable basis; second, it advised that the issue of ­women’s civil rights be assigned sufficient space in the contract of integration so as to raise ­women’s awareness of their rights. The position of the hci certainly reflected a common trope in western discussions on ­legal pluralism and its consequences for minorities and ­women’s rights, one within which gender oppression and gender vio­lence are related to religious law with the effect of producing, as Andrea Büchler puts it, “a binary opposition between culture and religion on the one hand and ­human rights and gender equality on the other, thereby positing culture and ­women’s rights as in competition and viewing ­human rights values and gender equality as external to culture.”87 However, I would like to 106 Chapter

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propose that the centrality of f­ amily norms and w ­ omen’s civil rights should be read also in light of the colonial legacy that strongly, albeit implicitly, marks the repre­sen­ta­tions of mi­grant ­women pres­ent in the civic integration materials. As Emmanuelle Andrez and Alexis Spire explain, the conception ­behind the issue of personal status in France is strongly related to its colonial history. A protective f­ actor for emigrants leaving to conquer distant lands, “personal status” has become at the same time an issue strongly marked by colonial law. . . . ​The exclusion of colonized p ­ eoples from French citizenship resulted in their retention of the personal religious status to which they ­were subjected. . . . ​In the first years of colonization in Algeria, in 1830, the native Algerians ­were not subjected to the civil code and maintained their personal religious Muslim status. . . . ​­Under colonial rule, ­there was therefore l­egal dualism but according to a hierarchy unfavorable to personal status. The colonized certainly did have the possibility to have access to French citizenship, but s/he had first to renounce his/her Muslim personal status before engaging in a pro­cess of naturalization that was rarely successful.88 The attempt to put an end to the per­sis­tence of Muslim personal religious status in Algeria developed in the late 1950s as part of the “emancipation” strategy, when a range of initiatives w ­ ere taken with the intention of extending ­legal rights and of “liberating” Muslim ­women. The initiatives undertaken ­under the “emancipation” strategy included the “unveiling campaigns, mobile female medical teams in the rural zones (emsi), improved access to schooling and youth training, joint European-­Muslim ­women’s circles, extension of the vote, and a new f­ amily law.”89 The colonial attempt to impose a new ­family law to regulate the personal status, therefore, was a crucial part of the propaganda machine that legitimated “the civilizing mission through a cata­logue of supposed barbarism, vio­lence and oppression inflicted on Muslim ­women.”90 Not unlike the recent ban of the Muslim head­scarf from French public schools, whose fundamental racism (as I discussed in chapter  2) has been traced back to its colonial legacy, the fixation on f­amily norms as evident in integration policies seems to be animated by a similar (neo)colonial anxiety.91 To be clear, the prob­lem lies not in the attempt to address the issues arising from l­egal pluralism and the maintenance of the personal status for mi­grant ­women. Rather, as INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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Ticktin aptly noted, the prob­lem instead lies in the contradictory stance of the French legislative framework in m ­ atters of gender vio­lence and gender discrimination in the case of mi­grant ­women: while claiming to be working on ­legal devices to liberate them from the discriminatory laws of their countries of origin, the French state—­among ­others—­continues to make the visa for the (often female) ­family member migrating for reunification dependent upon that of the (often male) spouse. This situation makes it extremely hard for mi­grant ­women in par­tic­u­lar to denounce cases of sexual and/or domestic vio­lence b ­ ecause they fear expulsion from the country.92 In the Netherlands, where the interpellatory character of the contract is substituted by the logic of assessment of the integration exam, the themes of w ­ omen’s rights and gender equality are evoked both through the depiction of non-­eu/non-­western ­women as victims of gendered vio­lence—­ with a clear emphasis on Muslims—­and through their identification as potential agents of integration once they are molded into properly Dutch m ­ others.93 However, it should be emphasized that the molding pro­cess that non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women in par­tic­u­lar are required to go through regarding mothering roles applies to t­hose w ­ omen who have already gone through a se­lection pro­cess in the country of origin, namely, through the compulsory language and civic integration exam. As a ­matter of fact, t­hese policies target mostly p ­ eople applying for the purpose of ­family reunification as the spouse, partner, parent, or child of a person who resides in the Netherlands, whereby the majority of applicants are ­women. Furthermore, ­these policies apply not simply to applicants from outside the eu, but from non-­western countries, to t­ hose who are not following a high-­skilled l­abor mi­grant and who are sponsored by a f­ amily member in the Netherlands who has sufficient long-­term means of support. Commenting on ­these policies, Sarah van Walsum recalled the words of Rita Verdonk—­the main initiator of the civic integration turn in the country as well as in Europe—­who advertised t­ hese policies as aimed at defending Dutch progressive norms regarding sexuality and ­women’s rights from backward ­family values.94 As van Walsum puts it, “In linking exotic ­family norms and immigration to formulate a compound threat to the Dutch nation, Minister Verdonk gave vent to anx­ie­ ties whose roots ran deeper than the above named moments of religiously inspired vio­lence could account for. Her words w ­ ere in fact strikingly reminiscent . . . ​of the discourse used in colonial times to distinguish the Dutch, legally defined as ‘Eu­ro­ 108 Chapter

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pean,’ from the ‘native’ inhabitants of the former Dutch East Indies.”95 Van Walsum’s compelling analy­sis shows in par­tic­u­lar that precisely now that Dutch ­family norms are very dif­fer­ent from what they used to be during colonial times, Dutch immigration policies are, conversely, justified in terms that closely recall ­those times.96 This ele­ment is detectable in the fact that the granting of visas as well as access to Dutch citizenship are regulated through the application of national (racial), moral (sexual), and economic (class) criteria that strongly evoke the “colonial technology of race” that was used in the Dutch colonies to distinguish colonizers from colonized, the members of the Dutch ­imagined community from the aliens.97 The colonial register that clearly marks French and Dutch integration materials, particularly when it comes to regulating mi­grant ­family life and ­women’s rights, is thus a further demonstration of the strong nationalist dimensions of the civic integration turn—as well as of the current mobilization of gender equality in anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration campaigns more generally. Taking its lead from discourses and policies concretely elaborated during colonial times, the attempt to “normalize” the non-­western ­family and to turn non-­eu/non-­western ­women into “emancipated” subjects is strictly tied to fundamentally racist conceptions of the Other as the uncivilized, whose admission into the club of the western Eu­ro­pe­ans lies in his, and particularly her, ac­cep­tance of the rules and customs of the allegedly more civilized nations.98 “Civic Integration,” Gender Equality, and the Modularity of Nationalism

As I sought to illustrate throughout this chapter, a number of ele­ments demonstrate the nationalist and arguably racist features of civic integration policies in general, and of their mobilization of ­women’s rights in par­tic­u­lar. First, the portrayal of the Netherlands, France, and Italy as countries where ­women’s rights and sexual liberation are an everyday real­ity is developed in seeming contrast to ste­reo­typical images of non-­western cultures and socie­ties as patriarchal, misogynistic, and homophobic. Second, gender equality is emphasized primarily in the private sphere, thereby both locating within the f­ amily the main locus of gender in­equality in non-­eu/non-­ western (particularly Muslim) socie­ties and addressing mi­grant ­women as victims. Third, mi­grant ­women from outside the eu (and non-­western INTEGRATION POLICIES 

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countries in some cases) are the main targets of integration policies in their role as m ­ others, an ele­ment that is particularly vis­i­ble in the Netherlands and France. In the Netherlands, for instance, such a guiding philosophy not only informed the work of the pavem commission, which set the terms of the gender content of the civic integration programs, but was also practically implemented through the channeling of mi­grant ­women t­ oward the integration trajectory that expects them to forge and demonstrate good mothering skills. Whereas Eu­ro­pe­anization has certainly functioned as a pro­cess of standardization leading to the adoption of similar policies in dif­fer­ent eu countries, the branding of similar values and the articulation of similar discursive devices, a crucial area of discrepancy between the eu guidelines and their national translations exists precisely on the terrain of ­women’s rights and gender equality. At the national level, gender equality is promoted not predominantly in the ­labor market, or in the realm of po­liti­cal participation, as the eu guidelines recommended. Rather, civic integration policies in the Netherlands, France, and Italy have identified above all the ­family as the main social unit within which w ­ omen, on the one hand, allegedly need protection qua victims of backward cultures and, on the other hand, are pushed to assimilate in order to promote their agency as “proper” ­mothers. The ­family is the social “space” upon which nations draw the bound­aries between the noncitizen and the citizen, the foreigner and the “native,” ­those who must demonstrate their allegiance to the nation and ­those whose allegiance is taken for granted by birthright or cultural elective affinities.99 In this sense, the articulation of integration as an “injunction” to immigrants to familiarize themselves with the host nation’s culture constitutes a power­ful moment for both the “renewal of the terms of sovereignty,” in Fiona Jenkins’s words, and the renewal of the terms of the nation as ­imagined community.100 By developing the civic education material to be presented to t­hose immigrants seeking to reside in their territories, nation-­states have used this as an opportunity to revive, or to reinstate, the imagining of their national communities in relation to t­ hose ­Others against whom con­temporary western Eu­ro­pean nationalisms have been reconstituted and reinvigorated. As I discussed in chapter 2, ­women are essential to the i­magined community called the nation, since they are the ­bearers of the collective, the cultural and biological reproducers of the

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nation.101 Moreover, the con­temporary femonationalist ideological formation, as already noted, has been constructed and nourished particularly by the depiction of Islam as inherently misogynist, and of Muslim men as fundamentally unable to re­spect ­women’s rights. It is l­ittle surprise, then, that civic integration policies target non-­eu/non-­western ­women and proj­ect onto them ste­reo­typical repre­sen­ta­tions of Muslim ­women in par­ tic­u­lar. Seeking to mold them into m ­ others who can perform their parenting role, or ­women who can embody femininity according to desirable images of western Eu­ro­pean motherhood and womanhood, non-­eu/non-­ western mi­grant ­women are required to be the ­bearers of the collective that “hosts” them and to become cultural, if not immediately biological, reproducers of the western Eu­ro­pean nation. Civic integration is thus si­ mul­ta­neously a pro­cess of denationalization and renationalization, the way to divert immigrant ­women’s loyalty away from the non-­western nation of origin and ­toward the western nation of destination. The question of the recurring nationalist and colonial trope of ­women and the nation, as well as the similarities between the three countries in the ways they address gender equality in their civic integration materials, allows us to tackle also the prob­lem of w ­ hether such similarities can be regarded as symptomatic of the fading of national models of immigrants’ inclusion and thus as demonstrating the fading of nationalism altogether among the forces animating the civic integration turn. In other words, by addressing such questions we have the opportunity to discuss one of the most deep-­rooted and influential assumptions ­behind positions à la Joppke and Soysal: if member-­states are adopting similar integration policies, then what is specifically national, and thus nationalist, about t­ hese policies? ­Isn’t the convergence between dif­fer­ent eu nation-­states on the issue of the integration of immigrants precisely the indicator of their loss of national particularism and sovereignty in ­favor of the adoption of the supra-­national Eu­ro­pean universality and of a postnational governmentality? First, we can begin by noting that the eu decision-­making pro­cess in general and the standardization of integration policies for non-­eu/non-­ western mi­grants do not occur in a void lacking preexisting national proj­ ects. Rather, as already recalled above, some member-­states in par­tic­u­lar bore enormous influence upon the formalization of civic integration as the new strategy in the Eu­ro­pean agenda vis-­à-­vis non-­eu mi­grants. “The sine

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qua non for having ‘more Eu­rope’ in the area of immigration,” as Sergio Carrera and Anja Wiesbrock demonstrate, “has been the incorporation of ingredients from member states’ own public philosophies and domestic policies on the integration of tcns into Eu­ro­pean public responses. ­These ingredients allow member states to have even wider discretion than that already provided by ec directives when conferring rights and guarantees to tcns. They also constitute tools in the hands of the nation-­state to retain sovereignty over the regulation of migration and identity.”102 This ele­ment alone poses the question of ­whether we should understand the eu supra-­ national level as a po­liti­cal pro­cess that transcends singular nation-­states’ sovereignties in ­favor of a postnational super-­state that demo­cratically synthesizes and represents the po­liti­cal traditions of each of its members, as positions like Joppke’s suggest, or ­whether we should instead conceive of the eu as an institution that is itself driven by t­ hose nation-­states that have the power to push their po­liti­cal and economic agendas. Furthermore, we should question ­whether the pro­cess of Eu­ro­pean integration itself, particularly in the area of migration and mi­grants’ integration—in which an ostensible western Eu­ro­pean “core” is predicated and defined against non-­ European (and mostly non-­western) ­Others—­should not be considered as an instantiation of the nation-­building pro­cess in general. Second, we should question the assumption that nationalist proj­ects entail some kind of distinctiveness in their mission and strategies, supposedly grounded in the uniqueness and exceptionalism of their historical and cultural roots. Rather, they have historically acted according to scripts that are analogous to one another and are thereby condemned to the register of repetition. With her discussion and rearticulation of Benedict Anderson’s concept of the “modularity” of nationalism, or the “double character of the nation form,” the historian Manu Goswami helps us address this point.103 The modularity of the nation form and of nationalism refers to its capacity to be “transplanted” across time and space. As Goswami aptly argues, Nationalist discourse works in and through the simultaneous assertion of similarity with and difference from other nation-­states and nations. . . . ​Nationalist movements and nation-­states claim the patrimony of a culturally singular territorially bounded national community that, in turn, is represented as an instantiation of a universal po­liti­cal 112 Chapter

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and cultural form. The doubled character of the nation form as both universal and par­tic­u­lar mirrors, in this re­spect, the spatial partitioning of the modern inter-­state system into a series of mutually exclusive, formally equivalent, sovereign states. Nationalist movements and nationalizing states pres­ent themselves as universalistic within the confines of the national community, but as particularistic without, that is, in relation to other nations and nation-­states. Likewise, nationalizing states claim to represent the universal interest of a bounded citizenry within a delimited national space. Yet ­these universal interests are configured as par­tic­u­lar within the context of the inter-­state system. Nationalist claims of particularity and the ­imagined singularity of national formations only become intelligible against and within a global grid of formally similar nations and nation-­states.104 In this sense, femonationalism itself—as the recurring ideological trope of ­women as “­bearers” of the nation across time, and as the con­temporary mobilization of ­women’s rights and gender equality within a nationalist po­liti­cal framework across the western Eu­ro­pean space—­can be regarded as an instance of the modular character of the nation and nationalism. The convergence among dif­fer­ent nation-­states’ civic integration materials on the theme of ­women’s rights and gender equality is not, therefore, evidence of the fading of nationalism, but rather it bears witness to the capacity of nationalism and of one of its key leitmotifs, that is, the symbolic centrality of ­women, to be transplanted across dif­fer­ent times, regions, and institutional contexts. One last but crucial question needs to be addressed. My identification of nationalism and racism as the animating forces of the civic integration turn does not amount to taking liberalism out of the picture. Instead, we should question Joppke’s assumption according to which nationalism and racism are forces extrinsic to liberalism (and neoliberalism) and analyze the complex conjuncture in which the “nationalization” of po­liti­cal life emerges in a context of savage economic (neo)liberalism.105 One of the arguments put forward by Joppke is that the focus of the eu civic integration turn on immigrants’ participation in the l­abor market attests to the liberal character of such policies b ­ ecause the market is “a world apart from old notions of cultural assimilation and nation-­building.”106 Part of this argument is motivated, as I mentioned above, by the idea that Eu­rope, like

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North Amer­i­ca, is subscribing to a Rawlsian model of po­liti­cal liberalism in which consensus is sought on what is “right” rather than on what is “good.”107 This idea fails to address the fact that in North Amer­i­ca too the issue of immigrants’ “integration”—­mostly called “assimilation” in the so­ cio­log­i­cal lit­er­a­ture—­does not disavow the question of nation building and national belonging. Rather, mi­grants’ integration (or assimilation) in the United States is premised upon what Jung calls a “racial unconscious,” which underwrites “the prominence and importance of race in the politics of national belonging,” even though it is constantly repressed from debate.108 Such an idea also poses the question of ­whether and in what ways the globalizing forces of the market that animate civic integration policies’ focus on mi­grant l­ abor at the eu level are connected with current nationalist proj­ects in general, and the femonationalist ideology in par­tic­u­lar. As I ­will show in the following two chapters, (neo)liberal policies regarding mi­grants’ economic integration are heavi­ly entangled with the nationalist mobilization of gender equality. Inasmuch as programs claiming to “save” Muslim and non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen from their backward culture are also channeling w ­ omen into specific niches of the ­labor market, an in-­depth analy­sis of the reasons ­behind this operation w ­ ill enable us to capture also the complex (and mostly overlooked) po­liti­cal economy of the femonationalist ideological formation.

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CHAPTER 4

Femonationalism, Neoliberalism, and Social Reproduction

Marginalized though we have been as ­women, as white and western makers of theory, we also marginalize ­others ­because our lived experience is thoughtlessly white, ­because even our “­women’s cultures” are rooted in some western tradition. —­adrienne rich, “Notes ­toward a Politics of Location,” 219

The con­temporary mobilization of w ­ omen’s rights by nationalist parties and within civic integration policies as a way of stigmatizing particularly (though not exclusively) Muslim populations has been profoundly divisive for feminists. Since 9/11 the non-­western mi­grant—­and specifically Muslim—­woman question has indeed been the site of lively debates engaging feminist intellectuals, politicians, and activists across western Eu­rope (and the western world). As I began to discuss in chapter 1, in the Netherlands, France, and Italy some prominent feminist intellectuals and ­women’s associations endorsing secularist arguments, female politicians (some of Muslim background) from left to right, as well as femocrats in key gender equality agencies have publicly denounced Islam as an exceptionally misogynist religion. According to them, Muslim practices—­above all veil wearing—­should be condemned and banned from public spaces. On the opposite side of the spectrum, well-­known feminist intellectuals, antiracist female politicians, and ­women’s organ­izations in t­ hese same countries have criticized such a characterization of Islam not only as an overgeneralization, but as also a reason for increased Islamophobic and anti-­immigration sentiments. In short, they regard ­these positions as ­running the risk, fundamentally, of aligning feminism with racism. It w ­ ill come as no surprise to the readers of this book that my position is close to that of the second group. Furthermore, I believe that we should not consider ­those feminists

and femocrats whose arguments converge with nationalists and neoliberals in anti-­Islam campaigns as being “instrumentalized” by the latter—an approach that is as patronizing to them as is the idea that Muslim ­women are agentless victims to be rescued. In other words, while feminism—as the general notion of w ­ omen’s liberation from patriarchy—­has certainly been opportunistically appropriated by the pvv, fn, and ln in their strug­ gle against the non-­western and Muslim male Other, t­hose feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, female politicians, and femocrats who have openly supported policies repressive of Muslim religious and social practices in the name of gender justice should not be considered as naïve po­liti­cal actors. Rather, they should be regarded as po­liti­cal subjects whose anti-­Islam concerns are informed by specific theoretical paradigms and animated by determined motivations and goals. What remains to be further clarified, however, is the specific nature of such paradigms, motivations, and goals and their concrete implications. Feminist critical voices have proposed thoughtful interpretations of the aforementioned phenomenon. In par­tic­u­lar, in all three countries ­under scrutiny, they have emphasized the framing of feminism, or the participation of some feminists within anti-­Islam agendas, in terms of “new affinities between feminist and sexual politics,” “strategic opportunities” to advance feminism, feminists’ “identification” with a republican/secularist proj­ect, or as a type of sacrificial convergence in which the fight against Muslim patriarchy is placed in antagonism with antiracist b ­ attles.1 However, regardless of their par­tic­u­lar positions and characterizations of the reasons for some feminists and femocrats converging with nationalist right-­ wing parties in the denunciation of Islam, most scholars have focused on the realm of po­liti­cal rhe­toric. They thus have highlighted the arguments, premises, and po­liti­cal implications of the feminist endorsement of anti-­ Islam agendas, but not their economic ramifications.2 While building upon the above interpretations, this chapter demonstrates that the feminist and femocratic convergence with anti-­Islam agendas is not limited to rhe­toric. Rather, it also involves the economic realm and produces very concrete consequences in the lives of the Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women involved as well as for gender justice more generally. I thus propose to shed light on a specific point of such a convergence taking place in the socioeconomic sphere that has hitherto been widely overlooked: namely, the role played by some w ­ omen’s organ­izations and femocrats in the development 116 Chapter

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of the neoliberal economic aspects of the civic integration programs for third-­country nationals (tcns). In the previous chapter I discussed how civic integration programs in all three countries have contradictorily addressed non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women as ­mothers to be educated into models of western Eu­ro­pean parenthood, but also as backward, victimized subjects who require emancipation through subtraction from their alleged segregation in the private sphere. Building upon this approach, the Dutch, French, and Italian neoliberal governments since 2007 have activated policies seeking to promote also non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women’s employment. This chapter charts how the implementation of t­hese policies, however, has functioned through directing mi­grant w ­ omen undergoing civic integration programs ­toward the care and domestic sector, or social reproduction.3 Non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen have been encouraged, that is, to undertake employment activities that have traditionally been conceived as vocationally feminine and against which the western Eu­ro­pean feminist movement engaged in historical ­battles. In other words, even though the explicit intent of t­ hese policies was the promotion of the economic integration and in­de­pen­dence of mi­grant ­women and their participation in the public sphere, they have de facto contributed to locating ­these ­women in the private sphere. What I am interested in highlighting ­here is how ­these policies have been not only supported but in some cases also designed and actively implemented by some of the female politicians, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats who have been prominent in denouncing Islam in par­tic­u­lar for limiting Muslim w ­ omen’s opportunities in the public arena. Given ­these premises, this chapter aims to demonstrate that the current convergence between the anti-­Islam feminist front and anti-­Islam and anti-­immigration nationalist and neoliberal po­liti­cal agendas in the name of ­women’s rights exposes a radical performative contradiction, whose effects are potentially disastrous for ­women’s strug­gles in general. A performative contradiction occurs when t­ here is a mismatch between theory and practice, proposition and per­for­mance, or, for instance, when the princi­ ples that guide po­liti­cal action are contradicted by that very action.4 Though radical performative contradictions can also be conducive to progressive politics—as in Judith Butler’s compelling treatment of the performative contradiction of the notion of universalism of rights in the hands of oppressed subjects—­I h ­ ere use this notion to emphasize above all FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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(though not exclusively, as I ­shall explain in the conclusions) their detrimental consequences.5 Specifically, I analyze the performative contradiction of ­those feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats supporting economic integration policies for non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women in the par­tic­u­lar Islamophobic and racist context in which this contradiction has emerged. This is not the performative contradiction of oppressed subjects (as in Butler’s analy­sis, for instance), but of po­liti­cal subjects who have internalized (wittingly or unwittingly) the presuppositions and role of the oppressors. Thus, I look at ­women’s organ­izations’ and femocrats’ implementation of policies concerning non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women’s economic integration in the realm of social reproduction as a specific “per­ for­mance” that, while being presented as an instrument through which mi­grant (and Muslim) w ­ omen should be enabled to undo gender, instead produces and intensifies both the conditions for racial discrimination and for ­doing and perpetuating gender roles.6 In other words, the feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats who endorse mea­sures proclaimed to be the best means for achieving the goal of ­women’s liberation from assumed patriarchal cultures do not simply sacrifice antiracism in f­avor of antisexism. Rather, they reinforce the conditions for the reproduction at the societal level of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women’s segregation, traditional gender roles, and the gender injustice they claim to be combating. I thus demonstrate that the support accorded by some feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats to economic integration policies for non-­eu/non-­western ­women in the name of ­women’s rights ends up (unwittingly) jeopardizing precisely the latter. In order to understand the conditions of possibility for, and the trajectory of, such performative contradiction, I first illustrate the neoliberal logic ­behind the economic aspects of civic integration programs at the eu level. I thus chart the ways in which the focus on employment as the main area of attention for mi­grants’ integration within the eu agenda has concretely been translated in the case of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women in the Netherlands, France, and Italy. ­Here, I show in par­tic­u­lar how this focus has been supported by the gender equality agencies at the eu level, and implemented by ­women’s organ­izations and femocrats in all three countries ­under scrutiny. I ­will also discuss the specific narrative concerning w ­ omen’s economic in­de­pen­dence that was mobilized in the pro­cess and the concrete outcome of ­these policies in effectively chan118 Chapter

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neling mi­grant ­women ­toward the social reproductive sector. Second, I propose that we must reconstruct the complex feminist genealogy of the notion of economic in­de­pen­dence, and the related concepts of productive work and productivist ethics, as opposed to social reproduction. This critical reconstruction shows that the tension between t­hese two realms, that is, production and reproduction, and the devaluation of the latter by the western Eu­ro­pean feminist movement, has unwittingly contributed to the reconfiguration of social reproduction as a sector occupied by the most marginalized and fragile fringes of the workforce, that is, mi­grant and Muslim racialized w ­ omen. Fi­nally, I discuss how such a feminist performative contradiction is also rooted in what I call the western feminist teleology of emancipation through productive work. I thus show the modalities through which such a teleology of emancipation leads to the projection of the experience of western Eu­ro­pean ­women’s strug­gle for emancipation as representative of the experience, past and ­future, of all ­women. Gendering Integration as Workfare

In the growing lit­er­a­ture on the gender dimensions of civic integration policies across the eu, the fact that ­these policies “interpellate” non-­eu/ non-­western mi­grant ­women not only as cultural recipients and ­mothers (as discussed in chapter 3), but also as waged workers has been, with very few exceptions, entirely overlooked.7 Yet the economic integration of mi­ grant w ­ omen has been one of the primary goals of the Eu­ro­pean guidelines on the integration of tcns, particularly from 2011 onward. As anticipated in the previous chapter, in 2011 the eu released two new documents regarding the integration of mi­grants in Eu­rope: the 2011 Communication and the 2011 cswp (Commission Staff Working Paper). While still defining “the twin pro­cess of mutual accommodation” between mi­grants and receiving socie­ties as the under­lying princi­ple of integration in Eu­rope, the new 2011 Communication registered two impor­tant developments as compared to the 2005 Communication. On the one hand, the changing demographic (i.e., aging) as well as “social, economic and po­liti­cal context” w ­ ere repeatedly invoked as ele­ments that integration policies must consider a priority.8 On the other hand, more emphasis was placed on the “­will and commitment of mi­grants to be part of the society that receives them.”9 In other words, the 2011 documents called attention to the context of the aging of FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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the Eu­ro­pean population and of the deep economic crisis at the time in order to justify more selective criteria in immigration policies. That is, the eu recommended that mi­grants should be allowed in on the basis of the economic needs of Eu­ro­pean countries: thus, t­ hese documents invoked a politics of stricter border control to limit entrance to only workers who could contribute to l­abor shortages for certain eu member-­states. Hence, the 2011 Communication calls integration a “way of releasing the potential of migration,” as the opening section of the new communication puts it. In par­tic­u­lar, “­Legal migration can help to address ­these issues, in addition to maximizing the use of the ­labor force and skills already available in the eu and improving the productivity of the eu economy.”10 Furthermore, in the changed social, economic, and po­liti­cal context, the two most pressing challenges ­were identified as “the prevailing low employment levels of mi­ grants, especially for mi­grant w ­ omen,” and the “rising unemployment and high levels of ‘over-­qualification.’ ”11 As the 2011 Communication further emphasized, Integration is an ever evolving pro­cess, which requires close monitoring, constant efforts, innovative approaches and bold ideas. The solutions are not easy to define but if mi­grants integrate successfully in the eu, this ­will represent a significant contribution to the achievement by the eu of the targets it has set in the Eu­rope 2020 Strategy, namely to raise the employment rate to 75% by 2020, to reduce school drop out rates to less than 10%, to increase the share of the population having completed tertiary education and to lift 20 million ­people out of poverty or social exclusion.12 The centrality of mi­grants’ employment to the Eu­ro­pean agenda on the integration of tcns is thus clearly delineated. Against this backdrop, we can understand better why throughout this document gender equality is considered mostly in relation to employment. As the 2011 Communication states, “Employment rates of mi­grant ­women are substantially lower than both the average employment rate and the employment rates of mi­grant men. As participating in the l­abor market is one of the best and most concrete ways to integrate in society, efforts to reduce t­ hese gaps must target both ­labor mi­grants and mi­grants who come to the eu in the context of ­family reunification or as beneficiaries of international protection.”13 The

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document thus recommends that “introductory programs for newly arrived mi­grants, including language and civic orientation courses[,] . . . ​ should address the specific needs of mi­grant ­women in order to promote their participation in the l­abor market and strengthen their economic in­de­pen­dence.”14 As the above quotations testify, the privileging of work as the main arena of intervention for promoting equality between mi­grant men and w ­ omen at the eu level thus stems from the strict linkage between recent integration/migration policies and the so-­called Eu­rope 2020 strategy. The latter is the master plan elaborated in 2010 by the Eu­ro­pean Commission (ec) to set the par­ameters for fostering the Eu­ro­pean economy by increasing the activity rate of the eu population to 75 ­percent by 2020. The Eu­rope 2020 strategy is the ratification at the eu level of the “job first” princi­ple, which began to be a­ dopted throughout the eu in the late 1990s and has since been activated particularly during the 2007–2011 financial crisis. Accordingly, the solution prescribed by the ec in order to boost the sluggish Eu­ro­pean national economies and to increase their competitiveness on the global markets is to guarantee that three-­fourths of the working-­age population is in some form of employment, that welfare states and public expenditures are dramatically re-­dimensioned, and that social benefits are individually tailored and made conditional upon demonstration of “genuine” unemployment by their recipients, namely, of actively seeking a job, even if unsuccessfully. By adopting the job first princi­ple and the 75 ­percent goal as its organ­izing perspective, it has been argued that Eu­rope is increasingly moving from a regime of welfare ­toward one of workfare. Rather than a system based on forms of general solidarity linked to the rights of citizenship, in other words, Eu­rope is turning t­ oward a system based on selective and temporary contractual relationships, which discriminates between the deserving and undeserving poor and de-­universalizes citizenship rights.15 Although as old as industrial capitalism itself, the current workfare system coincides with con­temporary neoliberal cap­i­tal­ist ideology in a particularly felicitous way; focus upon individual responsibility and commodification of all aspects of social life are, in fact, the landmark of workfare policies.16 Welfare provisions are assessed against market princi­ples, and social schemes—­like unemployment benefits—­are framed as contractual obligations according to which beneficiaries should demonstrate unremitting

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commitment to becoming “useful” cogs in the productive machine in order to receive social assistance. The neoliberal ideology informing workfare policies is even harsher when it comes to certain categories of mi­grants. Whereas “high-­skill” mi­grants are in some countries exempted from civic integration assessments, “low-­skill” mi­grants moving for f­amily reunification, or what French ex-­president Nicolas Sarkozy famously termed “inflicted immigration” ’ (immigration subie), are subjected to severe workfare programs. In most eu countries the participation of newcomers in training activities and orientation courses aimed at speeding up the integration of (certain) mi­ grants into the l­abor market has thus become an obligatory requirement for the granting of residency rights. However, if the ideological infrastructure informing the “cultural” requirements of the civic integration policies is gendered (as I discussed at length in chapter 3), the presuppositions of ­these economic requirements, or workfare mea­sures attached to civic integration, are no less so. The need to promote non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women’s employment as one of the best ways to facilitate their integration is in fact recast as an opportunity that Eu­ro­pean policy makers (including some ­women’s organ­izations as well as femocrats as we ­shall see) offer ­these ­women in order to facilitate their emancipation. The “Strategy for Equality between ­Women and Men 2010–2015,” which represents the work program of the ec on gender equality, states that “to reach the Eu­rope 2020 objective of a 75% employment rate for ­women and men, par­tic­u­lar attention needs to be given to the ­labor market participation of older ­women, single parents, ­women with a disability, mi­grant ­women and ­women from ethnic minorities.”17 Furthermore, the official documents of the ec outlining the par­ameters for mi­grants’ integration pres­ent this notion very clearly; accordingly, work becomes “one of the best and most concrete ways to integrate in society.”18 Integration packages at the national level, therefore, as already noted, “should address the specific needs of mi­grant ­women in order to promote their participation in the ­labor market and strengthen their economic in­de­pen­dence.”19 A proliferation of statistical data, cross-­national studies, and policy documents have increasingly been deployed at the eu level in recent years, highlighting mi­grant ­women’s lower employment and activity rates when compared with t­hose of mi­grant men.20 More or less explic­itly, the lower

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rates of participation of ­these ­women in the workforce are attributed to their backward cultural backgrounds, which are deemed responsible for keeping Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women in a state of subjection and economic dependence and, therefore, not encouraging them to enter the paid workforce.21 In light of this, it is impor­tant to note that in the case of non-­eu/non-­ western ­women who arrive in Eu­rope as ­family members, the emphasis on work as an instantiation of integration is not only informed by the workfare strategy of the eu but also originates in the par­tic­u­lar interpretation of gender equality that has been put forward by the gender mainstreaming agencies of the ec. In spite of the multiple recommendations provided by an ad hoc committee on the gender dimensions of integration, which pointed to the social-­economic, the cultural, and the po­liti­cal as spheres deserving specific consideration when implementing gender equality policies for mi­grant ­women (recommendations that are, in themselves, not unproblematic), the ec official documents list employment as the major sphere in which gendered integration should be pursued.22 Focus upon employment as the main terrain of gender equality for mi­grant w ­ omen, in other words, has been informed by a certain feminist perspective—­which in the con­temporary conjuncture converges with certain dimensions of neoliberalism, as I ­will argue below—­according to which it is work that sets w ­ omen ­free; work outside the ­house­hold has thus been recast as the litmus test for benchmarking the level of equality between men and ­women in society.23 Although not explic­itly presented as workfare, but rather as an instance of gender justice through ­women’s economic in­de­pen­dence, emphasis upon the need to mobilize the female workforce—­including its mi­grant component—in order to achieve the goals set by the Eu­rope 2020 strategy is one of the main points at which the paradoxical convergence of feminism and neoliberal (as well as xenophobic) po­liti­cal agendas takes place. The paradox arises, in the first place, b ­ ecause the neoliberal philosophy of workfare informing the economic strategy of the ec arguably conceives of work as a “duty” for citizens and as the sine qua non condition for noncitizens to reside in Eu­rope, whereas some feminists’ and femocrats’ embrace of the job first princi­ple for mi­grant ­women is still justified by concerns for w ­ omen’s economic autonomy and informed by a conception of work

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as a “right.” In other words, work is foregrounded, on the one hand, as an obligation and, on the other hand, as an entitlement. But what are this paradox’s concrete consequences for the lives of mi­grant ­women at the nation-­state level? Integrating Gender (and Race) as Care Work

The promotion of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women’s participation in the ­labor market has received more attention at the nation-­state level since the establishment of the Eu­ro­pean Integration Fund for Third-­ Country Nationals (eif) in 2007. The fund’s aim is “to support the efforts made by the Member States in enabling third-­country nationals of dif­fer­ ent economic, social, cultural, religious, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds to fulfill the conditions of residence and to facilitate their integration into the Eu­ro­pean socie­ties.”24 In this context, article 4, 2(c), of the same directive (2007/435/ec) identifies mi­grant ­women, alongside ­children, the el­derly, the illiterate, or the disabled, as one par­tic­u­lar group whose integration the eif aims to enhance further. Following on from the Eu­ro­pean directive and seeking to secure the resources provided by the integration funds, since 2007 a number of programs have been a­ dopted to promote the participation of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen in the national ­labor market. Noticeably, in all three countries on which this book focuses, some ­women’s organ­izations and femocrats have been on the front line in putting forward proposals to encourage mi­grant ­women’s integration into the workforce. The case of the Netherlands is particularly emblematic. As discussed in chapter 3, in 2003 the then minister for Integration and Immigration, Rita Verdonk, in cooperation with the minister for Equality Policies, ­promoted the creation of the Participatie van Vrouwen uit Etnische Minderheden (pavem; Participation of Ethnic Minority ­Women) commission. It was composed of six politicians, including three w ­ omen from dif­fer­ ent po­liti­cal parties: Princess Máxima (now queen of the Netherlands), Lilian Callender and Yasemin Tümer, two “well-­integrated” ­women of migration descent originally from Surinam and Turkey, respectively.25 The main task of pavem was to propose concrete policies to tackle the “isolated position of ­women from ethnic minorities” in Dutch society.26 ­Under the motto “If you educate a ­mother, you educate a f­ amily!” pavem elaborated the princi­ 124 Chapter

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ples ­behind the integration study materials and test, which w ­ ere meant to assess mi­grant ­women’s parenting models and be­hav­ior according to criteria informed by notions of “proper” Dutch motherhood (see chapter 3). In 2007 the then minister of Education, Culture and Science, also responsible for gender equality, launched the “Duizend en één kracht” (A thousand and one force) proj­ect, which had been previously designed by pavem. This time the proj­ect targeted mi­grant ­women as (potential) workers. With orientalist overtones already in its very name, the program sought to encourage ­women undergoing civic integration programs to participate in civil society by inviting them to undertake volunteer work.27 In a bizarre twist of means and ends, unpaid volunteer work was presented as the via maestra for reaching the goal of economic in­de­pen­dence. The proj­ect thus stressed the opportunities provided by working as a volunteer for ­those mi­grant ­women who wished to discover their strengths, to assess their capabilities, and thus to be ready for ­future paid employment. As Kirk and Suvarieriol note, the proj­ect was implemented despite the availability of research results conducted by the Dutch Institute for Social Research (scp) that showed that most mi­grant ­women interviewed would not welcome unpaid volunteer work.28 In par­tic­u­lar, they would not wish to carry out the specific type of volunteer work that the proj­ect mostly encouraged them to take: that is, care work in hospitals and ­children’s facilities, or care-­ domestic work in homes for the el­derly and in the homes of the disabled. As stated by some of the w ­ omen interviewed by the scp, “Why should I do that if I w ­ on’t get paid?” and “I also care for my h ­ ouse­hold and my c­ hildren, 29 and I also do that voluntarily, that is enough!” The proj­ect was not an isolated initiative. Since 2007 in the Netherlands similar proj­ects have been implemented thanks to the resources made available by the eif. For instance, DonaDaria, a Rotterdam-­based organ­ization for promoting gender equality, has carried out proj­ects initially targeting Moroccan and Turkish ­women, aimed at encouraging their “emancipation” through volunteer work. With a view to allowing them to leave their homes and to become active participants in Dutch society by learning possibly marketable skills, ­these ­women ­were placed as volunteers in hospitals and home-­care facilities to provide care and domestic help.30 In an interview I conducted with a prominent member of the Dutch mi­grant ­women workers’ network re­spect nl, she recounted the many stories of mi­grant and ethnic minority ­women receiving social benefits who are regularly requested to work FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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or to volunteer as care-­domestic workers.31 Similarly, the Dutch immigration expert Sarah van Walsum noted that “Dutch municipalities have been pressuring unemployed ethnic minority ­women and h ­ ouse­wives to take up low-­skilled work in the care sector.”32 In the Netherlands, then, neoliberals who are promoting workfare, state-­sponsored gender equality agencies such as pavem, as well as some w ­ omen’s organ­izations have converged not only in asking non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women to work for ­free but also in encouraging them to enter the social reproductive sector. As the Raad voor Werk en Inkomen (rwi; Council for Work and Income) stated, mi­grant w ­ omen in the Netherlands can be very impor­tant in alleviating ­labor shortages in the healthcare sector, which thus requires “more investments in order to overcome existing obstacles.”33 Although the request for mi­grant ­women to undertake volunteer work in the care sector is not found e­ ither in France or in Italy—or at least not in an official capacity—­the situation in ­these two countries is not dissimilar from that of the Netherlands when it comes to implementing economic integration for w ­ omen migrating from outside the eu and the Global South. In France since 2009 the law on mi­grants’ integration has established a “professional portfolio” (bilan de compétences professionnelles) as an obligatory requirement for all signatories of the Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration (cai; Contract of Reception and Integration).34 Mi­grants who sign the cai must take a three-­hour course, during which their scholastic certificates and documents supporting their skills and work experience are assessed. According to the official data released in 2011, 58.7 ­percent of all signatories of the cai ­were provided with a professional portfolio; 65 ­percent of them w ­ ere ­women.35 The implementation of the obligatory professional portfolio was presented to the public as a way of promoting the integration of mi­ grants, according to the idea that “access to employment is one of the priorities of the French government with the aim to facilitate the integration of newcomers in French society.”36 Furthermore, it was envisaged as an instrument for tackling the disadvantaged position of the mi­grant population in the l­abor market, particularly of its female component. According to a study conducted in 2009 by the Département des Statistiques, Études et Documentation, ­under the auspices of a general inquiry promoted by the French government, “Enquête Longitudinale sur l’Intégration des Primo-­ Arrivants,” ­women ­were the majority of incoming mi­grants during that year (52.3 ­percent), mostly entering France for reasons of ­family reunifica126 Chapter

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tion (62.3  ­percent).37 Even though, on average, ­women w ­ ere more educated than men, the inquiry showed that a­ fter two years in the country, mi­grant w ­ omen’s higher levels of education did not translate into success in the ­labor market, where they experienced more difficulties than men in finding a job. Moreover, the study also showed that the large majority of the incoming ­women (64  ­percent) had been active in the ­labor markets of their countries of origin before they moved to France, thereby rebutting the widespread idea that ­women of non-­western (particularly Muslim) countries are by definition confined to the home and lack economic in­de­pen­dence. Indeed, it was in France that, ­after two years, they had become h ­ ouse­wives and had stopped actively seeking employment. “Migration therefore,” the study concludes, “reduces the chances of participating in the ­labor market, especially if you are a ­woman.”38 Vari­ous ­causes of this phenomenon are identified: poor or insufficient mastery of French, difficulty in reconciling work and childcare, inadequate or unrecognized educational qualifications, and so on. In other words, as Camille Gourdeau notes, mi­grant ­women’s difficulties in the l­abor market are regarded as their own fault, and reference is never made to the discrimination they face in the job search, particularly if they wear a veil, as several studies have demonstrated.39 In this context, the establishment of the professional portfolio as a tool for facilitating mi­grants’ integration in society through work assumes new significance. Although it was presented as a way to assess the skills and attitudes of incoming mi­grants in order to help them find the right job, the professional portfolio has instead become an instrument to control the encounter between supply and demand in the ­labor market, with an eye mostly on the latter. The strategy for tackling mi­grants’—­and particularly ­women’s—­lower rates of activity and employment has in fact directed them not t­ oward the sectors for which they have educational qualifications and/or work experience, but ­toward sectors that face ­labor shortages. Since the end of the 2000s, French governments have signed agreements with the representatives of economic branches that have difficulties in recruiting native-­born workers; t­hese include the Agence Nationale des Ser­vices à la Personne (ansp; National Agency for ­Human Ser­vices), the cleaning and social economy sector, and restaurants and hospitality. In the words of an interministerial report on immigration, ­these are the “sectors that, despite the crisis, are in need of l­abor supply.”40 The channeling of mi­grant ­women undergoing civic integration t­oward FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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the care and cleaning/domestic sectors in France, like in the Netherlands, is also implemented through specific programs financed by the eif.41 Since 2008 the Pôle Emploi (a French job center system)—­which coordinates with several associations that have been beneficiaries of the eif funds since 2008 like the Centre National d’Information sur les Droits des Femmes et des Familles—­signed an agreement with the Ministry of Immigration and the ansp in order to promote h ­ ouse­hold ser­vices as an employment opportunity for the mi­grant ­women undergoing the integration program.42 Furthermore, the eif has regularly funded an organ­ization based in Bordeaux, Promofemmes, to provide training to mi­grant ­women to help them find jobs in the cleaning sector and ­hotel industry.43 All in all, the encouragement of mi­grant ­women to be active in the ­labor market and the identification of mechanisms (like the professional portfolio) intended to help them overcome the obstacles they find have de facto directed them ­toward ­those jobs that French ­women and men do not want to take: ­house­keeping, cleaning, baby­sitting, nursing, and other care work.44 Despite their higher level of education and previous work experience—​as the research results noted earlier demonstrated—­non-­eu/non-­western mi­ grant ­women in France, like in the Netherlands, are systematically channeled ­toward the social reproductive sectors.45 The implementation of civic integration policies in Italy at the time of writing is still in its initial stages. Its dynamics and effects, therefore, cannot be fully assessed. Nevertheless, we can attempt an analy­sis of the gender dimensions of the type of economic integration promoted herein by looking at some trends and programs that are already in place. The Dipartimento per le Pari Opportunità (Department for Equal Opportunities), which is the main state feminism agency in the country, has been one of the main promoters of campaigns portraying mi­grant w ­ omen as particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of domestic vio­lence.46 Accordingly, the department’s mea­sures targeting non-­eu/non-­western mi­ grant ­women—­whether or not within the terms of civic integration—­have been dominated by programs addressing gendered vio­lence as mainly a prob­lem within mi­grant communities and thus as a primary field of concern in issues of ­women’s integration. In this context, the department has implemented a number of policies in which the prospects of employment for w ­ omen with a migration background are increasingly emphasized. In par­tic­u­lar, the Italian approach to ­women’s “economic integration” has so 128 Chapter

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far been to institute programs and training courses with the aim of providing mi­grant ­women with the “right” skills to enter the l­abor market successfully. When we look at the specific skills ­these programs teach, we again find that many of them direct mi­grant ­women ­toward care work. For instance, the department in 2013 funded the program “Io . . . ​lavoro!” (“I . . . ​work!”), which aims to provide ­free professional training to mi­grant ­women so that they can work as carers for the el­derly (badanti).47 At the end of the 2000s prominent Italian ­women’s equality agencies also outside state bureaucracy—­though often cofunded by vari­ous ministries—­have designed programs within the framework of the eif for mi­grants, in order to foster the economic inclusion of mi­grant ­women. ­Here the Crisalide Proj­ect developed by Nosotras is of par­tic­u­lar significance. Nosotras is the name of a widely known organ­ization that was founded in 1998 in Florence by a group of both mi­grant and Italian ­women in order to address issues of emancipation and equality. In 2009 the organ­ization was granted by the eif to carry out the Crisalide Proj­ect. “The name of the proj­ect [i.e., Chrysalis],” in the words of the organizers, “contains in itself the meta­phor of the insect pupa that w ­ ill become butterfly and represents the dream of freedom and in­de­pen­dence that comes true and that we wish to all ­women.”48 The proj­ect’s objective was to foster the social and economic integration of mi­grant ­women through personalized forms of support, potentially enabling them to become autonomous. In 2010 Nosotras made initial results from the Crisalide Proj­ect available through a brochurelike publication, which explains the proj­ect’s rationale as well as its main assets. Though the ­whole proj­ect is presented as an example of best practices involving mi­grant w ­ omen both as users and (in some cases) as social workers themselves, the images, narrative, and concrete results shown and recounted throughout the publication disclose the presence of specific gendered and cultural ste­reo­types under­lying the repre­sen­ta­tion of mi­grant ­women. First, throughout the publication the mi­grant ­woman targeted by the proj­ ect is exemplified as a veiled Muslim ­woman. The brochure thus shows the journey ­toward autonomy through cartoons representing, initially, the veiled ­woman with a baffled-­looking face while the (presumably) native ­woman helps her understand how to access social and health ser­vices, or how to find a job and, in a final cartoon, the mi­grant ­woman alone with a happy face as someone in the pro­cess of starting up a new life yet, this time, without the veil. The journey of the mi­grant ­woman ­toward autonomy is FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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represented not only as a path through which she ­will eventually become conscious of her rights, but also as a journey ­toward unveiling, or taking off what in western Eu­ro­pean imagery has come to symbolize oppression and lack of in­de­pen­dence. Second, the publication lists work placement and professionalization as some of the key objectives of the proj­ect. The main examples of professionalization courses included in the brochure, however, are courses to become a nurse and/or a personal carer for disabled or el­derly ­people. ­There is an interview with one of the organ­ization’s social workers in the brochure. Commenting upon the majority of job offers mi­grant ­women mostly find through the Crisalide Proj­ect, she says they are “in almost all cases jobs as carers.” Fi­nally, I ­will briefly refer to the Care Assistants Search Agency (casa) pi­lot proj­ect, which was supported by the eif in 2011 and coordinated by the Italian social consortium coin. It aims to address “the increasing need for long term and quality care of older ­people and p ­ eople with disabilities by facilitating and supporting the integration of third countries nationals in the eu.”49 casa is particularly significant not only for its scope—­involving Germany and Greece, as well as Italy—­but also for its main objective: to establish an eu-­wide recruitment agency that supplies care seekers with care givers from third countries. The proj­ect explic­itly names mi­grant ­women as a key audience to be helped to “find better jobs and facilitate their social and economic integration into Eu­ro­pean Society.” Hence, casa listed (a) providing work for “trained immigrants specialized in long term care: home nursing, home help for older ­people, assistance to ­people with disabilities”; (b) promoting “new opportunities for social and professional inclusion to immigrant workers through appropriate vocational training”; and (c) enhancing immigrants’ “social and economic integration” as its main aims. Ultimately, like in the Netherlands and in France, in Italy too this brief overview of concrete proj­ects aimed at implementing integration mea­sures for non­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women undergoing integration programs shows that economic integration for ­these ­women ends up confining them to the care and domestic sector.

In spite of the differences among the three contexts in terms of the articulation of general civic integration policies with specific mea­sures aimed at promoting non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women’s employment, the 130 Chapter

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care and domestic, or social reproduction, sector appears to be the only branch of the economy where ­these ­women are encouraged to work, even to volunteer. In all three countries key state gender equality agencies and ­women’s organ­izations thus have implemented the recommendations of—­ and received funds from—­the ec requiring that ­women from outside the eu and the Global South are in some form of employment, and have directed them t­oward care and domestic jobs. In so d ­ oing, however, they have contributed (wittingly or unwittingly) to the reproduction of care and domestic work as a gendered—­and increasingly racialized—­labor market. In other words, by responding positively to civic integration policies’ call for workfare and supporting the realization of programs that assign female mi­grant workers to the care, cleaning, and domestic sector, ­these gender equality organ­izations have de facto converged with neoliberal workfare ideology, which claims that mi­grant ­women’s integration and emancipation require them to be active in the l­ abor market. It is worth noting, however, that t­hese gender equality organ­izations’ proposals, unlike ­those of neoliberals, see mi­grant ­women’s work as an opportunity for them to gain economic in­de­pen­dence and emancipation. In other words, according to a well-­known theme from the history of feminism (on which more in the following section), ­women’s emancipation is seen as resulting from participation in production. The question that remains, then, is why is this same notion of ­women’s emancipation through participation in production now being used to push mi­grant ­women into social reproduction? I propose to shed light on this dilemma by briefly revisiting the debates on economic in­de­pen­dence and ­women’s emancipation that have traversed the history of feminism from the outset. In par­tic­u­lar, I ­will succinctly reconstruct a critical genealogy of the notions of productive ­labor, productivist ethics, and social reproduction in relation to the broader historical, social-­economic, and institutional shifts in the context of which t­ hese notions emerged and ­were transformed. Productive ­Labor, Productivist Ethics, and Social Reproduction: A Critical Feminist Genealogy

Focus on ­women’s economic in­de­pen­dence and their equal access to the ­labor market was a mainstay of the feminist movement from the outset. In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft praised the virtues of work as compared with FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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the devitalizing domesticity imposed on bourgeois ­women by codes of middle-­class femininity. Th ­ ese “trifling employments,” she complained, had “rendered ­woman a trifler.”50 Article XIII of Olympe de Gouges’s Declaration of the Rights of W ­ omen and Citizen, dating from 1791, called for w ­ omen to enjoy an equal share with men with re­spect to duties as well as painful tasks, including “the distribution of positions, employment, offices, hon­ ntil the first half of the twentieth ­century, the demand for ors, and jobs.”51 U ­women’s access to the paid workforce was part of the broader package of claims concerning ­women’s equality in all spheres of social life: po­liti­cal, economic, and reproductive. It was the specific insistence on w ­ omen’s economic equality, however, that divided liberal and socialist feminists more than any other issue. Whereas liberal feminists fought for the inclusion of ­women in the realm of economic production, thereby rebelling against middle-­class ­women’s condition of seclusion in the private sphere, socialist feminists ­were influenced by the strug­gles of peasant and working-­class ­women, who had already been incorporated into the l­abor market for a long time.52 Though they endorsed w ­ omen’s full participation in the workforce, socialist feminists thus did not regard work as the ultimate site of ­women’s emancipation and liberation. Rather, waged work—­albeit being conceived as a precondition for ­women’s emancipation in some instances—­ was also regarded as the exploitative condition that equalized working-­class men and ­women and positioned them against the same ­enemy, that is, ­capital.53 Work ­under capitalism was, therefore, something to refuse, reor­ ga­nize, and transform, rather than something for which to fight to have as a good in itself. “Each new concession won by the bourgeois ­woman,” wrote Alexandra Kollontai, “would give her yet another weapon for the exploitation of her younger s­ ister and would go on increasing the division between the w ­ omen of the two opposite social camps. . . . ​Where, then, is that general ‘­woman question’? Where is that unity of tasks and aspirations about which the feminists have so much to say?”54 At this stage, when the rise of the feminist movement across western Eu­rope coincided with the emergence and consolidation of mass industrialized socie­ties and the harsh social inequalities that such industrialization generated, social class (but also race, though in dif­fer­ent ways in dif­fer­ent countries) divided w ­ omen more than gender could unite them. It was the advent of Fordism in the twentieth c­ entury and the development of the so-­called breadwinner model that fundamentally created the 132 Chapter

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potential for the modification of the sexual division of ­labor in a way that created the potential for the modification of the sexual division of l­abor across social classes and thus offered one common ground for w ­ omen’s solidarity. At dif­fer­ent stages and places in dif­fer­ent countries, Fordism—­ which began in the United States in the 1920s and was then applied to western Eu­rope a­ fter World War II—­imposed a novel societal configuration informing all domains of public and private life. Fordism was a regime of “intensive accumulation” characterized by mass production, relatively reduced working hours, high wages for the ­labor aristocracy, and mass consumption made pos­si­ble by the ­family income of the male breadwinner.55 ­Behind the male-­breadwinner model ­there w ­ ere a number of assumptions about gender roles, particularly concerning the division of l­abor between men and ­women in the ­house­hold. Men’s responsibility was to provide the main income for the f­amily, whereas w ­ omen’s duty was to attend to domestic chores as well as tasks such as caring for c­ hildren and often also the el­derly. The strength of the model and of the gendered division of ­labor that went with it in the specifically western Eu­ro­pean context was ensured by a number of welfare provisions that allowed the survival of the mono-­income ­family, both middle-­and working-­class: income stability, benefits for the dependent spouse and school-­age c­ hildren, tax reductions, the wide availability of loans and mortgages for the purchase of durable commodities and property, and so on. The nuclear, heterosexual, and traditional patriarchal ­family was the key social unit in which productivist discipline was reinvigorated. Henry Ford himself was convinced that “a stable and disciplined ­labor force was reproduced through the institution of the traditional f­amily, and he required that his employees adhere to the model.”56 In short, female dependence was inscribed into both the notion of the ­family wage and Fordism. A further assumption on which Fordism and the breadwinner model w ­ ere based concerned the nature of care-­ domestic, or reproductive, work, as nonwork and nonproductive and, consequently, as an activity that is not entitled to a wage. Though Fordism was not in itself responsible for the devaluation of reproductive work—­which had begun earlier on—it helped strengthen the gender division of l­abor and further expand its impact upon the working classes.57 In other words, in the aftermath of World War II, when Fordism became hegemonic across western Eu­rope, the majority of both middle-­and working-­class ­women w ­ ere ­house­wives.58 U ­ nder Fordism, thus, reproductive work came to signify FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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not only for middle-­class ­women but also for working-­class ­women the very features of ­women’s ­dependence itself: a lack of social consideration, segregation in the h ­ ouse­hold and isolation, the absence of skills, and servility. The definition of what constituted “proper” work was thus not only a narrowly descriptive device basically coinciding with work outside the ­house­hold, but also a highly moral and normative one, its features, rhythm, skills, and discipline being informed by, and in turn informing, what Max Weber famously called the western cap­i­tal­ist work ethic (Arbeitsethik).59 The cap­i­tal­ist work ethic was a “productivist” ethic, strongly prescribing what constituted valuable and nonvaluable activities and individuals in society. The supposedly unproductive nature of reproductive work carried out in ­house­holds, mostly by ­women, inevitably identified ­women as less valuable. The division between waged, productive work and unwaged, unproductive work was, therefore, first and foremost a gendered division. As Kathi Weeks aptly puts it for the American case (in a way that can be easily extended to western Eu­rope), Unwaged ­women (and t­hose waged w ­ omen who found themselves judged in relation to this normative model), not subject to the morally purifying and invigorating effects of work discipline, w ­ ere a justifiably dependent class. The work ethic could then be embraced as a masculine ethic while non work—­a rather more expansive category including every­thing from leisure practices and consumption work to unwaged agricultural, ­house­hold, and caring ­labor—­was devalued by its association with a degraded femininity.60 It is in the context of Fordism, with its leveling of ­women from dif­fer­ ent social backgrounds to the status of h ­ ouse­wives, and with its specific mode of devaluation of social reproductive work, that I propose to understand second-­wave feminism’s demand for equality in the economic realm and for w ­ omen’s access to waged l­ abor in western Eu­rope as a “tool” for their emancipation. This was indeed a demand that cut across dif­fer­ent feminist po­liti­cal currents.61 The definition of reproductive work in the h ­ ouse­hold as disempowering for ­women and thus the indication of waged work as an emancipating condition w ­ ere henceforth appropriated by most feminists. On the fringes of Marxist feminism ­there ­were voices more critical of the Fordist construction of domestic and care work as nonwork. They did not

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consider waged work as a site of emancipation, but instead advanced analyses for recognizing the cap­i­tal­ist need for configuring care-­domestic work as an activity carried out within the nuclear f­amily. However, the majority of feminists tended to stigmatize it and emphasized the need to escape from it.62 From the mid-1960s onward, the productivist ethic was shared by a large range of w ­ omen’s organ­izations and intellectuals, not only liberal ones representing the interests of middle-­class ­women, but also by then-­influential ­women’s organ­izations linked to the traditional parties of the working class, for instance, the Unione Donne Italiane (Union of Italian W ­ omen) in Italy and the Union des Femmes Françaises (Union of French ­Women) in France, both associated with the communist parties in their respective countries. With the advent of so-­called post-­Fordism and neoliberalism, since the late 1970s and 1980s ­women’s widespread entrance into paid work has become a real­ity. Albeit at dif­fer­ent paces and with dif­fer­ent percentages, the majority of working-­age ­women across most of western Eu­rope have been incorporated into the ­labor force. From the mid-1990s onward, for instance, ­women’s rate of employment in this book’s three focus countries has grown at dramatic speed: 7.7 percentage points in France, reaching 59.7 ­percent in 2011; 16 percentage points in the Netherlands, reaching 69.9 ­percent in 2011; and 11.1  percentage points in Italy, reaching 46.5  ­percent in 2011.63 In spite of the differences concerning the characteristics of this growth and the transformations involved in each country’s gender and welfare regimes, ­women’s increasing employment has indeed constituted, in Maria Karamessini and Jill Rubery’s terms, a case of “converging divergences” between dif­fer­ent western Eu­ro­pean contexts.64 However, the conditions in which this phenomenon has taken place are very dif­fer­ent from the ones that ­were dominant ­under Fordism. If Fordism was the era of manufacturing, relative stability in jobs and income, and of the availability of extensive social welfare provisions, which allowed even the mono-­income working-­ class ­family to maintain decent living standards, post-­Fordism is the era of the ser­vice sector, where job flexibility, part-­time or casual contracts, and the erosion of welfare provisions have come to dominate the lives of mono-­and dual-­income families. In a scenario dominated by a lack of job security, uncertainty, and economic instability, w ­ omen’s wages have not only become necessary and valuable, but in recent times and in some cases have even become the only ones on which many families have been able to

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rely. During the recent global economic crisis (2007–2011), female workers (both mi­grant and nonmigrant) in western Eu­rope have been less affected by the crisis than men, with the Netherlands, France, and Italy constituting no exception (on which more in chapter  5).65 Some commentators have gone so far as to call the recent recession the he-­cession.66 ­Under post-­ Fordism and neoliberalism the consequences of ­women’s incorporation in the workforce for gender roles and for feminist demands themselves have thus been dramatic. Strug­gles for ­women’s access to the workforce have been increasingly replaced by campaigns for equal pay and equal opportunities in the workplace; denunciations of the glass ceiling preventing many ­women from achieving positions of leadership have gone together with the establishment of institutional rules that require companies to apply gender quotas and affirmative action. Although the range, target, politics, and main vision under­lying the notion of gender equality and consequently feminist positions in this conjuncture have been diverse and fragmented, the variant of feminism that has come to dominate mainstream debates and institutional settings has undoubtedly been the liberal and now increasingly “neoliberal” one.67 By privileging a definition of gender equality as “sameness” with men and as “equal opportunities” for w ­ omen to be included in the public sphere, liberal and now neoliberal feminisms have a­ dopted conservative strategies that do not challenge the fundamental tenets of the neoliberal cap­i­tal­ist social formation. Campaigns for w ­ omen’s attainment of positions of power have thus increasingly dominated the mainstream debate on gender equality. Although the fight to break through the glass ceiling still represents a minority of the demands of the female workforce, with most ­women instead being busy trying to avoid “falling through a structurally unstable floor,” the majority of ­women in western Eu­rope are now effectively incorporated into the sphere of production.68 Yet social reproduction has not dis­appeared. ­Either seeking a happy balance, or negotiating some kind of frustrating deal, ­women are still confronted with the daily demands of reproductive tasks.69 Despite the significant changes in gender roles that have accompanied w ­ omen’s entrance in large numbers into the workforce, numerous studies show that working w ­ omen still attend to social reproductive work more than men do. The dominance of productivist ethics and the privileging of an equally productivist po­ liti­cal agenda among mainstream feminist and ­women’s circles have not been matched by any similarly forceful campaigns for the provision of 136 Chapter

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public care ser­vices for families, el­derly, and the disabled. Rather, even the modest or insufficient public care facilities provided in most western Eu­ ro­pean countries are increasingly being swept away by neoliberal politics or commodified (on which more in chapter  5), leaving most families in a situation in which the time available for social reproduction is shorter and shorter and (increasingly often) redistributed onto the shoulders of mi­grant ­women. Western Productivist Ethics for Non-­Western Reproductive Workers

Against this background, I propose to shed light on why it is that economic integration policies targeting non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women have ended up pushing ­these same ­women ­toward the care and domestic sector. In par­tic­u­lar, the critical genealogy of western feminism’s productivist ethics I outlined earlier might help to unravel the paradox emerging from the mismatch between, on the one hand, some ­women’s organ­izations’ and femocrats’ calls for mi­grant ­women to enter the workforce in order to become eco­nom­ically in­de­pen­dent and, on the other hand, the disconcerting real­ity that mi­grant ­women are being pushed to work for ­free (like in the Netherlands) or ­else systematically shunted into the private sphere, or social reproduction. In other words, the work ­these ­women’s organ­izations and femocrats ask mi­grant ­women to undertake is precisely the work from which western Eu­ro­pean feminists wanted to escape: namely, social reproductive ­labor. Certainly, the fact that jobs in the reproductive sector, in which mi­grant ­women find themselves confined, are now paid wages introduces an impor­tant difference when compared with the situation that second-­ wave feminists denounced: namely, that of the Fordist ­house­wife who had to perform social reproductive work “for f­ree.”70 In a sense, the new configuration of social reproduction as waged work vindicates ­those feminists who have always fought for the recognition of domestic work as productive work and, therefore, as entitled to a wage.71 However, the payment of reproductive work in ­today’s western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties does not in any sense amount to its social rehabilitation. On the contrary, care and domestic work continues to be perceived as unskilled, low-­status, isolated, servile, and dirty; it thus continues to be socially stigmatized, very poorly paid, and undesired by most western Eu­ro­pean w ­ omen.72 As I ­will analyze in FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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more detail in chapter 5, the latter’s unavailability for t­ hese jobs—­through lack of time and/or w ­ ill—­has effectively meant that the reproductive sector has become a mi­grant ­women’s niche. The conditions of the care and domestic sector, with its antisocial working hours, low pay, and social stigma, make it very unattractive to t­ hose “national” workers who still have a wider range of employment choices and protection networks as compared with “non-­native” mi­grant workers. To be clear, I am not suggesting in any way that we should blame western Eu­ro­pean ­women, or western Eu­ro­pean feminists, for wishing to escape the segregative condition of the h ­ ouse­wife, nor do I argue that they are responsible for this condition now being “externalized” to mi­grant ­women. What I am proposing, instead, is that we critically reconsider the notion of productive work as the site of, or tool for, ­women’s emancipation. This notion has played a significant role in the stigmatization of social reproduction in a way that has limited the possibility of thinking about alternative scenarios for accomplishing this emancipation. In other words, we need to revisit and interrogate the “productivist ethics” of western Eu­ ro­pean feminists and the understanding of social reproduction as a site of ­women’s subjection rather than work that needs to be reconceived as a social activity and a public good. Feminism’s productivist ethics in fact now weighs on the shoulders not just of ­those ­women who uphold alternative ideas of social reproduction and emancipation and are confronted with the daily strug­gle to combine work and care, in the absence of public and affordable care facilities. It also weighs heavi­ly on the shoulders of mi­grant ­women, who are called upon to “clean up” this ­whole mess—­literally. The Western Feminist Teleology of Emancipation

On the occasion of welfare reform in the United States in 1996—­instituting workfare that disproportionately affected black single ­mothers—­Gwendolyn Mink noted that “if racism has permitted policy makers to negate poor single ­mothers as citizens and ­mothers, white middle-­class feminism has provided policy makers with an excuse. White middle-­class feminists’ emphasis on ­women’s right to work outside the home—­accompanied by ­women’s increased presence in the workforce—­gave cover to conservatives e­ ager to require wage work of single ­mothers even as they championed the traditional f­ amily.”73 This is a strong stance, no doubt, and one that needs to 138 Chapter

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be understood in the context of the debates among US feminists regarding the effects of the welfare reforms of the 1990s on African American w ­ omen.74 Nevertheless, Mink’s comment is useful for my attempt to explain the paradoxical situation in which some feminists, femocrats, and w ­ omen’s organ­izations promote the notion of productive work and economic in­de­ pen­dence as an instance of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women’s pos­si­ble emancipation, while encouraging them to take—or silently pretending to ignore that they take—­the jobs feminists historically considered the symbolic and concrete markers of ­women’s dependence and subjection. Following in the vein of Mink’s apt comment, I contend that when feminism’s productivist ethics converges with neoliberal workfare policies, which inevitably target the lives of poor ­women (mi­grant and nonmigrant alike), forms of oppression and exploitation based in race, class, and gender are the inevitable result. When feminists, femocrats, and ­women’s organ­izations champion civic integration policies encouraging non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women to work with the promise that this w ­ ill enhance their integration and economic in­de­pen­dence, they tacitly encourage them to adopt western feminists’ notion of emancipation through productive ­labor. In other words, the call for mi­grant ­women to work can be read as the recommendation that they should pass through the same stages as ­those experienced by western Eu­ ro­pean ­women in the twentieth c­ entury in order to achieve the hard-­won equality the latter allegedly enjoy. The productivist ethics that encourages mi­grant ­women to work thus morphs into a teleological notion of emancipation. Accordingly, ­women’s integration into the workforce is regarded as a necessary stage in their journey ­toward the telos of full emancipation. Or, to put it differently, work becomes that stage supposedly allowing ­women to ­free themselves of the conditions of subordination, economic dependence, and isolation that the reproductive, or private, sphere is deemed to represent. The western Eu­ro­pean feminist teleology of emancipation is based on two main implicit assumptions. The first assumption is that non-­ western ­women, and especially Muslim ­women—­who can be regarded, as I previously noted, as the con­temporary embodiment of what Chandra Mohanty called the “Third World W ­ oman”75—­are a homogeneous, monolithic entity defined above all by backwardness and object status. According to this still-­widespread and deeply rooted idea, the characteristics of the non-­ western ­woman are subordination, passivity, and victimhood; differences FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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of social class, religion, sexuality, and so on play a lesser role in terms of the definition of her identity and concrete living conditions. Indeed we see how, in spite of the variety of countries, regions, social backgrounds, languages, and religious traditions of the thousands of ­women ­going through the requirements of “civic integration” in order to secure their visas, this teleology of emancipation conceives mainly of one non-­western female ideal-­type: the victimized object.76 It is to this ideal-­type of w ­ oman that some ­women’s organ­izations and femocrats—­among ­others—­offer integration into the workforce as a way out of her assumed status of subjection. The second implicit assumption is that emancipation is constituted by a set of obligatory stages that must be the same for all w ­ omen. Waged l­ abor thus becomes the stage through which ­women must pass in order to enter into the space of proper, western emancipation. By grounding itself upon t­ hese assumptions, western feminism’s teleology of emancipation through productive work recalls very closely the teleology of development that informed modernization theories during the 1960s.77 In the period following World War II and during the construction and consolidation of the con­temporary global cap­i­tal­ist market, t­hese theories proposed a geography of the world divided fundamentally between developed (the West) and underdeveloped (the rest) countries. Complex postulates ­were elaborated to account for the developed world’s “greater prosperity” and ­recipes ­were offered to underdeveloped regions for them to achieve economic success. In a nutshell, such ­recipes ­were based on a reconstruction of western social-­economic history as a sequence of stages—­ from feudalism, to modernity and industrialization, to the affirmation of the cap­i­tal­ist mode of production on a global scale—­that non-­western countries needed to complete in their race for development. Vari­ous critical schools (dependentistas, world-­systems theory, postcolonialism, and so forth) subjected developmentalist and modernization theories to power­ful criticisms, denouncing all their imperialist, Eurocentric, and racist presuppositions.78 By assuming what Johannes Fabian called “temporal distancing,” ­these theories suggested in par­tic­u­lar that western and non-­western countries had historically gone through dif­fer­ent temporal stages.79 The temporalization of the relationship between the two regions of the world was founded on the idea that western and non-­western nations had been historically autonomous and in­de­pen­dent from one another. In this way, wealth and poverty, development and underdevelopment could be justified 140 Chapter

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as the result of discrete histories: that is, as the outcome of the interplay of ­factors that w ­ ere endogenous to each region. At the same time, the fact of western Eu­rope’s prosperity as compared to the pauperism of the non-­ western nations also served to infuse the former with moral superiority and entitlement to assume the role of the master for the “inferior” non-­ western nation. Modernization and development theorists thus mystified underdevelopment (an obviously highly contested term) as an entirely “non-­ western” prob­lem, rather than as largely the result of western colonialism and continuous exploitation of the resources of non-­western regions. I contend that with its ste­reo­typical repre­sen­ta­tion of non-­western and mi­grant (especially Muslim) w ­ omen as backward and dependent, and its call for them to enter the workforce in order to become “eco­nom­ ically independent”—­namely, to follow the path western feminists claim to have traveled on their own path to emancipation—­feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats endorsing economic integration policies for mi­grant ­women are treating t­hese ­women like developmentalist and modernization theories treated underdeveloped nations: they are always one (or more) steps ­behind and thus have to “catch up.” As in the case of the non-­western nations, the conditions of relative poverty and exploitation in which mi­grant ­women find themselves in western Eu­rope qua mi­ grants are presented as an instance of “temporal distance” and as the result of their endogenous “cultural” deficiency. However, not only do western Eu­ro­pean nations bear a good share of the responsibility in creating the historical conditions in non-­western countries that encourage mi­grants to leave them, but ­these western Eu­ro­pean nations (and the West more generally) construct and also maintain domestically the very conditions that keep mi­grants in general, and mi­grant w ­ omen in par­tic­u­lar, in a state of precariousness: namely, insecure rights, institutional discrimination, and economic segregation within racialized and gendered niches of the ­labor market.80 Even more impor­tant, we should note that, just as the exploitation of non-­western countries’ natu­ral resources permits the West to keep its patterns of production and consumption, it is also mi­grant ­women’s socially reproductive work that permits western Eu­ro­pean ­women and men not only to have the “cheap” care that enables them to be active in the ­labor market, but also to retain the illusion that gender equality has been achieved—at least for “them.” Arguably, then, the western feminist teleology of emancipation through productive work stems from the projection FEMONATIONALISM AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION 

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of the historically specific and geo­graph­i­cally circumscribed experience of western Eu­ro­pean ­women as representative of the experience, past and ­future, of all ­women. The historical trajectory of western Eu­ro­pean ­women is thus universalized as the criterion by which all w ­ omen’s emancipation 81 should be assessed. Feminism’s Temporal Distancing and Temporal Disjunction

In this chapter I proposed that the nature of the con­temporary convergence of feminists, femocrats, and ­women’s organ­izations in the Netherlands, France, and Italy with anti-­Islam/anti-­immigration politics in the name of ­women’s rights becomes more intelligible if we look at a specific and mostly overlooked point of their encounter: that is, the call for non­eu/non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen to work. It is a point of convergence of par­tic­u­lar salience for t­ hose western Eu­ro­pean feminists advocating anti-­ Islam mea­sures with the proclaimed objective of freeing Muslim ­women from their segregation in the private sphere. Liberation from the private sphere and integration into the public sphere constituted a historically unifying ­battle for feminists in western Eu­rope. If we consider the so-­called three waves of the feminist movement from the retrospective position of the novelties—­socially, eco­nom­ically, and politically—­introduced by the Fordist organ­ization of ­labor and the gendered societal model that it helped consolidate, they can be seen as deeply embedded within (albeit not exhausted by) the broader context of pre-­Fordist, Fordist, and post-­ Fordist socie­ties. Whereas first-­wave, western Eu­ro­pean feminism in the pre-­Fordist period of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was largely divided along class lines, with middle-­class, peasant, and working-­ class ­women experiencing too much division to elaborate a common po­ liti­cal agenda around the “pro-­work” slogan, Fordism in many ways created the conditions for second-­wave feminism at large to coalesce around such a slogan, beyond class divisions. The h ­ ouse­wife constructed by Fordism was, indeed, in western Eu­rope a figure that existed across class bound­ aries. Second-­wave feminism’s largely common demand for ­women’s participation in the workforce thus expressed the desire of a large majority of w ­ omen not to be confined to the sphere of social reproduction and to enter the sphere of production. The debates in the so-­called third wave

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of feminism ­today take place in post-­Fordist times, in which a large portion of western Eu­ro­pean ­women has entered the l­abor market. Within a framework dominated by neoliberalism, however, this entrance occurs in an increasingly unequal societal setting and in very unequal ways. Though many ­women are now brought together by the experience of work, the conditions of that work—in terms of salary, forms of contracts, c­ areer paths, working hours, and economic sectors—­are internally very dif­fer­ent and divisive. Alongside the class divisions that t­ hese differences inevitably reinforce, however, racial divisions also have to be taken into account. Non-­ western racialized ­women are now part of the western Eu­ro­pean workforce and population more generally, in ways never experienced before in recent western Eu­ro­pean history. And it is at this par­tic­u­lar juncture that the call for non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women to join the workforce in order to be better integrated and eco­nom­ically in­de­pen­dent is not a unifying feminist demand. On the one hand, such a call reproposes an old Fordist feminist register in a very dif­fer­ent, post-­Fordist context, and it targets predominantly non-­western mi­grant ­women. It thus differentiates among ­women along fundamentally racializing lines. On the other hand, feminists’, femocrats’, and ­women’s organ­izations’ invitation to mi­grant ­women to enter employment has de facto been translated into concrete policies directing ­these ­women t­oward jobs in the care and domestic sector. That is, mi­grant ­women have come to occupy the spaces within the realm of social reproduction that western Eu­ro­pean feminists sought to leave ­behind in their quest for emancipation. In a quasi-­“temporal disjunction”—­which is predicated upon the temporal distancing between western and non-­ western ­women inscribed in the teleological narrative of emancipation through productive work I discussed earlier—­several western feminists are thus caught up in a radical performative contradiction. While they intend to promote policies that can ­free non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women from the gender constraints seemingly inscribed in their “cultures,” some femocrats and ­women’s organ­izations in par­tic­u­lar implemented mea­sures that instead maintain and further exacerbate the segregation of t­ hese same ­women into highly gendered and racialized l­abor markets. While sacrificing antiracism in the name of gender equality for all ­women, ­these western Eu­ro­pean feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats thus have endorsed (wittingly or unwittingly) a neoliberal workfare agenda that heavi­ly

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discriminates against mi­grant ­women and ultimately undermines gender justice in general. The preservation of social reproduction as a socially stigmatized and feminine activity in fact affects not only mi­grant, racialized ­women, but also the strug­gle against the maintenance of gender roles as such. Conclusion: Convergence Is Not Identity

I should like to conclude with a word of methodological caution, as well as of hope. Convergence should not be mistaken for identity; nor should the merging of con­temporary feminist, femocratic, and w ­ omen’s organ­izations’ demands for economic equality with neoliberal workfare for mi­grant ­women be understood to herald a broader historical “elective affinity” between feminism and neoliberal capitalism.82 By pointing to the temporal disjunction according to which many western Eu­ro­pean feminists, femocrats, and ­women’s organ­izations invoke an older Fordist demand and offer it to non-­eu/non-­ western mi­grant ­women from a position of privilege and in the changed conditions of post-­Fordism, I am attempting to stress the discontinuity between the two feminist moments. That is, I am arguing that second-­wave feminist demands for ­women’s integration into the workforce, as they ­were put forward in the 1960s and 1970s, need to be understood in the historical context in which they ­were elaborated, as I have repeatedly emphasized.83 ­Today’s feminists’, femocrats’, and w ­ omen’s organ­izations’ reiterations of that same set of demands for non-­western mi­grant ­women, and in a context in which neoliberal workfare politics makes ­those demands entirely compatible with an Islamophobic and gender-­biased po­liti­cal agenda, are thus a case not of temporal continuity but of disjunction. To be sure, it is a temporal disjunction grounded in a fundamentally, and not new, western supremacist perspective, one that assumes that non-­western mi­grant ­women are fundamentally backward and victimized objects, whose hope for emancipation is assumed to lie in them committing to catch up with their western ­sisters. But the conditions of re-­production and, above all, the implications of such a western supremacist position need to be analyzed in the current conjuncture in order to reveal their contradictory con­ temporary results. The understanding of the convergence of feminism and neoliberalism on economic integration policies for mi­grant w ­ omen—­that is, one crucial facet of femonationalism—in terms of a performative con144 Chapter

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tradiction enables us to advance a radical critique that shows the negative consequences of ­these policies for gender justice in general. By exposing this performative contradiction, that is, by pointing to the counteremancipatory pro­cesses that are set in motion when racial discrimination is justified in the name of emancipatory goals such as gender justice, we place ourselves in a position that allows us to think theoretically and po­liti­cally about how to move beyond this contradiction.84

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CHAPTER 5

The Po­liti­cal Economy of Femonationalism

All industrial and commercial centres in ­England now have a working class divided into two hostile camps, En­glish proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary En­glish worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who forces down the standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker, he feels himself to be a member of the ruling nation and, therefore, makes himself a tool of his aristocrats and cap­i­tal­ists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He harbours religious, social and national prejudices against him. His attitude t­ owards him is roughly that of the “poor whites” to the “niggers” in the former slave states of the American Union. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the En­glish worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of En­glish rule in Ireland. This antagonism is kept artificially alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short by all the means at the disposal of the ruling class. This antagonism is the secret of the En­glish working class’s impotence, despite its organisation. It is the secret of the maintenance of power by the cap­i­tal­ist class. And the latter is fully aware of this. —­karl marx, “Letter to Sigfrid Meyer and Karl Vogt,” 475

In their introduction to Global ­Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (2003), Barbara Ehrenreich and Russell Arlie Hochs­ child describe the role of the First World like that of the “old-­fashioned male in the ­family—­pampered, entitled, unable to cook, clean, or find his socks.” On the other hand, they continue, “poor countries take on a role like that of the traditional ­woman within the ­family—­patient, nurturing and self-­denying.”1 This depiction of the relation between the Global North and the Global South in terms of the sexual division of ­labor within the ­house­hold should not be understood as merely a meta­phor for the power relations and uneven development engendered by neoliberal globalization.

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20%

Women

EU-15

Sweden

Finland

Portugal

Austria

Netherlands*

Luxembourg

Italy

France

Spain

Greece

Ireland

Germany

Denmark

Belgium

0%

U.K.

10%

Men

Figure 5.1 ​Foreign-­born immigrant population by sex in the eu-15 in 2010. source: calculations based on eurostat (online data code: [migr_imm1ctz]). *data for 2010 are not available for the netherlands.

Rather, it should be taken quite literally: poor countries increasingly provide the nannies, maids, and sex workers for rich countries. Particularly from the 1990s onward, western Eu­rope has become one of the continents—­along with Latin Amer­ic­ a and Oceania—­registering the largest increase in ­women’s presence in immigration inflows.2 According to Eurostat, in 2010 “foreign-­born” ­women outnumbered men among immigrants in Ireland, Greece, France, Italy, and Denmark, whereas they are close to half in all other countries (figure 5.1).3 In so­ cio­ log­ i­ cal terms, the growth of female migration to western Europe—­which began in the mid-1970s—­represents the unintended consequence of the guestworker systems established in northern Eu­rope a­ fter World War II. While the policies of stopping new migration inflows and the return programs for resident mi­grants in the aftermath of the 1973 recession had the goal of lessening the number of mi­grant workers and of using them as “safety valves” to reduce unemployment among native-­born

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workers, a number of mi­grants deci­ded to s­ ettle and to bring their spouses and ­family members with them.4 Furthermore, the difficulty of acquiring work permits in northern Eu­ro­pean destination countries re­oriented l­ abor flows ­toward southern Eu­rope, which had ­until then been sending waves of emigrants and had not yet, therefore, developed clear immigration policies.5 To alter slightly a saying well known among Italian sociologists of migration, “Northern Eu­ro­pean states wanted only hands, instead ­human beings (and their wives and ­children) arrived.” Although ­women had always been pres­ent in migration flows (and even in predominant numbers, depending on the sending country, as in the case of the Philippines, and on the type of move, as in short-­distance migration), from the mid-1970s onward the number of them making long-­distance moves increased dramatically.6 ­After an initial gender blindness in the 1970s and 1980s, t­here has been a growing body of lit­er­a­ture focusing on the presence of w ­ omen in international migration to western Eu­rope and on the plurality of their migratory patterns and motives (see chapter 1).7 ­Family reunification remains the main “official” motivation b ­ ehind a significant proportion of female migration to the continent, although this does not prevent w ­ omen who have entered as spouses or ­family members from participating in the ­labor market, often in the shadow economy.8 Despite Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women’s growing numbers and the variety and richness of their migratory patterns, their job opportunities are in fact largely confined to a limited number of occupations. As previously noted, the majority of ­those who actively participate in the western Eu­ro­pean ­labor market are employed in one single branch of the economy, namely, the social reproductive sector (cleaning, care domestic, and health care work).9 As a number of scholars have emphasized, the demand for ­labor in this sector has grown so much over the past twenty years that it is now regarded as the main reason for the feminization of international migration.10 In chapter 4 I illustrated how femonationalist policies on civic integration depict non-­western ­women (and Muslims in par­tic­u­lar) as individuals in need of economic in­de­pen­dence and emancipation, yet push them to work in poorly paid (or wholly unpaid) and highly feminized ­labor markets such as care and domestic work. We should ask, then, is t­here a pos­si­ble connection between Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women’s segregation in the social reproductive sector and the femonationalist ideological formation? Why do femonationalists declare solidarity ­toward 148 Chapter

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t­ hese ­women as supposedly “oppressed” subjects, while concealing the fact that a large number of them are required to work, or are already exploited, in the care and cleaning economy? As I have discussed throughout this book, both official discourses and public policies concerning the integration of immigrants are highly gendered. Accordingly, it is men and not so much ­women who create trou­bles for the integration pro­cess.11 Considered to be the makers and ultimate guardians of what western Eu­ro­ pe­ans regard as backward and misogynistic cultural codes, Muslim and non-­western mi­grant men are indicted as the real obstacle to “social and cultural integration,” thereby representing a cultural threat to the western Eu­ro­pean ­whole. Even when it is the veiled Muslim w ­ oman, for instance, who seems to be targeted as a cultural danger when she refuses to take off the hijab or the burqa and therefore to adapt to secular cultural norms, she is depicted as if she does so not on the basis of a personal choice—­ since ­these accounts deny Muslim w ­ omen’s agency—­but ­because she is oppressed by men.12 However, as I discussed in chapter  4 in par­tic­u­lar, we should note that Muslim and non-­western mi­grant men and w ­ omen are perceived and depicted in dif­fer­ent and often opposed ways also at the level of economic integration. Hence, right-­wing nationalist slogans that call for “jobs for ‘nationals’ ” (which are impor­tant for the electoral success of ­these parties) should be read, I argue, “jobs for ‘national’ men.” Whereas the “sexualization of racism,” that is, the singling out of mi­grant men and ­women according to racialized gendered ste­reo­types, has been widely analyzed both in terms of the “culturalization” of xenophobic tropes concerning supposed unbridgeable differences between western and non-­western cultures (or civilizations), and in terms of the colonial legacy deeply rooted in the ste­reo­typical repre­sen­ta­tions in the western Eu­ro­pean imaginary of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women, the political-­economic logic underpinning femonationalism has been largely overlooked. However, a closer look at the differences between Muslim and non-­western mi­grant men and w ­ omen in the western Eu­ro­pean economic arena can enable us to shed further light on some equally crucial reasons for the double (gendered) standard applied by western Eu­ro­pean nationalists and neoliberal governments to the mi­grant population. To this end, the chapter is or­ga­nized as follows: first, I analyze the specific role of non-­western mi­grant workers in con­temporary western Eu­ ro­pean economies by drawing upon the theoretical insights provided by The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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the concept of the “reserve army of l­abor.” Developed particularly by Karl Marx in volume 1 of Capital, and subsequently taken up by economic sociologists and sociologists of migration from the 1970s onward, the framing of mi­grant ­labor in terms of a “reserve army” is of ­great use in deciphering both the economic and the po­liti­cal status of this peculiar type of l­abor in its current configuration. Second, I concentrate on an analy­sis of non-­ western female mi­grant ­labor, which is overrepresented in the care and domestic sector, in order to ask w ­ hether its specificities in western Eu­ro­pean economies tell us something about the special status enjoyed by Muslim and non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen in the anti-­immigration campaigns qua “redeemable subjects” deserving defense and even “salvation.” Ultimately, as ­these discussions ­shall demonstrate, the double standard applied to Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women in the public imaginary as a section of the mi­grant population in need of special attention and even “rescue” cannot be understood solely through the lenses offered by analyses focused largely on the culturalization of racism, the securitarian agendas of neoliberal states, and the colonial heritage of the sexualization of racism. Albeit crucial, ­these lenses need to be supplemented with a specific understanding of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women’s economic role within the context of the neoliberal reforms in welfare regimes in the direction of the so-­called commodification of care, the feminization and racialization of specific ­labor markets, the management of migration by western Eu­ro­pean states, and the current reconfiguration of gender o ­ rders. All ­these ­factors contribute, I ­will argue, to configuring female mi­grant ­labor employed in the reproductive sector as a “regular” rather than a “reserve army of l­abor.” Mi­grants as a Reserve Army of ­Labor

Mi­grant workers in western economies play the role of what Marx famously, albeit not exclusively, called a “reserve army of ­labor,” namely, “a mass of ­human material always ready for exploitation.”13 In Marx’s analy­sis, (a) the increase in the magnitude of social capital, that is, the ensemble of individual capitals; (b) the enlargement of the scale of production; and ­(c) the growth of the productivity of an increasing number of workers brought about by capital accumulation create a situation in which the greater “attraction of laborers by capital is accompanied by their greater repulsion.”14 150 Chapter

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­ ese three interrelated pro­cesses, for Marx, set the conditions according Th to which the laboring population gives rise, “along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, [also to] the means by which it itself is made relatively superfluous, is turned into a relative surplus population; and it does this to an always increasing extent.”15 Marx describes this as a law of population, which is peculiar to the cap­i­tal­ist mode of production just as other modes of production have their own corresponding population laws. The paradox of the creation of the surplus laboring population u ­ nder the cap­i­tal­ist mode of production is that while it is “a necessary product of accumulation,” this surplus population is also the lever of such accumulation; namely, it is that which “forms a disposable industrial reserve army, that belongs to capital quite as absolutely as if the latter had bred it at its own cost.”16 The discussion about the creation of the reserve army of ­labor is strictly related to Marx’s analy­sis of the organic composition of capital and the tendency of cap­i­tal­ist accumulation to encourage the increase “of its constant, at the expense of its variable constituent.”17 In other words, the creation of a pool of unemployed and underemployed (or what Marx calls the three forms of the reserve army of l­abor: floating, stagnant, and latent) is due to capital’s need to increase the mass and value of the means of production (i.e., machines), at the cost of the decrease of the mass and value of living ­labor (i.e., wages and workers). Indeed, a crucial ele­ment in the reduction of wages and workers, or variable capital, is technical development and mechanization, which alongside other f­actors leads to the expulsion of a number of laborers from the productive pro­cess and therefore to the creation of a surplus of workers who are no longer needed. This notwithstanding, Marx saw an inescapable limit to mechanization, for l­abor power is the main source of surplus value and, therefore, it is that component of the ­labor pro­cess that cannot be entirely replaced by machines. This is one of the reasons why in order to guarantee and increase capital’s accumulation, the history of capitalism has seen the development of a number of strategies all aimed at decreasing the mass and value of variable capital, but also at limiting the pitfalls of complete mechanization. Some of t­ hese strategies have been (a) relocation of production in areas with cheap ­labor, instead of investments in costly technological innovation to maintain productive sites in areas with “pricey” l­abor power and (b) a resort to the supply of cheap ­labor usually provided by mi­grant workers, particularly in the case The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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of nonrelocatable productive sectors (like construction and the ser­vice industry, for instance), thereby giving rise to forms of competition between “native” and “non-­native” workers for the jobs available. For this set of reasons, as the passage at the beginning of this chapter testifies, already in Marx’s time mi­grants occupied a special place within the cap­i­tal­ist reproduction of surplus laboring populations, a situation that enabled cap­i­tal­ ists to maintain wage discipline and to inhibit working-­class solidarity by means of the application of a divide et impera logic. In nineteenth-­century and early twentieth-­century western Eu­rope they ­were usually rural workers forced to move to the cities or to neighboring regions/nations due to land dispossession and the pro­cess of industrialization as well as due to state policies aimed at providing l­ abor power for the growing urban manufacturing industries.18 From the mid-­twentieth ­century onward, the stock of mi­grant laborers to western Eu­rope, especially northern Eu­rope, was increasingly composed of southern Eu­ro­pean and non-­European subjects (mostly male) seeking to find work in richer cities, often coinciding with the metropoles that had dominated and impoverished their countries of origin ­under colonialism. In spite of its analytical power, the concept of the reserve army of l­abor has not always enjoyed much fortune. Particularly in the 1960s, the hegemony in the sociology of migration of rational-­choice approaches explaining population movements as the result of individual decisions contributed to marginalize and discredit this classically Marxian concept within the mainstream. It was only in the 1970s and 1980s that a new generation of scholars began to employ again the notion of a reserve army of ­labor to describe mi­grants as specific divisions of ­labor power.19 Through this notion, they tried in par­tic­u­lar to understand mi­grant ­labor and the growth of international migrations within the broader framework of uneven development, of cap­i­tal­ist expansion in pre­industrial socie­ties, and of the erosion of rural economies as well as of agreements between states. Thus, they sought to highlight the ele­ments of overdetermination and multidirectionality implied in such phenomena. In their groundbreaking 1973 work Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Eu­rope, Stephen ­Castles and Gudula Kosack defined “the unemployed masses of the less developed areas . . . ​[as] a new type of industrial reserve army—an external one consisting of desperate, impoverished men who can be recruited or sent away as the employers’ interests dictate.”20 Between the 1950s and 152 Chapter

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the end of the 1960s, the employment of mi­grants from poorer areas of western Eu­rope allowed industries to maintain low wages in key driving sectors of the economy (mostly manufacturing and construction), thus contributing to high profit rates and supporting gdp growth. By subjecting mi­grants to working longer hours, greater ­labor intensity, the least safe conditions, and the most job insecurity, employers could save on the costs of the organ­ization of work and social reproduction.21 Savings in the costs of social reproduction w ­ ere pos­si­ble also thanks to the recruitment of young and more productive (i.e., healthy) mi­grants, thus allowing companies to avoid paying “the costs of ‘rearing’ the worker and the maintenance costs a­ fter his/her working life” ended.22 Furthermore, as ­these workers ­were often unmarried or ­else lived with their families in conditions significantly below the standard of nonmigrant units, employers did not bear the costs of reproduction for them and their families. The “disposability” of the reserve army of mi­grant ­labor became particularly evident in the aftermath of the 1973 crisis. This was the first international crisis of capitalism in western Eu­rope to occur in coincidence with the massive presence of international, extra-­European mi­grants. Between 1973 and 1974 the entry of foreign workers was restricted, mi­grant workers’ rate of unemployment increased dramatically, and return paths w ­ ere established in order to encourage resident mi­grants to go back to their sending countries.23 Furthermore, the rising climate of xenophobia, exasperated by the growth of unemployment during the crisis, contributed to their identification as “competitors” to the native-­born workforce, thereby jeopardizing forms of class solidarity and u ­ nionization.24 Since the 1973 crisis in par­tic­u­lar, the association between economic downturns, mi­grant workers’ rising rates of unemployment, and restrictions to entry and to rights has become commonplace in the scholarly lit­er­a­ture.25 Although continuing to employ the concept of a “reserve army” to describe the condition of mi­grant workers, more recent approaches have tended to reinterpret it, particularly in the attempt to tackle the increased complexity of mi­grant ­labor and international migration flows in the twenty-­first ­century. Accordingly, we can identify three main tendencies in the specialized lit­er­a­ture, which seek to problematize and/or reformulate the concept of a reserve army of ­labor in the changed conditions of the post-­Fordist neoliberal conjuncture. On the one hand, several migration scholars have interrogated the reserve army of l­abor theory in terms of the emphasis it puts upon the antagonism The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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among workers for wages, brought about by capital’s constant tendency to reduce them. Hence, mi­grant ­labor in western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties in par­tic­ u­lar has been analyzed in terms of w ­ hether it plays the role of “competitor” or “complement” to the native workforce.26 As numerous studies all across Eu­rope have shown, mi­grants are employed in par­tic­u­lar in the informal sector, ­doing ­those jobs—­the famous three D jobs (dirty, dangerous, and demanding)—­that “national” workers tend to refuse, due in large part to their extremely low salaries and severe working conditions.27 This approach has thus effectively highlighted the fact that mi­grants often do not compete with native workers for the same jobs; rather, they are employed in t­ hose sectors that have been “abandoned” by the latter. In this light, it has been questioned ­whether mi­grant ­labor should still be described as a reserve army, a label that points to a role—­that of “competitor”—­that mi­grant workers do not play. While this ­perspective has had the salutary effect of neutralizing, or at least of problematizing, the most po­liti­cally pressing (and false) accusation against mi­grant workers “stealing jobs,” arguably it has also tended to reduce the category of the reserve army to that of competition for jobs. One pos­si­ble po­liti­cal effect of the creation of a reserve army—­namely, its enforced antagonism with native-­born employees—­has thus been treated as a cause, or an ele­ment that defines w ­ hether or not a fraction of the workforce belongs to the surplus laboring population. Other scholars, on the other hand, argue that the concept of a reserve army of ­labor should not be used for mi­grant workers alone. According to this perspective, the neoliberal restructuring of the economy in western Eu­rope has established the conditions to turn all workers into ­actual or potential reserve soldiers of the l­abor market. Decentralization of wage bargaining, the increasing individualization of contractual conditions, and the growth of fixed-­term contracts that put a larger number of workers in a state of extreme precarity are the main r­ ecipes of the so-­called post-­ Fordist reor­ga­ni­za­tion of ­labor. In their discussion of the “segmentation of the wage-­earning class,” for instance, Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello, quoting Christophe Dejours, consider “the constitution of a ‘reserve army’ of workers condemned to permanent insecurity, to underpayment and to a staggering job flexibility” as a generalized condition that affects low-­skilled workers in par­tic­u­lar.28 This argument identifies an impor­tant trend affecting the status of ­labor in con­temporary western Eu­rope. Furthermore, it

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highlights the fact that the creation of a reserve army is not restricted to the case of mi­grant workers but is a structural outcome of the current economic system. Nonetheless, the limits of this approach, in my view, lie in its unbridled extension and consequent dilution of the notion of the reserve army, thereby undermining its analytic value. In par­tic­u­lar, by classifying national and mi­grant workers alike as indiscriminately ranked troops of the global reserve army of ­labor ­under neoliberalism, we miss fundamental differences: namely, the deprivation of po­liti­cal and social rights that mi­grant workers suffer and their consequently worse working and living conditions.29 As noncitizens and often “illegal” residents and/or workers, mi­grants still constitute the most disposable and fragile workforce in western socie­ties. Though mi­grant ­labor has become much more complex in the last twenty years, with forms of informal and self-­employment in so-­ called mi­grants’ or “ethnic enclaves” and the creation of multiple layers of segmented ­labor markets on the rise, mi­grant workers have continued to be at the sharp end of unemployment.30 Still other scholars place more emphasis on the role of the state in helping create reserve armies of ­labor through market deregulation, welfare reforms, and “managed migration.” Rather than providing forms of social protection for the growing number of unemployed and underemployed, state policies in the last fifteen years have acted to exacerbate forms of individualization of l­abor contracts, which are responsible for the precarization and unemployment of large masses of working ­people. Furthermore, the closure of state borders and the reforms in immigration controls in the direction of promoting temporary (or circular) migration, have de facto contributed to turn many mi­grants into underemployed or unemployed reserve soldiers of the national army of l­abor, once the job contract and visa have expired. As a consequence, as it has been argued for the British case in a way that could be easily extended to other western Eu­ro­pean contexts, the concept of a reserve army of l­ abor accurately captures the recent direction of immigration policy, “in which mi­grant workers are treated less as potential citizens than units of l­abor, the supply of which can (in theory at least) be turned on and off.”31 Accordingly, the formation of surplus laboring populations is not merely the outcome of the intrinsic logic of accumulation of the cap­i­tal­ist mode of production, but also of the active role of the state as the most impor­tant mediator of cap­i­tal­ists’ interests ­under neoliberal capitalism.

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Following particularly on this latter approach, I would like to suggest that the Marxian notion of the reserve army of l­abor, together with t­ hose theories that highlight the operations of the nation-­state in helping produce and reproduce such reserve, is an essential tool for describing the conditions of mi­grant ­labor in the pres­ent conjuncture. In par­tic­u­lar, it enables us to decipher both the economic and the po­liti­cal pro­cess of the construction of mi­grant workers as a new global class of dispossessed in several ways. It highlights how the role of the “disposable” and “replaceable” workforce played by mi­grants within the global economy is a structural outcome of cap­i­tal­ist accumulation and not a phenomenon brought about by international migrations themselves. Mi­grants are often unemployed workers who, due to the failures of structural adjustment programs and land dispossession, w ­ ere expelled from production pro­cesses in their own countries as part of a “surplus-­working population”; furthermore, they are among the first to lose their jobs and to fill the ranks of the stagnant western Eu­ro­pean reserve army when a crisis occurs, as the 1973 oil crisis demonstrated and as the recent global economic crisis confirmed.32 While in periods of economic boom and low unemployment rates employers usually profit from mi­grant workers and use them in order to impose wage discipline, during periods of economic downturn or stagnation ­these same workers are turned into scapegoats for the bad economic situation. Nowadays, all across Eu­rope mi­grants are frequently presented as constituting a reserve of cheap ­labor whose presence threatens “national” workers with job losses, a lowering of their incomes, and a worsening of welfare provisions (schools, health system ser­vices, housing, ­etc.). High rates of unemployment, the consequences of the recent dramatic economic crisis, and the continuous erosion of workers’ rights are all ele­ments that intensify the idea of competition between “national” and “non-­national” laborers. In this context, the significant rise of right-­wing nationalist parties campaigning ­under the banner of opposition to immigration, and to Muslim mi­grants in par­tic­u­lar, as an economic and social threat suggests how t­ hese parties have benefited from, and further exacerbated, a climate of fear of the foreigner that seems to constitute the regular offspring of times of crisis. This notwithstanding, I argued earlier that Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women in con­temporary western Eu­rope are neither presented nor perceived in the same way as mi­grant men. Not only are they spared from being characterized as an economic and social danger to western Eu­ro­ 156 Chapter

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pean populations like the men are, but they are also foregrounded as subjects whom seemingly benevolent nationalists and neoliberals want to integrate and emancipate. Moreover, the role ­these ­women play within the con­temporary cap­i­tal­ist economy, as a fraction of mi­grant ­labor segregated in a newly commodified sector such as care and domestic work, is arguably also dif­fer­ent. Why is this the case? Female Migration and the Commodification of Care and Domestic ­Labor

As I began to illustrate in the introduction to this chapter, Muslim and non-­western ­women are highly concentrated in very few occupations, with 42 ­percent of them in western Eu­rope working in three sectors alone: the care and domestic sector in private h ­ ouse­holds, the care sector in hospitals, and residential care and home care and cleaning activities (­table 5.1). Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women are thus mostly employed in so-­called social reproduction, with the care and domestic occupations in private ­house­holds absorbing almost a quarter of them on average and between a half and a third of them in the Mediterranean countries (50 ­percent in Italy, 38 ­percent in Greece, 36 ­percent in Spain, and 29 ­percent in Portugal).33 Whereas official statistics count 22 ­percent of “foreign-­born” ­women as being employed in care and domestic work in the western Eu­ro­pean countries, only 5 ­percent of “native-­born” w ­ omen are found in the same sector. The difference between foreign-­born and native-­born ­women even reaches 11  ­percent as compared to 1  ­percent if we consider only t­hose ­women occupied in “activities of ­house­holds as employers of domestic personnel,” which includes mostly low-­skilled, low-­paid domestic work hired by individual families. Though official statistics emphasize the importance of foreign-­born ­women in the sector, ­these data tend to be mostly “conservative” ­because a reliable estimate of the share of mi­grants employed as care and domestic workers is difficult to provide. This is due both to differences in data collection in dif­fer­ent countries and above all to the fact that a large part of this work is carried out by undocumented mi­grants, or in the shadow economy.34 Mi­grant care workers and domestic workers in private ­house­holds face dif­fer­ent employment conditions, depending upon the country’s management of the migration of unskilled ­labor and of care provision, as well as upon the specific culture of care. Thus, mi­grants can The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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13 15

3

12

Country

Austria

Belgium

14

19

19

14

16

6

10

20

8

8

10

7

9

20

9

6

9

12

15

6

6

15

7

10

8

12

Food and beverage ser­vice activities (Nace2 56)

9

9

6

8

13

2

4

17

10

9

15

9

7

12

6

12

Retail trade (Nace2 47)

8

6

11

10

11

8

6

6

7

10

11

6

9

10

24

11

Ser­vices to buildings (cleaning activities) (Nace2 81)

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

All sectors

**Data are not available for “Activities on ­house­holds as employers of domestic personnel” (Nace2 97).

*Nace is the statistical classication of economic activities in the Eu­ro­pean Community. The details of the classification are available at: http://­ec​.­europa​ .­eu​/­eurostat​/­ramon​/i­ ndex​.c­ fm​?­TargetUrl​=­DSP​_P ­ UB​_W ­ ELC&StrLanguageCode​=­EN.

Source: Calculations are based on the ­Labor Force Survey. Extraction data provided by Eurostat upon request on May 31, 2013.

5

22

United Kingdom

8.6**

Sweden

EU-15

29

50

Italy

Portugal

7

Ireland

17

38

9.3**

24

France

Greece

Luxembourg

18

8**

Finland

Netherlands

24

36

Spain

15

7

14

Germany

Denmark

15

Care–­domestic work in private ­house­holds (Nace2 97–88)*

Residential care and ­human health and other care ser­vices (Nace2 86, 87, 96)

Table 5.1  Top Five Sectors for Employment of Foreign-­Born ­Women in the EU-15 in 2012 (in Percentages)

be hired on an hourly (and often informal) basis, as is prevalently the case in France and the Netherlands or as live-in workers, as in Italy and Spain.35 In order to understand the exception constituted by Muslim and non-­ western mi­grant ­women in con­temporary western Eu­rope as a mi­grant workforce that seems to be spared from accusations of posing an economic, social, or cultural threat, we thus need to look more closely at care and domestic work. In other words, if we want to decipher the materiality of the femonationalist ideology in the Netherlands, France, and Italy, we should pay close attention to the current institutional and informal arrangements that t­ hese nation-­states make when dealing with care and domestic ­labor and female mi­grant workers. What is it that distinguishes the care and domestic sector, where Muslim and non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen are mostly employed, or directed to find employment, from other sectors that employ mostly male mi­grants?

The Netherlands As one of the Dutch leading scholars on mi­grant domestic workers, Sarah van Walsum, has argued, “Dutch mainstream and policy-­oriented researchers on ­labor migration have systematically overlooked the fact that many mi­grants are (illegally) employed in Dutch homes, while the few quantitative researchers who have investigated the Dutch market in (undeclared) domestic ser­vices have remained equally ­silent on the role that mi­grants and ethnic minorities play in this sector.”36 And yet, as several sources (research institutes and trade u ­ nion reports, postgraduate dissertations, and domestic workers’ organ­izations) have demonstrated, not only are non-­western mi­grants (often undocumented and female) and ethnic minority ­women a significant presence in Dutch h ­ ouse­holds, particularly as ­house­keepers and child-­minders, but this presence is also likely to grow in the near f­uture. Institutional rearrangements occurring in the el­derly care system and changes affecting w ­ omen’s employment patterns in par­tic­ u­lar point in this direction. A brief overview of the Dutch welfare regime in historical perspective, therefore, ­will help shed light on this phenomenon. The demand for mi­grant workers in the care and particularly domestic sector in the Netherlands has been slowly mounting since the early 1980s. It has gone hand in hand with the establishment of laws aimed at increasing the participation of Dutch w ­ omen in the l­abor market and through the creation of semiprofessional figures, like that of the “alpha-­helper” The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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(alphahulp), with precarious and un­regu­la­ted working conditions. The role of the alpha-­helper, an individual caregiver who works directly with the el­ derly or dependent person at home, was initially introduced in 1977. Such a figure was explic­itly promoted as a mea­sure to increase Dutch ­women’s rates of activity (among the lowest in Eu­rope at that time), on the basis of the assumption that, since their income was only meant to complement their husbands’, they could well work u ­ nder inferior conditions.37 Thus, the figure of the alpha-­helper was made tax-­exempt, with no guaranteed minimum wage and no unemployment and illness-­insurance benefits. Since 2007, with the decentralization of the provision of subsidized ­house­hold ser­vices to municipalities (wmo—­Maatschappelijke Ondersteuning), the hiring of alpha-­helpers has again been on the rise, but nowadays many of them are likely to be mi­grants. According to the new regulation, private employers who hire a domestic worker, including so-­called alpha-­helpers, for no more than three days a week, are tax-­exempt and are not required to pay social security contributions or to register the employment relationship. Since the introduction of the wmo “a marked increase in the percentage of alpha-­helpers engaged in the provision of subsidized ­house­hold ser­vices from 20 to 80 ­percent” has been recorded, alongside a “growth in the recruitment of personnel via commercial cleaning companies, a segment of the Dutch l­abor market in which ethnic minorities are strongly over-­represented.”38 Though it is not yet clear what the current share of “allochthonous” workers in this new decentralized scenario is, we also know that Dutch municipalities are putting pressure on unemployed ethnic minority (often Muslim) ­women to accept work in the care and domestic sector, frequently through civic integration programs in the case of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women (see chapter 4). The new regulations have thus greatly encouraged the reproduction of care and domestic work as an informal and hidden sector where undocumented and unprotected mi­grants, or ethnic minority ­women, are increasingly likely to be employed. Studies conducted at the local level by research institutes, trade ­unions and scholars working in the field speak of more than one million mi­grants (often undocumented) who are employed as domestic helpers (house­keepers and sometimes babysitters) working on an hourly basis in private h ­ ouse­holds.39 Though Dutch immigration policies are very restrictive, making it “practically impossible to obtain a work-­permit for private domestic or care ser­vices,” they have contributed to increasing the demand 160 Chapter

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for foreign-­born ­women in the sector.40 As for social care for el­derly and dependent persons in “public” institutions, official statistics talk of a modest rise in the number of allochthonous workers between 1999 and 2004 when compared to other branches of the economy.41 The relatively low number of first-­generation immigrant workers in the el­derly care sector in public institutions has largely resulted from the fact that this branch of the economy offers relatively good working conditions, with the possibility for part-­time work and ­career development within it.42 In the Netherlands, therefore, Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women are frequently relegated to the low-­skill, low-­paid, un­regu­la­ted jobs of the private care and domestic economy. Although their importance to this sector goes entirely unrecognized by official statistics, the new state regulations on decentralized recruitment in social care as well as the management of migration and integration programs are pushing more and more mi­grant ­women to work in this economic niche, for which the supply of native-­ born ­labor is scarce.

France Like in the Netherlands and other eu countries, in France Muslim and non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen, as well as w ­ omen from other minority groups, are overrepresented in the social care and domestic sector (ser­vices à la personne).43 This is related both to the economic dynamism of social care professions and domestic work (due to the aging of the population and the higher rates of l­abor activity of French w ­ omen) and to the possibility of working in this sector without certificates or diplomas. France is one of the eu countries with the highest rates of w ­ omen’s economic activity and ­women 44 working in full-­time positions. However, this has not translated into a fair division of care and domestic work between the sexes. In order to tackle this prob­lem, since the beginning of the 1990s a number of schemes have been introduced with the main aim of simplifying the procedures and reducing the costs related to the outsourcing of care and domestic work to paid employees. In 2006 the French government introduced the chèque emploi-­service universel (cesu; universal ser­vice of employment through checks), presented as a mea­sure aimed at “giving French citizens the ‘means [to] better articulate their f­amily and professional lives’ by freeing them from the constraints of everyday life and to extend the use of paid domestic ser­vice to the ‘largest number of ­people pos­si­ble.’ ”45 U ­ nder the cesu The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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scheme, a ­family can hire a domestic worker by paying him or her with checks that can be purchased at the local bank. Employers can benefit from this scheme as they can claim an income-­tax reduction of 50 ­percent on ­these costs, whereas the employee is paid at the national minimum wage. Furthermore, companies can contribute to the costs their employees face in purchasing the checks and claim a tax reduction of 25 ­percent on this expenditure. The employment of domestic workers takes place not only through direct hiring by a private employer, but also through other actors such as private companies that offer cleaning, gardening, and home maintenance ser­vices and nonprofit associations that provide care for the el­derly and the ­children. In all cases, however, the new cesu policies have become the main generator of jobs in the care and domestic sector. “While contributing to the normalization of undeclared employment in the sector,” as Scrinzi argues, “­these policies did not challenge the association of ­these jobs with feminine unpaid domestic work.”46 Furthermore, they strengthened “class and ethnicity/nationality divisions, based on families’ differential access to commodified care ser­vice” and “have also resulted in an increased segmentation of the ­labor market on the basis of a racialized and gendered organ­ization of work.”47 Despite evidence suggesting that Muslim and non-­western ­women make up the lion’s share of supply in care and domestic jobs, for which the demand is on the rise, French governments, like their Dutch counter­parts, have been reluctant to acknowledge that such work is a highly significant economic sector for mi­grants. As a result, no specific work permit is issued for mi­grant domestic workers. Furthermore, in France statistics very rarely refer to “ethnic categories” with the result that t­ here is l­ ittle data concerning the nationality or the country of origin of t­ hese workers. This notwithstanding, a study of the patterns of el­derly care shows that it has become a refuge job for Muslim w ­ omen who are faced with discrimination and racism in other types of employment.48

Italy The growing demand for social care by Italian families in the last twenty years in par­tic­u­lar is the reason for the mounting numbers of mi­grants employed by private ­house­holds as ­house­keepers and especially caregivers (badanti; sing., badante). This situation has not only received increasing media attention, but also prompted sociologists, migration scholars, and

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feminists to speak of a fundamental transition occurring in Italian society from a “­family model of care” to a “mi­grant in the ­family model of care.”49 In Italy the f­ amily is the main actor providing care for the el­derly, disabled, and ­children. The recognition of the crucial role played by families, however, has not translated into policies that support their members in their caring activities (such as public provisions or public/affordable care ser­ vices). For instance, in the case of el­derly or dependent persons, the main form of long-­term care (ltc) in Italy is the cash attendance allowance (indennità di accompagnamento, i.e., a needs-­tested mea­sure that can be spent at the complete discretion of the beneficiary). The cash attendance allowance was established in 1980 in order to cope with the demand for care by “the citizen who is unable to work and does not have the necessary means for survival.”50 According to official data, in 2011 circa five million persons ­were provided with a form of social pension or attendance allowance.51 As for childcare, particularly for c­ hildren from zero to three years old, care ser­vices are mostly private and the number of caregivers is insufficient to respond to the needs of working families. Indeed, public childcare (scuola materna) in Italy is provided for ­children aged three to six. It is due to this void and/or insufficiency of public and affordable care ser­vices for the el­derly and for c­ hildren that non-­western mi­grant workers occupy a crucial role. In 2010 the National Institute for Social Insurance (inps) counted 871,834 contracts for caregivers and h ­ ouse­keepers (domestiche, colf e badanti), whereas estimates speak of more than one million workers being employed in this sector, often informally, a large number of whom are mi­ grants.52 The majority of non-­Italian ­women employed in this sector come from eastern Eu­rope, although studies at the local levels show that ­women from all regions of the Global South are well represented—­particularly as ­these are the only job opportunities they have in this country.53 No doubt, the reasons non-­western mi­grant ­women in par­tic­u­lar have become so impor­tant in Italian families, and why their number has grown so much over the last twenty years, are both the lack of public care ser­vices and the high costs of private ones, and the fact that outsourcing care work to mi­grant ­women allows Italian families to maintain a f­amily model and a gendered division of tasks, as well as to save money, since mi­grants work longer hours for very low salaries.54 The “mi­grant in the f­amily model,” therefore, represents above all a cost-­effective and gender-­acceptable solution.55 Fi­nally,

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it is of crucial importance in the context of this study to note the role played by immigration policies in encouraging the recruitment of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women as care and domestic workers. In 2002 a new tough immigration law, the so-­called Bossi-­Fini Act—­taking its name from the then leaders of the ln and Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance), respectively, that is, the most vocal anti-­immigration parties in the government—­was soon followed by regularization for care and domestic workers. Despite the harsh restrictions on immigration included in the new law, tellingly the ln declared its support for the regularization of “all ­these extra-­communitarians, the majority of whom are ­women, who carry out activities of high social importance for families.”56 In 2005, ­under Berlusconi’s neoliberal government, specific immigration quotas for domestic and care workers ­were issued for the first time, allowing 15,000 domestic and care workers to enter the country: that is, the same number established for all other occupations combined. In 2006 the same government “allowed the entrance of another 45,000 domestic and care workers, which was even more than the total (33,500) set for other occupations.”57 The tougher anti-­immigration agenda of the new Berlusconi government in 2008 resulted in a suspension of quotas for immigration, which was presented as a response to the global economic crisis that had seemingly made the recourse to mi­grant workers unnecessary. However, an exception was made for domestic and care workers, for whom a rec­ord quota of 105,400 was established. In 2009 the government therefore granted an amnesty only for illegal mi­grants working as carers (badanti), since that was considered the only sector where the demand for l­ abor could not meet the national supply. On this occasion, Roberto Maroni from the ln (then minister of the Interior) again declared, “­There cannot be a regularization for ­those who entered illegally, for ­those who rape a ­woman or rob a villa, but certainly we ­will take into account all ­those situations that have a strong social impact, as in the case of [female] mi­grant care-­givers.”58 Right-­wing anti-­immigration parties such as the ln, thus, seem to be willing to close an eye to undocumented mi­grants when they are ­women working in the care and domestic sector.

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in the ­labor market in the last twenty years, which w ­ ere followed neither by a growth of public care ser­vices nor by changes in the sexual division of ­labor within the ­house­hold, have certainly been among the most impor­ tant reasons for the growing demand for private carers and h ­ ouse­workers, and a power­ful impetus for the feminization of con­temporary migration flows. Even in the case of Muslim ­women who are Eu­ro­pean citizens—as is more often the case in France and the Netherlands than in Italy—­care and domestic work has become the main employing sector. While being more often discriminated against and invited to take the veil off, Muslim w ­ omen are also increasingly pushed to take on jobs in social reproduction both in order to fulfill the growing demand for carers and h ­ ouse­keepers and in order to reduce their reliance on unemployment benefits. Yet beside this set of phenomena Fiona Williams and Anna Gavanas also note that “it is not simply the lack of public provision that shapes the demand for childcare, but the very nature of state support that is available.”59 As we have seen, state-­arranged forms of cash provision or tax credits in the Netherlands, France, and Italy have been introduced in order to assist ­house­holds in buying help for el­derly care, domestic work, and childcare. Both cash provisions and tax credits have had the effect of encouraging the development of the “commodification of care” and of domestic ser­vices, which are generally sought privately on the market, where Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women provide the lion’s share of supply.60 In the current demographic and societal conjuncture, the role of the state in the privatization of care ser­vices (which pushes families to look for cost-­effective solutions on the market), as well as the higher rates of native-­born ­women’s participation in paid employment—­which often involves them being obliged to find “gender-­acceptable” replacements for themselves in the household—­are thus very impor­tant ­factors that can help us explain why Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women do not receive the same treatment as their male counter­parts. Rather than “stealing jobs,” “clashing culturally” and “parasitizing” on welfare provision, t­hese ­women are in fact the maids who help maintain the well-­being of western Eu­ro­pean families and individuals. They are the providers of jobs and welfare: they are ­those who, by helping western Eu­ro­pean w ­ omen to undo gender by substituting for them in the h ­ ouse­hold, allow t­hese “national” ­women to become workers in the “productive” ­labor market. Furthermore, it is they who contribute to the education of ­children and to the bodily The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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reproduction and emotional life of the el­derly and disabled, thus providing the welfare goods from whose provision states increasingly retreat. It is against this background that I propose that we can understand why Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women employed (or encouraged to be employed) in socially reproductive work are even offered exceptional help in regularization pro­cesses (like in Italy) by nationalist parties that are other­ wise harsh opponents of the influx of mi­grants. However, in order to fully understand the role of female mi­grant l­ abor within con­temporary neoliberal western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties, that is, in order to explicate how its connotations as “socially reproductive” ­labor enable us to shed light on the materiality or political-­economic logic of the femonationalist ideology, it is impor­tant to analyze what it is that differentiates the care and domestic sector from other sectors that employ mostly male mi­grants. In other words, we need to ask: Is ­there something specific to care and domestic work that can account both for its current feminized and racialized configuration and for the subtraction of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen from the ­enemy camp constituted mainly of mi­grant men?61 Is the foregrounding of t­ hese ­women as a tolerable component of the immigrant workforce qua (­actual or potential) care and domestic workers simply a contingent phenomenon, or is t­ here something more stable and structural about their location in this newly commodified sector of the economy? Do Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women employed in the domestic and care sector constitute a “reserve army of l­abor” in the same way as mi­grant men do in western Eu­ro­pean economies? Peculiarities of Care and Domestic ­Labor, or Social Reproduction: The Debate

Mainstream economists define care and domestic work, w ­ hether performed in private h ­ ouse­holds or in public institutions, as pertaining to the ser­vice economy and therefore as labor-­intensive and low in productivity.62 Like all ­human ser­vices, thus, care and domestic work is said to suffer from William Baumol’s “costs disease,” which means that wages are in­de­ pen­dent of productivity and that profit margins are low.63 On the other hand, most Marxist economists consider care and domestic work as re-­

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productive ­labor—­and thus as unproductive from a cap­i­tal­ist viewpoint—­ inasmuch as it pertains to the sphere of production of “beings” and not of “­things,” or of “use values” rather than “exchange values.” But in spite of its characterization by economists of dif­fer­ent tendencies as a form of ­labor that can be of greater or lesser significance from a cap­i­tal­ist perspective, care and domestic work is a type of activity that socie­ties simply cannot do without. As reproductive ­labor, care and domestic work involves not only the physical and emotional preservation and maintenance of workers, el­derly and the new generations, but also it is that type of l­ abor that is fundamentally “constitutive of society’s reproduction” as a ­whole.64 Yet it is precisely its status as socially reproductive ­labor that largely contributes to the definition and societal perception of care and domestic work as not being properly cap­i­tal­ist, that is, as fundamentally outside of market relations.65 As Encarnación Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez put it, the odd status of social reproduction within industrial-­dominated socie­ties “has led not only to the lack of its societal recognition and fair remuneration, but also to the silencing of its societal contribution as ‘expanded reproduction’ ” of capital.66 Against such a devaluation of domestic and care l­ abor, Marxist feminists in the 1970s and 1980s in par­tic­u­lar engaged in a “domestic ­labor debate” and offered sophisticated critiques of orthodox economic positions, seeking to demonstrate the key role of the h ­ ouse­keeper and the caregiver for the perpetuation of cap­i­tal­ist social relations.67 As Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James argued in a famous intervention in 1972, “Domestic ­labour is not essentially ‘feminine work’; a w ­ oman ­doesn’t fulfill herself more or get less exhausted than a man from washing and cleaning. ­These are social ser­vices inasmuch as they serve the reproduction of l­abour power. And capital, precisely by instituting its f­ amily structure, has ‘liberated’ the man from t­ hese functions so that he is completely ‘­free’ for direct exploitation; so that he is ­free to ‘earn’ enough for a ­woman to reproduce him as ­labour power.”68 In the 1980s the German feminist group known as the Bielefelderinnen further elaborated on the notion of reproductive ­labor as essential for cap­i­tal­ist accumulation.69 They sought in par­tic­u­lar to compare domestic and care work in the Global North and subsistence agricultural work in the Global South in order to point to ­these activities as the sources of the continuing original accumulation of capital. Furthermore, they analyzed the relationship between the North

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and the South, or the First and the Third World, in terms of the relation between man and ­woman: “It is not ­women who have a colonial status, but the colonies that have a ­woman’s status. In other words, the relationship between the First and the Third World corresponds to the relationship between man and ­woman.”70 All ­these contributions have been extremely impor­tant for an analy­sis of the role of domestic and care ­labor in cap­i­tal­ist socie­ties. They brought to light the crucial economic and social importance of unpaid socially reproductive work and the profoundly gendered essentialist assumptions that underpinned it, thus demonstrating a central facet of the relation between capitalism and patriarchy. Nonetheless, they ­were largely focused on the ­house­wife model in Fordist breadwinner systems, that is, on a model of ­labor and social organ­ization in which reproductive tasks ­were mostly done by native-­born w ­ omen for ­free. Furthermore, the fundamental agreement on the idea that unpaid care and domestic work was, strictly speaking, not productive from a cap­i­tal­ist viewpoint (despite its importance for cap­i­tal­ist reproduction at large) led to ­women in general being considered a privileged source for the industrial reserve army of ­labor. As a category of ­labor that did not depend entirely on a wage for its reproduction—­insofar as the assumption was that it could rely upon the male wage—­married ­women in par­tic­u­lar in industrial western socie­ties ­were automatically located among the ranks of ­those sectors of the population that cap­i­tal­ists could call on and off according to their needs.71 Fi­nally, “the use of ‘­woman’ as an undifferentiated, essentialist, ahistorical and decontextualized identity category,” as Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez argues, following on Mohanty’s critique, tended to omit “not only the inequalities between ­women, but also the dynamics of an interlocking system of oppression.”72 What happens, then, when we shift our focus to socially reproductive ­labor that is undertaken in a paid form and by migrant/non-­western ­women? Can we apply to it the same categories used to analyze socially reproductive ­labor undertaken in unpaid form by non-­migrant/western w ­ omen at home? And how does this shift help us further clarify that “state of exception” enjoyed by Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women as “redeemable subjects” in the landscape of other­wise stigmatized and undesired Muslim and mi­grant male workers in the pres­ent conjuncture?

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The Affectivity, Spatial Fixity, and Noncyclical Nature of Paid, Socially Reproductive Work

Even in its paid form, the care and domestic sector remains perhaps the most “gendered l­abor market.” Not only b ­ ecause the bulk of the workforce employed in the sector is female, but also b ­ ecause specifically female constructions of femininity have been enduringly associated with it and, therefore, have been constitutive ele­ments in the formation of its skills, working culture, and identity.73 Furthermore, as Helma Lutz argues, domestic and care work “is not just another ­labour market.”74 Namely, it is not merely work, but a par­tic­u­lar gendered activity. As a gendered activity it is emotionally and morally linked to meanings and interpretations of who we are as w ­ omen and men and who we wish to be. In other words, domestic work as a core activity of ­doing gender, helps perpetuate the existing social order of the genders. . . . ​Outsourcing ­house­hold and care work to another ­woman is widely accepted ­because it follows and perpetuates the logic of gender display in accordance with institutionalized genderisms.75 Besides being historically and culturally constructed as a gendered activity that strongly relies on “interpellating and performing ‘femininity,’ ” a fundamental, albeit not exclusive, component of care and domestic, or socially reproductive, l­abor is also affectivity.76 To grasp this aspect, some authors have proposed a distinction in the set of tasks characterizing care and domestic work between “caring for”—­which includes more physical chores such as cooking, cleaning, and washing—­and “caring about,” which entails the relational side of child-­minding and el­derly care.77 In this vein, feminist scholars in diverse fields of the social sciences and the humanities coined new categories to account for the distinctive affective components so strongly constitutive of paid social reproduction: that is, “sex/affective ­labor,” “emotional surplus value,” “maternal ­labor,” and so forth.78 Each category in its own way points to the incapacity of orthodox economics and mainstream quantitative frameworks in the fields of migration studies, economics, and sociology to comprehend the complex interlocking of cultural, ideological, and po­liti­cal significations that contribute to the construction and preservation of care and domestic work as a peculiar type of gendered and affective ­labor, even in its commodified form. However, The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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the recognition of the highly emotional character of some of the tasks involved in care and domestic work should not mislead us into thinking that ­here we are always necessarily dealing with “positive” affects. The affects involved in the context of care and domestic ­labor performed at home in paid form may assume dif­fer­ent meanings for the employee and the ­employer. For the former (the mi­grant ­women in this case), feelings such as love for the c­ hildren she looks a­ fter, affection for the el­derly person she cares for, or sympathy for a good employer she might be lucky to have, can go hand in hand with “disgust,” “unhappiness,” and “servility.” This reminds us that, as Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez puts it, “affects are not free-­floating energies. They emerge in a space delimited by a concrete historical and geopo­liti­cal context, bearing traces of the materiality that they transcend through their energy, but in which they remain embedded through their context of emergence. The expression and transmission of affects, thus, occur in a space marked by historically produced, socially configured and culturally located power relations.”79 On the other hand, the feelings the employer might attach to care and domestic work can be of a completely dif­fer­ent sort. Particularly for the female employer, the outsourcing of care and domestic work to another w ­ oman means above all “relief ” from tasks that would other­wise be likely to fall upon her shoulders. “As feminised subjects, both ­women . . . ​are objects of the social revulsion projected onto domestic work. . . . ​Nonetheless, the employment of another ­woman to do the work releases the female employers from negative affect so they have the opportunity to feel happy within their own four walls.”80 The reliance of ­house­holds upon work imbued with such impor­tant affects—­especially from the employer’s viewpoint—­and the very fact that this work is linked to ­family necessities that cannot be suspended, have impor­tant implications for explaining why the state abstains from punishing the hiring of irregular mi­grants in private ­house­holds and even makes exceptions for its regularization. In some cases, it can also explain why mi­grant ­women employed as domestic workers might sometimes have bargaining power over their wages—in spite of the terrible working conditions that characterize this sector. The intimate nature of the context in which it is performed (the ­house­hold), the highly emotional character of the tasks involved (caring for c­ hildren and/or the el­derly, cooking, looking ­after the home, i.e., the employer’s nest of intimacy par excellence), and

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therefore the importance of trust in the relationship, are all aspects that have been reported to make it difficult for employers to replace the worker once a relation of reliance is in place. For instance, empirical qualitative research carried out in the Netherlands shows that it is not infrequent to find undocumented mi­grants working in the ­house­hold ser­vices sector who have bargaining power in setting the terms of their employment.81 Likewise, some of the mi­grant ­women employed as care and domestic workers whom I interviewed in Rome in 2003 and 2005 spoke of how they could recommend their own replacement, ­either temporarily or permanently, on the basis of the relation of trust that they had created.82 Crucially, the affective character of care and domestic l­abor is also one of the core difficulties encountered by attempts to automate it. Research carried out in several eu member-­states shows that while public spending starts to be directed more and more ­toward assistive technology in the form of devices provided to the el­derly and dependent persons for f­ree, with the aim of saving on hospitalization and national health ­labor costs, many el­derly ­people nonetheless prefer ­either to buy costly equipment privately or to avoid it altogether. In recent years vari­ous tech companies, including French, Italian, and Dutch ones (Aldebaran Robotics, ArTec Domotica, Frog agv Systems), have e­ ither invested in or developed so-­ called nursebots, that is, robotic assistance for the el­derly and disabled. Nevertheless, research shows that robotic devices cannot substitute for ­human interaction and care. On the contrary, the deployment of ­these robots in nursing homes has had detrimental effects on the psychological state of dependent persons, particularly as such devices have been often perceived as signs of a lack of care.83 This is ultimately due to the fact that, as Silvia Federici points out, unlike commodity production, the reproduction of h ­ uman beings is to a ­great extent irreducible to mechanization, being the satisfaction of complex needs, in which physical and affective ele­ments are inextricably combined, requiring a high degree of ­human interaction and a most labor-­intensive pro­cess. This is most evident in the reproduction of ­children and the el­derly that even in its most physical component involves providing a sense of security, anticipating fears and desires. None of t­ hese activities is purely “material” or “immaterial,” nor can they be

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broken down in ways making it pos­si­ble for them to be mechanized or replaced by the virtual world of online communication.84 Two further ele­ments should be considered in addressing the differences between (paid and unpaid) care and domestic work and other sectors employing male mi­grants. First, the need for proximity between the producer and consumer of care and domestic ser­vices, or what I call their spatial fixity, the impossibility of suspending them, or their noncyclical nature, as well as the fact that ­these ser­vices must be consumed immediately ­after, or during, their production make the interruption and “the physical relocation of production away from the site of final consumption (as in commodity production) (practically) impossible.”85 Second, the fact that a significant portion of care and domestic mi­grant workers are employed by private h ­ ouse­holds that pay the worker ­either through cash provisions made available by the state or through their own savings means that we are not in the presence of a typical cap­i­tal­ist ­labor relation. At least in princi­ ple, the employer does not extract surplus value from the worker’s surplus ­labor in order to invest it in fixed capital or make a profit.86 By pointing to this peculiarity I aim to show that ­labor relations between employer and employee in the context of care and domestic work in private h ­ ouse­holds might not always be best described in terms of cap­i­tal­ist ­labor relations, as might instead be the case for other sectors that tend to employ male mi­ grants (above all, manufacturing). All in all, the fact that the affective character of the work involved in labor-­intensive ser­vices such as the care and domestic sector makes it difficult to automate, together with its spatial fixity, noncyclical character, and “relative” subtraction from pure cap­i­tal­ist relations, is an impor­tant dimension helping account for both its dissimilarity from unpaid social reproduction and its peculiarity as compared to sectors employing mostly mi­grant men. Combined with all the f­actors mentioned above—­that is, the aging of the population, the increasing participation of native-­born ­women in paid employment outside the h ­ ouse­hold, and the commodification and privatization of care as the preferred response of most western Eu­ro­pean states facing increasing demands for ltc provision—­these ele­ments peculiar to paid care and domestic work can further enable us to understand why the demand for mi­grant ­women as care and domestic workers is on the rise. 172 Chapter

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Are Muslim and Non-­Western Mi­grant ­Women a Regular Army of ­Labor?

One of the consequences deriving from the peculiarities of commodified care and domestic work that I illustrated above is not only that it has been mostly redistributed onto the shoulders of mi­grant ­women, but also that it is one of t­ hose sectors where the Marxian notion of the reserve army of l­abor needs amending. As I argued at the beginning of this chapter, the discussion of the creation of a surplus-­laboring population, or reserve army, is strictly related to Marx’s analy­sis of the organic composition of capital and the tendency of cap­i­tal­ist accumulation to encourage the increase “of its constant, at the expense of its variable constituent,” namely, the increase of the mass and value of the means of production at the cost of the mass and value of living l­abor employed in the production pro­cess.87 The reduction of variable capital can be achieved ­either through automation, which reduces the mass of workers and, therefore, leads to their expulsion from the productive pro­ cess, or through the reduction of the value of variable capital (that is, wages), which can result ­either in cap­i­tal­ists hiring layers of the unemployed and underemployed populations who work for lower wages, or in the relocation of production to poorer areas with cheap ­labor and poor ­labor regulation. However, none of t­ hese conditions seem to apply to the paid care and domestic work undertaken by female mi­grant workers in con­temporary western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties. The re­sis­tance of care and domestic l­abor to automation, its “spatial fixity,” noncyclical nature, and very poor working conditions, coupled with the societal and demographic trends I illustrated in the previous section, mean that (1) only a small amount of commodified care and domestic l­abor can be decommodified through re­distribution onto the shoulders of f­amily members; (2) competition—­whether real or virtual—­between national and non-­national laborers for ­these jobs is not significant; and (3) care and domestic work cannot be replaced by fixed capital (machines) or relocated. First, the possibility of resorting to members of ­family ­house­holds for ­free care and domestic l­abor, and thus of decommodifying it by returning to the male breadwinner and ­house­wife model typical of Fordism, is increasingly ruled out by impor­tant developments that have taken place in the structure of western Eu­ro­pean economies particularly since the 1990s. Whereas ­women ­were traditionally the ­family members in charge of reproductive The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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tasks in the h ­ ouse­hold, their increased participation in the l­abor market in the last twenty years has led to impor­tant changes in traditional gender roles and ­family structures, and consequently in w ­ omen’s availability to provide care and domestic work in the same conditions. Data from Eurostat show an increase of 7.6 percentage points in the activity rate of native-­ born western Eu­ro­pean ­women between 2000 and 2012, from a share of 61.8  ­percent ­women active in the ­labor market in the second quarter of 2000 to 69.4 ­percent in the third quarter of 2012. As shown in figure 5.2 and as a recent study on the impact of the global economic crisis on native-­ born ­women confirms, ­these w ­ omen have also been less affected by the 88 crisis than native-­born men. ­Women’s increasing integration in paid work has been reinforced both by changes in ­family models and by the increasing importance of ­women’s wages in ­family bud­gets. Most important, data show that native-­born “­women’s response to the demand downturn has been primarily to reinforce their commitment to the ­labor market through added worker effects. ­Women are thus not acting as a buffer ­either in protecting men against job loss or acting as a l­abour reserve in voluntarily withdrawing from the l­ abour market.”89 This testifies to a societal shift that has been taking place across western Eu­ro­pean countries—­although at dif­fer­ent speeds in each country—­toward a growing member of the female working-­aged population being active in the workforce. Such a shift has meant that w ­ omen have less time, availability, and (often) willingness to accomplish the care and domestic tasks that traditionally awaited them at home. Second, the poor working conditions, low wages and low status, unsocial working hours, and often irregular situations prevalent in the care and domestic sector make this work unattractive for nonmigrant ­women. Furthermore, research shows that employers themselves often prefer to hire mi­grants as care and domestic workers. Not only are they seen as being more available for low-­status and low-­paid jobs than native-­born workers, but also when the latter do accept jobs as in-­home nannies, for instance, they are discussed in negative terms as representing poor “national” role models for the c­ hildren due to their (often) low education levels, unlike mi­grant ­women who frequently have high-­level qualifications.90 Additionally, the creation of niches within the care and domestic sectors—­for instance, between live-in and live-­out jobs—­divided according to nationality, coupled with the rising demand for care and domestic workers even in times 174 Chapter

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Extra-EU15

5.5 8.1

EU-15

2.7 3.4 0

1 Women

2

3 Men

4

5

6

7

8

9

variation 2007–2011(%)

Figure 5.2 ​Difference in unemployment rates between 2007 and 2011 by sex and country of birth in the eu-15. source: calculations based on eurostat, ­labour force survey (online data code: [lfsa_urgacob]).

of economic crisis and austerity, seems to have created a certain equilibrium between female mi­grant workers themselves, so that they tend not to compete for the same jobs. Third, as I explained earlier, the attempts to automate care and domestic work, or replace workers with fixed capital (machines), are made particularly difficult by the strong affective dimensions of this work, thereby rendering certain tasks impossible to mechanize. Relocation to sites with cheaper ­labor is also impossible due to the very nature of care and domestic ser­vices, which have to be produced and consumed in situ, most often at home. This is the case not only ­because the home is obviously the site of ­house­keeping, but also ­because the expectations and preferences of families and dependent persons with regard to care—as well as t­hose of the state—­are not shifting away from a largely “care-­at-­home” model. Most p ­ eople requiring ltc ser­vices receive and prefer to receive care at home.91 For instance, a 2007 Eurobarometer survey examining public opinion regarding care provision across Eu­rope found that the large majority of interviewees expressed the expectation of and preference for home care if they ­were to become dependent.92 However, the increased participation of native-­born ­women in the workforce and the fact that they have been less affected by unemployment than native-­born men (in other words, the fact that the crisis has not created a supply of native-­born ­women for the care and domestic sector, at least in the richer regions of these countries) have meant that ­these expectations and preferences can less and less be met The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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by a native-­born female workforce that is increasingly active outside the ­house­hold, determined to remain so, and unavailable (or undesirable) for care and domestic work even in paid form, due above all to the very severe, un­regu­la­ted, stigmatized, and poor working conditions of this sector. It is thus not by chance that the 2007–2011 economic downturn hit particularly hard the sectors that employ mi­grant men, whereas t­hose employing mi­grant ­women have even grown during the crisis. As the 2012 Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development (oecd) International Migration Outlook reports, in the eu the crisis was felt in very severe ways by t­ hose sectors that are highly exposed to the fluctuations of the economy. In contrast, noncyclical sectors registered significant growth with occupations like “residential care activities” and “activities of h ­ ouse­holds as employers of domestic personnel” registering thousands of new jobs for foreign-­born workers, most of them for ­women. In light of this evidence, the oecd did not fail to emphasize that in most countries mi­grant ­women have been less affected by the economic crisis than mi­grant men.93 For instance, data on the effects of the global economic crisis in the Netherlands in 2012 show that while employment in the construction and manufacturing industries decreased by 4 ­percent and 13 ­percent, respectively, thereby affecting foreign-­born (young) males in par­tic­u­lar, it grew by 40 ­percent in the care and welfare sector, which is envisaged to be one of the faster-­ growing sectors in the Dutch economy in the coming years.94 In France too, manufacturing and construction ­were the sectors that most suffered from the economic downturn, with losses between 2008 and 2011 amounting to 44,400 jobs in the construction sector and 267,600 in manufacturing and extractive industries.95 On the other hand, according to the Conseil National de l’Information Statistique (cnis; National Council for Statistical Information), the number of ­people employed ­under the cesu scheme grew from 770,000 persons in 2008 to 835,000 in 2010.96 Although ­there are not detailed statistics on the nationality or country of birth of ­these workers, estimates calculate that more than one in four care and domestic workers are of foreign nationality and 35 ­percent are immigrants.97 Fi­nally, in Italy, given the crucial role that mi­grant w ­ omen working as caregivers and ­house­keepers are playing in the Italian ­family system (particularly in the north of the country and in the big cities), it is ­little surprise to discover that the global economic crisis has impacted males dramatically, but not so much female mi­grant workers. Not only has the care and domes176 Chapter

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tic sector been spared from the devastating effects of the crisis, but it has even grown during it, although we should bear in mind that such growth has also meant an expansion of the gray economy and worsening working conditions in the sector.98 As all available data clearly show, thus, the global economic crisis has had specific gender dimensions, particularly for mi­ grant workers. As previously noted, some commentators have gone so far as to call it the “he-­cession.”99 In light of t­hese ele­ments, I argue that the female mi­grant workforce employed in the care and domestic sector in western Eu­rope amounts not to a reserve army that is depicted (and perceived) as an economic threat to native-­born workers, constantly exposed to unemployment and used in order to maintain wage discipline, but to a “regular” army of ­labor. Rather than being competitors with native ­women in the low-­skilled jobs market, mi­grant w ­ omen employed as care and domestic workers thus have both allowed a number of native-­born ­women to work outside the ­house­hold, and created entirely new professional figures, such as that of the paid personal badante, which in Italy, for instance, had not previously existed. Rather than inspiring campaigns for their exclusion from the ­labor market, or from western Eu­rope altogether, non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen undergo exceptional pro­cesses of regularization and even receive offers of “salvation” from their allegedly backward cultures. The proposal that mi­grant ­women employed as care and domestic workers could be characterized as a regular army of ­labor thus appears to run ­counter to the so-­called domestic ­labor debate initiated by feminists in the late 1970s and 1980s. As noted above, in this context the concept of the reserve army of l­abor was used in order to account for the structural income biases and precarious working and contractual conditions of w ­ omen who ­were then entering the ­labor market as waged workers in increasing numbers.100 As Floya Anthias noted, it had become “an almost unproblematic reference to depict w ­ omen as a ral [reserve army of l­abor],” particularly in Marxist feminist discussions.101 However, rather than challenging the idea that w ­ omen in general are likely to be counted in the ranks of the (latent) reserve army of l­ abor—­a hypothesis that at any rate would need to be empirically verified in each country and at dif­fer­ent times and stages of cap­i­tal­ist development—­I propose instead that we employ the notion of the regular army to describe what happens to mi­grant w ­ omen engaged in commodified socially reproductive l­abor. The focus on a specific category The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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of “­women” in the context of con­temporary neoliberal western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties as well as on a determined (and highly peculiar) sector of the economy enables us to see that the w ­ omen to whom the two concepts refer—­reserve army in the 1970s and regular army in the 2000s—do not belong to the same supposedly homogeneous universal called womanhood. Rather, they inhabit diverse worlds of experience strongly marked by class and (increasingly) racial differences. Insofar as the w ­ omen who are employed in the care and domestic sector are mi­grants mainly coming from the Global South and former state-­socialist countries, the most appropriate term for understanding their working conditions is arguably neither the indeterminate abstraction of wage ­labor in general, nor of ­women’s work in par­tic­u­lar, but rather the determinate abstraction of commodified socially reproductive work carried out by the mi­grant workforce. Mi­grant l­abor in con­temporary Eu­rope and western socie­ties, as I have previously argued, is configured in specific forms: it is “­labor on the move,” as a result of the uneven development brought about by what David Harvey calls “accumulation by dispossession,” and it is “disposable l­abor,” with a distinctive economic as well as po­liti­cal status.102 However, in the world of mi­grant workers, mi­grant ­women’s ­labor seems to obey its own rules. It follows the rules of genderism and the “sexual contract” within the ­house­hold, which establishes that ­women are still the subjects in charge of reproduction and care.103 But it also follows the rules of the “racial contract,” according to which ethnic minorities and p ­ eople of color are still ­those who perform the least desirable and valued tasks in a society.104 The concept of a regular army of ­labor as applied to mi­grant ­women employed in commodified socially reproductive work in con­temporary western Eu­ ro­pean socie­ties thus aims to contribute to the Marxist theory of the reserve army of l­abor, which, as I argued above, is still of enormous value for understanding the place of mi­grant ­labor in con­temporary western Eu­ ro­pean socie­ties. Hence, I regard the concept of the regular army of ­labor as a pos­si­ble supplement to the Marxian theory of surplus populations, a supplement potentially enabling that theory not only to take into account the notoriously neglected field of socially reproductive l­abor, but also to understand its changing forms ­under neoliberal capitalism. The term “regular,” however, can be misleading if it is taken to mean stability and security. I should thus clarify that by using such a term I do not intend to assert that female mi­grants could not in princi­ple belong to a re178 Chapter

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serve army of ­labor or that they are immune from unemployment and the loss of social and po­liti­cal rights. On the contrary, mi­grant w ­ omen from the Global South often go through a pro­cess of incorporation into and expulsion from wage ­labor in their sending countries before they move to richer regions in the North.105 In other words, they may well belong to their national reserve army of ­labor as rural mi­grants or as a cheaper workforce alternatively hired and fired by industries in their own country as cap­i­ tal­ist needs demand. Furthermore, we could imagine a f­ uture scenario in which for dif­fer­ent reasons native-­born w ­ omen ­will become available for paid reproductive work, thereby potentially turning mi­grant ­women employed in the sector into reserve rather than regular workers. Likewise, I do not mean to suggest that mi­grant ­women employed in the care and domestic sector have more regulated, secure, or simply better working conditions than their male counter­parts employed in other sectors. As most studies on this par­tic­u­lar segment of the ­labor market demonstrate, care and domestic jobs are often performed in unsafe contexts, without contract regulations or health and social benefits and in very abusive working conditions.106 By employing the term “regular army,” I seek to show how the Marxist tradition’s use of the power­ful meta­phor of an “army” to describe the pool of workers and surplus populations in industrialized socie­ties has a con­ temporary relevance and explanatory power. But I also seek to underline the antipodal position occupied by the female segment of mi­grant workers active in this specific economic sector as contrasted to the “reserve” character of the army of l­abor in which the male segment is mostly employed. My proposal, in this re­spect, might be seen as close to the perspective more recently a­ dopted by Saskia Sassen, who has characterized low-­waged domestic workers as “strategic infrastructure maintenance workers.”107 As Sassen highlights, though research on the subject has focused on the “poor working conditions, exploitation, and multiple vulnerabilities of t­hese h ­ ouse­hold workers,” what ­matters analytically “is the strategic importance of well-­functioning professional ­house­holds for the leading globalized sectors in [the] cities and, hence, the importance of this new type of serving class,” which is mostly composed of ­women.108 Furthermore, by introducing the concept of a regular army of l­abor for mi­grant ­women employed in the care and domestic sector in western Eu­rope, I also seek to rethink and to interrogate established categories The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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inherited from past debates, such as the assumption that both w ­ omen and mi­grants constitute, almost by definition, a reserve army of l­abor.109 By showing the epochal shifts ­under way in impor­tant societal domains (particularly the ­family and the gender patterns traditionally associated with it), in their intersections with the changes taking place in ­labor markets (where ­women, both native and foreign-­born, have been hit by the crisis less than men), migration regimes, and state policies regarding care (which fuel the demand for mi­grant ­women in the care sector), we can appreciate how such shifts have come to overturn our expectations and how they can push us to update our analytical toolbox. Notes ­toward a Critique of the Po­liti­cal Economy of Femonationalism

As this long discussion has sought to demonstrate, a critique of the po­liti­ cal economy of femonationalism entails an in-­depth analy­sis of the wider economic interests that have contributed to shape femonationalism into one of the most puzzling and power­ful ideological formations of our times. The materiality of discourses and ideologies is linked to the ways in which they operate through dif­fer­ent (state) apparatuses in order to guarantee the reproduction of the material conditions of production on a daily basis. I thus contend that the materiality of femonationalism is strictly connected to the ways in which the foregrounding of Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women as redeemable, even within campaigns dominated by other­wise harsh anti-­immigration slogans, is related to their key role in the reproduction of the material conditions of social reproduction. The “useful” role that female mi­grant ­labor plays in the con­temporary restructuring of welfare regimes and the feminization of key sectors of the ser­vice economy thus accounts significantly for the dif­fer­ent ways in which neoliberal governments and nationalist parties relate to Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women and men. We could further note that, besides being extremely useful “reproductive workers,” Muslim and non-­western mi­grant ­women are also “reproductive bodies” whose birthrate is more than double that of national ­women.110 Despite the attempts “to re-­establish the demographic advantage of one nationality”—as Judith Butler put it—­that have been made in the last few years by several eu countries (see chapter 2), calls for assimilation addressed 180 Chapter

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to non-­western mi­grant ­women (Muslim and non-­Muslim alike) identify a specific role they play within con­temporary western Eu­ro­pean socie­ties.111 Insofar as they are regarded as prolific bodies of ­future generations, as m ­ others who play a crucial role in the pro­cess of transmission of “societal values,” as a useful replacement in the socially reproductive sector for “national” ­women, mi­grant ­women seem to become the target of a deceptively benevolent campaign in which they are “needed” as workers, “tolerated” as mi­grants, and “encouraged” as w ­ omen to conform to western values. Two further ele­ments should be considered in t­hese concluding remarks, albeit briefly. Attending to ­women’s specific positioning within the cir­cuit of the market economy is impor­tant for a critique of femonationalism not only in terms of the role of w ­ omen as producers and reproducers, but also when we consider them as consumers and even as commodities. As Hester Eisenstein argues, “If the goal of globalization is to create investment and marketing opportunities, and therefore ac­cep­tance of western products along with western norms, then in this context an image of a liberated western ­woman becomes part of the sale. . . . ​Feminism, defined as ­women’s liberation from patriarchal constraints, is made the equivalent of participating in the market as a liberated individual.”112 Continuous cap­i­tal­ist expansion in the Global South as well as the full incorporation of all individuals into its logic in the richer North involves an extension and rearticulation of the ideology that Crawford Macpherson famously called “possessive individualism.”113 As possessive individuals, mi­grants integrated into western socie­ties—­and particularly female mi­grants—­are invited to conceive of their freedom in terms of their in­de­pen­dence from communitarian bound­aries and of their capacity for endless western patterns of consumption. Mi­grant w ­ omen, however, are also commodities. H ­ ere, by considering con­temporary femonationalism as an ideological formation that needs to be understood also on the basis of the commodification of Muslim and non-­ western w ­ omen as such, I am arguing that we need to pursue the line of reasoning famously proposed by Alain Badiou more than a de­cade ago. ­After the 2004 law against the hijab in public schools was approved in France—­a law that has come to epitomize the entire debate about the equation between Islam and w ­ omen’s oppression—­the French phi­los­o­pher defined it as a “pure cap­i­tal­ist law.” For femininity to operate according to its function ­under capitalism, the female body has to be exposed in order to circulate The Po­l iti­c al Economy of Femonationalism 

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“according to the market paradigm.”114 The Muslim girl therefore has to show “what she’s got to sell.” In other words, she needs to accept and to endorse actively the commodification of her female body. The emphasis on the need of assimilating mi­grant ­women in general to norms of Eu­ro­pean femininity, or on the unveiling of Muslim ­women in par­tic­u­lar, therefore combines both the western male’s enduring dream of “uncovering” the w ­ oman of the e­ nemy, or of the colonized, and the demand to end the incongruence of hidden female bodies as exceptions to the general law according to which they should circulate like “sound currency.”115 We can thus argue that the current mobilization of gender equality and feminism as tools in the ser­vice of the strengthening of nationalist and racist discourses should be regarded not simply as “ideological cover,” in a negative and limited sense, as a distortion or lie. The rise of femonationalism needs to be deciphered also as symptomatic of the distinctive position of western and non-­western ­women in the economic, po­liti­cal, and sensu lato material chain of production and reproduction. The possibility of the attempted appropriation by nationalist and neoliberal discourses of central feminist ideals of equality and freedom, and the convergence of feminists/ femocrats with anti-­immigration and racist politics, has emerged from the very specific reconfiguration of the l­abor market, migration, and workforce movements as well as the nationalization of po­liti­cal life produced by the dynamics of neoliberal globalization of the last thirty years. Confronting femonationalism thus requires not only ideological refutation but also a concrete analy­sis of its political-­economic foundations.

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NOTES

Introduction

1 Three far-­right nationalist parties came first in their respective countries: the Danish ­People’s Party obtaining 25 ­percent (+18.7) of the vote; the fn obtaining 26.6 ­percent (+11.8) of the vote; and the United Kingdom In­de­pen­ dence Party with 27.5 ­percent (+11.4). In general, far-­right parties obtained their highest results in western Eu­ro­pean countries (with the exception of Hungary). For a more extensive commentary on ­these results, see Cas Mudde’s analy­sis, “The Far Right in the 2014 Eu­ro­pean Elections: Of Earthquakes, Cartels and Designer Fascists,” May 30, 2014, in the Washington Post: https://­www​.w ­ ashingtonpost​.c­ om​/n ­ ews​/m ­ onkey​-c­ age​/­wp​/2­ 014​/­05​/­30​/­the​-f­ ar​ -­right​-­in​-­the​-­2014​-­european​-­elections​-o ­ f​-e­ arthquakes​-c­ artels​-a­ nd​-­designer​ -­fascists/ (accessed March 3, 2015). 2 See the article “The ‘Brown International’ of the Eu­ro­pean Far Right” by Thanasis Kampagiannis in Left Flank, January 12, 2014, available at http://­left​ -­flank​.­org​/­2014​/­01​/­12​/­brown​-i­ nternational​-e­ uropean​-f­ ar​-­right/ (accessed January 2, 2016). 3 Bartlett et al., “Pop­u­lism in Eu­rope”; Mayer, “From Jean-­Marie to Marine Le Pen”; Akkerman and Hagelund, “ ‘­Women and ­Children First!’ ”; Towns et al., “Equality Conundrum.” 4 The invasion of Af­ghan­i­stan that followed the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York was presented to, and endorsed by, the international public as a mission to liberate Afghan ­women from their oppression ­under Taliban rule just as much as an act of defense and retaliation against the perpetrators of the attacks. From then onward, images of veiled Muslim ­women as imprisoned bodies have entered our western collective unconscious alongside ­those of Muslim bearded men seemingly plotting terrorist onslaughts against western targets. All across the West, not only right-­wing nationalist and conservative forces but also some leftist and feminist organ­ izations and public figures have endorsed the portrayal of Muslim ­women as victims to be saved. In the United States, the Feminist Majority Foundation, one of the leading feminist voices in the country, effectively supported the invasion of Af­ghan­i­stan as necessary to liberate Afghan ­women from “gender apartheid” (Russo, “Feminist Majority Foundation’s Campaign to Stop

5

6

7

8

Gender Apartheid”). On the other side of the Atlantic, the German feminist icon Alice Schwarzer has been one of the most vocal opponents of Islam as a misogynist religion and culture, and she was echoed by a wide array of po­ liti­cal forces from left to right. This attitude is so widespread in the country that according to a survey conducted by the polling agency Allensbach in 2012, 83 ­percent of Germans associate the word “Islam” with “oppression of ­women.” In Sweden and Norway, a convergence between feminists and right-­ wing/anti-­immigration parties such as the Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Demo­crats) and the Fremskrittspartiet (Pro­gress Party) has taken place in the name of gender equality against non-­western immigrant communities (Roma and Muslims in par­tic­u­lar). If we turn to other western countries, the situation is not all that dissimilar. ­After the 2005 racist “Cronulla riots” in Sydney, when white Australians assaulted men of color for days while accusing them of being rapists, mp Carl Scully declared he was “concerned a small number of ­Middle Eastern males appear to have a prob­lem with respecting ­women” (Ho, “Muslim ­Women’s New Defenders”). Oriana Fallaci did not define herself as a feminist, although she was associated with liberal feminism due to her endorsement of ­battles for the rights for abortion and divorce in the 1970s. I ­here use the definition of femocrats in Inside Agitators by Hester Eisenstein as “feminists in state bureaucracy.” For a comprehensive discussion on the notion of femocrat and state feminism in transnational perspective, see Haussman and Sauer, Gendering the State in the Age of Globalization. See also McBride and Mazur, Politics of State Feminism. Neoliberalism is generally associated with political-­economic doctrines promoting globalization. It is thus assumed to transcend national bound­ aries and to reject nationalist ideologies. Chapter 3 challenges this widespread view. For an overview of ­these debates, particularly within the field of international po­liti­cal economy, see Harmes, “The Rise of Neoliberal Nationalism.” Some of the arguments most recently deployed by some feminists and femocrats to stigmatize Muslim males and to portray Muslim ­women as victims to be saved replicate ste­reo­typical repre­sen­ta­tions of the alleged victimhood of non-­western ­women that characterized western Eu­ro­pean accounts of mi­ grant ­women at least from the 1970s onward. Moreover, the civic integration policies that some feminists, ­women’s organ­izations, and femocrats supported, or directly implemented on the basis of their anti-­Islam perspective, apply not only to mi­grants from the ­Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, but also to Africans in general, Albanians, Rus­sians, Serbians, Chinese, and so forth (in short, to non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants). For this reason, throughout this book I refer to Muslim and non-­western mi­grant men and ­women, ­unless the context requires reference to specific nationalities and/or religious affiliations. In par­tic­u­lar, I ­will highlight how the majority of Muslim

184 Notes to

Introduction

­ omen (mi­grants and nonmigrants alike) and of ­women migrating to w western Eu­rope from the Global South and from some of the countries of the postsocialist bloc are affected by at least some of the policies and pro­cesses I outline in this book. 9 Éric Fassin examines the ways in which in both France and the United States themes of sex and sexuality, gender equality, and gay rights have been displaced from the private to the public/po­liti­cal sphere. The foregrounding of sexual freedoms as ­matters of open, public discussion, and thus, “democ­ ratization,” however, has been accomplished through the identification of mi­grants, and particularly Muslims, as aliens to ­those same pro­cesses. Sexual democracy, or the sexualization of democracy, has thus been instrumentalized in the ser­vice of sexual nationalism, whereby mi­grants’ and Muslims’ integration and loyalty to their hosting western nations are tested by means of their commitment to the sexual values of ­these nations (É. Fassin, “Sexual Democracy and the New Racialization of Eu­rope”). Drawing on the notion of “cultural fundamentalism” to describe the dogmatic and exclusionary ways western culture has been rebranded by the right wing as a tool for Othering mi­grants, in a famous 2006 article Liz Fekete coined the term “enlightened fundamentalism.” This term describes the power­ful deployment of ­women’s rights and gay rights by right-­wing parties in con­temporary xenophobic campaigns across Eu­rope and their resort to the Enlightenment tradition as the foundation of western Eu­ro­pean culture, aimed against Muslims and mi­grants more generally. According to Fekete, what has made enlightened fundamentalism so strong in the aftermath of 9/11 is the way in which many “self-­proclaimed feminists” jumped on the right-­wing “band wagon” (Fekete, “Enlightened Fundamentalism?,” 12). Accordingly, Fekete accuses ­these feminists of “paternalism” and points to their contradictions when they support repressive policies like Muslim veil bans in the name of ­women’s freedom of choice. For Fekete, both the right wing and feminists are “exploiting” the theme of gender equality within cultural fundamentalist campaigns. Similarly to Fassin, the Dutch sociologists Paul Mepschen and Jan Willem Duyvendak also use the notion of “sexual nationalism” to discuss con­ temporary public repre­sen­ta­tions of Muslims as a threat to sexual freedoms in the Netherlands. Specifically, they explicate the sexualization of nationalism in terms of the “culturalization” and “sexualization” of citizenship, that is, the ways in which Dutch citizenship is understood more and more in terms of cultural and moral identifications. Accordingly, they show how Muslims and other non-­western mi­grants are criticized for their supposed lack of loyalty to certain Eu­ro­pean cultural constellations and sexual liberties, which are now recast as the foundation of western history. Mepschen and Duyvendak also see the foregrounding of sexual freedoms in anti-­Muslim agendas as an instance of “instrumentalization,” particularly in the case of the “populist right.” What facilitates this instrumentalization, they further maintain, is the Notes to Introduction 

185

neoliberal context, understood as a “proj­ect to reinforce or restore the authority of state institutions over the production of (national) citizenship and po­liti­cal subjectivity and the regulation of ­labor markets and urban marginality” (Mepschen, Duyvendack, and Tonkens, “Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands”). See also Mepschen and Duyvendack, “Eu­ro­pean Sexual Nationalisms.” 10 Centering her attention on the intersection between gay politics and US nationalists ­after 9/11, Jasbir Puar emphasizes the exclusionary state as the master signifier of the con­temporary focus on male ­Others as misogynistic and xenophobic enemies of western civilization. More specifically, Puar discusses the encounter between US nationalism and queer sexual politics in terms of “collusions,” which she sees as productive of a “homonationalist” formation. Puar’s “homonationalism” thus both describes the mobilization of gay rights against Muslims and racialized ­Others within the American nationalist framework, but also refers to the integration of “homonormativity”—­that is, domesticated homosexual politics—­within the US agenda of the war on terror. As Puar puts it, homonationalism is a “discursive tactic that disaggregates US national gays and queers from racial and sexual ­others, foregrounding a collusion between homo­sexuality and American nationalism that is generated both by national rhe­torics of patriotic inclusion and by gay and queer subjects themselves” (Puar, Terrorist Assemblages, 39). Puar has drawn attention to the manifold ways in which the US state of exceptionalism and exception has co-­opted impor­tant sections of the gay movement. Rather than a mere instrumentalization, or tactical exploitation of the theme of gay rights by nationalism, Puar thus highlights the active involvement—­and responsibilities—of the queer movements themselves that have supported (wittingly or unwittingly) this new racist configuration. Puar’s work has been greatly influential in setting the terms of the debate among scholars. Discussing the deployment of gender and lgbt equality in the Québécois and Dutch public debate on Muslim patriarchy, Sirma Bilge and Sarah Bracke, respectively, adopt Puar’s concept of homonationalism as the new hegemonic form of sexual nationalism. While the former stresses the collusive role of Québécois “state feminism” in par­tic­u­lar in the establishment of the governmental rhe­toric positing Muslims as a peril to ­women and gay rights, the latter explores both the “alliance” between Dutch feminism and right-­wing xenophobic politics seeking to “rescue” Muslim ­women from their alleged oppression, as well as the application of such rescue narratives to queer movements. Bilge also gestures ­toward a materialist understanding of the collusion between feminism, lgbt, and anti-­Islam rhe­toric by foregrounding neoliberalism as the backdrop of Québécois con­temporary sexual nationalism, which enables the marketization of feminist and lgbt movements. See Bilge, “Mapping Québécois Sexual Nationalism in Times of ‘Crisis of Reasonable Accommodations’ ”; and Bracke, “Subjects of Debate.” 186 Notes to

Introduction

11 While holding to a nationalist agenda, since the early 2000s the ln and fn have progressively ­adopted a “western supremacist” vocabulary, which enabled them to enter—­and to be heard within—­the mainstream public debate. Instead, the pvv began its campaign against the alleged illiberalism and misogyny of Islam in the name of the “superior” liberal values of the West, only to progressively move to a more chauvinist, nationalist repertoire. For a discussion of the notion of western supremacy—­which I provide in chapter 1—­see particularly Bessis, Western Supremacy; and Bonnett, “From the Crisis of Whiteness to Western Supremacism.” 12 In a famous 1980 article Derrick Bell described the US Supreme Court’s 1954 verdict to declare public schools’ racial segregation as unconstitutional as a case of “converging interests.” According to Bell, the Supreme Court’s decision to support the ­battle for civil rights of African Americans at school was motivated by the fact that whites saw po­liti­cal as well as economic gains in ending (at least on the ­legal front) school segregation. According to Bell, such a decision, first, “helped to provide immediate credibility to Amer­ic­ a’s strug­gle with Communist countries to win the hearts and minds of emerging third world ­peoples”; second, it “offered much needed reassurance to American blacks that the precepts of equality and freedom so heralded during World War II might yet be given meaning at home”; fi­nally, “segregation was viewed as a barrier to further industrialization in the South” (Bell, “Brown versus Board of Education and the Interest-­Convergence Dilemma,” 524–525). 13 Eisenstein, Feminism Seduced; Perugini and Gordon, ­Human Right to Dominate. 14 Outshoorm and Oldersma, “Dutch Decay.” 15 Zeitgeist: Mepschen and Duyvendack, “Eu­ro­pean Sexual Nationalisms”; discursive tactic: Puar, Terrorist Assemblages; po­liti­cal proj­ect: Fekete, “Enlightened Fundamentalism?” 16 Goswami, “Rethinking the Modular Nation Form,” 785. 17 Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” 18 MacMaster, “Colonial ‘Emancipation’ ”; Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire. 19 Hall, “Toad in the Garden,” 51. 20 The concept of senso comune in Gramsci describes an idea that in a given epoch and society has become dominant through its fabrication and uncritical and often largely unconscious perception and internalization, regardless of its status as true or false. For an extensive treatment of this concept and problematic in Gramsci’s work, see Thomas, Gramscian Moment. 21 Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” While I take from Althusser’s theorization the importance of understanding ideology within the broader context of production and reproduction of capital, my reading of femonationalism through ­these theoretical lenses runs against a certain tendency in Althusser to focus on ideology in general. Partially following the Notes to Introduction 

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23 24

25

insights of Michel Pêcheux, I speak of ideological “formation” rather than ideology as such, in order to emphasize that femonationalism is historically determinate and requires broader theoretical tools and historical contextualizations to be properly decoded. See Pêcheux, “Mechanism of Ideological (Mis)recognition.” In contrast to a certain tendency in Althusser to think of ideologies as internally uniform, however, I stress the internal inconsistencies, fragmentation, and contradictions of femonationalism as a specific ideological formation of the twenty-­first ­century. Althusser tended to conceive of ideologies as almost direct functions of state deliberations and ultimately productive only of subaltern subjects—­insofar as ideological interpellation, for Althusser, is what produces individuals as subjects, in a way that seems not to leave room for the emergence of critical, antagonistic subjectivities. For a critique of this ele­ment in Althusserian ideology theory, see Rehmann, Theories of Ideology. Bilge, “Mapping Québécois Sexual Nationalism,” 306. Bilge understands neoliberalism as the logic that merges equal rights agendas and business rationalities by means of marketizing equality social movements such as feminism and lgbt and turning ­these movements’ supporters into consumers and neoliberal subjectivities. The end of “neo-­liberal equity politics,” accordingly, is the reduction of “social justice to a question of rights and [the concealment of] harsh operations of global capitalism and under­lying systems of structural injustice” (306). Mepschen and Duyvendack, “Eu­ro­pean Sexual Nationalisms.” The Eu­ro­pean Integration Fund was established in 2007. Chapter 4 discusses at length how this fund has been used by vari­ous organ­izations, including ­women’s equality agencies within and outside state bureaucracy, to promote the economic integration of non-­western mi­grant ­women. I thus show the contradictions opened up for feminists in par­tic­u­lar by the concrete implementation of ­these economic integration policies. By “western Eu­rope” I am referring to the area comprising the fifteen member-­states of the Eu­ro­pean Union prior to the accession of ten candidate countries—­mostly from eastern Europe—in 2004, alongside the non-­eu countries Switzerland and Norway. The restriction of my analy­sis to western Eu­rope, rather than to Eu­rope, or to the Eu­ro­pean Union as a ­whole, is due to two main reasons. First, despite the recent incorporation of most eastern Eu­ro­pean countries into the Eu­ro­pean Union, western and eastern Eu­rope still constitute, and are perceived by the population at large, as two distinct po­liti­cal, social, and economic blocs. In terms of migration flows, for instance (a key area of interest of this study), whereas most western Eu­ro­pean countries are mostly areas of immigration—­including of eastern Europeans—­eastern Eu­ro­pean countries are areas of emigration to the western regions. Furthermore, at the level of ideological construction, whereas western Eu­ro­pean countries are depicted (and depict themselves

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as) “occidental,” modern, ­free, demo­cratic, and rich, eastern Eu­ro­pean, or postsocialist, countries, instead are portrayed as “oriental,” authoritarian, undemo­cratic, and poor. This also explains pro­cesses of “racialization” of eastern Eu­ro­pe­ans by western Eu­ro­pe­ans, which lead to most eastern Eu­ro­ pe­ans being depicted as a homogeneous and inferior group. ­There are, to be sure, impor­tant differences in the ways western Eu­ro­pe­ans portray dif­fer­ent eastern Eu­ro­pean countries. For instance, in the western Eu­ro­pean imagery some central and eastern Eu­ro­pean countries/populations are not as “backward” as ­others (as in the case of the Baltic populations, due to their par­tic­u­lar history in the context of the Soviet Union). On the other hand, populations from southern Eu­ro­pean countries (as in the case of Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, and Portuguese) have been subjected to stereotyping and Othering at dif­fer­ent times in history, despite the fact that t­ oday they are widely acknowledged as belonging to western Eu­rope. Yet in spite of ­these differences, what I stress h ­ ere are the under­lying similarities in the western Eu­ro­pean imaginary regarding eastern Eu­ro­pean countries, which account for the ways in which pro­cesses of racialization ­toward eastern Eu­ro­pe­ans take place. Furthermore, as I discuss throughout this book, eastern Eu­ro­pean w ­ omen and men—­like other non-­western subjects in the western Eu­ro­pean imagery—­are framed according to categories derived from pro­cesses of “racialization of sexism” and “sexualization of racism.” Not only are eastern Eu­ro­pean men therefore portrayed as oppressors and ­women as victims, but also sexism is considered as a prob­lem that trou­bles eastern Eu­ro­pean communities more than it does western Eu­ro­pean ones (see chapter 1). The second reason that I refer to western Eu­rope, rather than Eu­rope, is to avoid making generalizations that pertain only to western Eu­rope and not to eastern Eu­rope. For a discussion of the construction of eastern Eu­rope as “Other,” see Kideckel, “Utter Otherness”; Wolff, Inventing Eastern Eu­rope; Bakic-­Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms.” For a discussion on the repre­sen­ta­tions of the eastern Eu­ro­pean ­woman in the West, see Lutz, “Limits of European-­ness”; Suchland, “Is Postsocialism Transnational?”; Andrijasevic, “Difference Borders Make”; and Andrijasevic, “Beautiful Dead Bodies.” 1. Figures of Femonationalism

1 Throughout this book I use the notion of right-­wing nationalism to describe the politics of the pvv, fn, and ln. As I explain at length in chapter 2, I deliberately avoid the term “pop­u­lism” to describe ­these parties’ ideologies, as I consider such a concept imprecise and misleading. 2 I ­here use the definition of femocrats by Hester Eisenstein as “feminists in state bureaucracy” (Eisenstein, Inside Agitators). 3 Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Notes to chapter 1 

189

4 Mohanty, “­Under Western Eyes.” Muslim and non-­western mi­grant w ­ omen have been represented, of course, not only as victims. In the western Eu­ro­ pean media one can also find depictions of Muslim ­women as parasitic on public benefits, or as terrorists, or of eastern Eu­ro­pean w ­ omen as sexually aggressive. However, as noted also by Jacobsen and Stenvoll, “alternative accounts are constituted in relation” to the dominant portrayal of them as victims. See Jacobsen and Stenvoll, “Muslim ­Women and Foreign Prostitutes,” 276. 5 ­Castles and Miller, Age of Migration. 6 Freeman, Immigrant ­Labor and Racial Conflict in Industrial Socie­ties; Miles, “­Labour Migration.” 7 ­Castles and Miller, Age of Migration. 8 Kofman et al., Gender and International Migration in Eu­rope. 9 Roggeband and Verloo, “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem.” 10 The Dutch Statistics Office uses “allochtoon” to refer to a person who has at least one parent born abroad, whereas an “autochtoon” is someone whose parents ­were both born in the Netherlands. See, e.g., the 1977 report produced by the Werkgroep Buitenlandse Vrouwen (Foreign ­Women Study Group) that invites the government to develop policies specifically addressing the needs of mi­grant w ­ omen. See Prins and Saharso, “In the Spotlight,” 374. 11 On the stigmatization of eastern Eu­ro­pe­ans and the foregrounding of eastern Eu­ro­pean ­women as “victims” in the Netherlands, see Willett, “Crises of Self and Other.” 12 Willett, “Crises of Self and Other,” 33. 13 Roggeband and Verloo, “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem.” 14 Pim Fortuyn was, along with Frits Bolkestein, among the first right-­wing politicians in the country to establish a clear connection between the feminist and the anti-­Islam strug­gle, thereby paving the way for the con­ temporary forms of femonationalist ideology in the Netherlands. His murder in May 2002 by a white Dutch animal rights and environmentalist activist, immediately ­after the enormous success achieved by Fortuyn’s campaign, only contributed to giving more resonance to his anti-­Islam and anti-­ immigration propaganda in the name of ­women’s rights. Pim Fortuyn’s murderer, Volkert van der Graaf, aged thirty-­three, confessed to having killed the Islamophobic politician in order to protect Muslims from persecution. 15 Roggeband and Verloo, “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem.” 16 Roggeband and Verloo, “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem,” 280.

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17 Undoubtedly, the fact that many of them came from former French colonies in North Africa contributed to the identification of immigration with Islam, and therefore of mi­grant ­women with Muslim ­women. 18 Moujoud, “Effets de la migration sur le femmes et sur les rapports sociaux de sexe.” 19 Condon, “L’activité des femmes immigrées du Portugal à l’arrivée en France.” 20 In a classic ethnographic study on ­women of Maghreb origin in France, for example, Camille Lacoste-­Dujardin’s claims that “the highest of all par­ ameters of the disposition to integration is clearly the depreciation, that is the rejection, of the conditions of life in the Maghreb” (quoted in Moujoud, “Effets de la migration sur le femmes et sur les rapports sociaux de sexe,” 59). 21 Cahiers du féminisme, no. 26 (Autumn 1983): 16–19. 22 Quoted in Larzillière and Sal, “Comprendre l’instrumentalisation du féminisme à des fins racistes pour resister.” 23 Guénif and Macé, Les féministes et le garçon arabe. See also Geisser, “La répudiation médiatique.” 24 For a reconstruction of the debate on sex trafficking and eastern Eu­ro­pean ­women in France, see Mathieu, “Genèse et logiques des politiques de prostitution en France.” 25 Favaro, Donne migranti; Tognetti Bordogna, Donne dal mondo; Vicarelli, Mani invisibili; Campani, Genere, etnia e classe. 26 McRobie, “Unsafe House of Italy.” 27 We should note, however, that the (mostly unconscious) reasons b ­ ehind the repre­sen­ta­tion in the western Eu­ro­pean imagery of ­women from postsocialist countries and the Global South as victims of gendered vio­lence are dif­fer­ ent. Whereas I discuss some of the reasons ­behind the portrayal of Muslim ­women as “victims to be saved” in chapter 2, ­here I ­will refer briefly to one of the few interpretations that attempted to understand the specific logic of victimhood applied to eastern Eu­ro­pean ­women. According to Suchland, for instance, the diffused western Eu­ro­pean ste­reo­type of the eastern Eu­ro­pean ­woman as a sex-­trafficking victim “reflects deeper beliefs in the western imaginary about the downfall of state socialism” (Suchland, “Double Framing in Lilya 4-­Ever,” 2). 28 Abu-­Lughod, “Do Muslim ­Women R ­ eally Need Saving?”; Abu-­Lughod, Do Muslim ­Women Need Saving?; Hirschkind and Mahmood, “Feminism, the Taliban, and the Politics of Counter-­Insurgency”; Eisenstein, Feminism Seduced; Puar, Terrorist Assemblages; Rostami-­Povey, Afghan ­Women. 29 Akkerman and Hagelund, “ ‘­Women and C ­ hildren First!’ ”; Towns, Karlsson, and Eyre, “Equality Conundrum”; Farris and Scrinzi, “Gender and the Racialization of Mi­grant ­Women in the Lega Nord Ideology and Politics.” 30 The textual analy­sis was conducted by means of critical discourse analy­sis (cda) methodology. The concept of “discourse” within cda refers to a “social

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practice” that produces meanings by linking the linguistic and the societal level (institutions and social structures). In par­tic­u­lar, cda is interested in identifying the linkages between (po­liti­cal) discourse and the ways in which such discourse produces and reproduces power hierarchies, ideologies, and forms of domination. See Fairclough and Wodak, “Critical Discourse Analy­sis.” 31 Bracke, “From ‘Saving ­Women’ to ‘Saving Gays.’ ” 32 ­Here is an excerpt from Bolkestein’s speech, on September 6, 1991, “On the Collapse of the Soviet Union”: “The pressure in The Netherlands from ­people who want to ­settle ­there is also growing inexorably. Prominent among recent immigrants in The Netherlands are p ­ eople from Morocco and from Turkey. Many of them settled in my country in the sixties when ­labour was scarce. ­These two communities have continued to grow through national increase and also ­because marriage partners are brought in from the countries of origin. In a few years’ time The Netherlands w ­ ill harbour some 400.000 Muslims. It is an influx such as we have never before had to absorb. ­Here I come to the theme of this congress. What should government policy be t­ owards ­these p ­ eople who come from a dif­fer­ent culture and of whom many speak ­little or no Dutch? Our official policy used to be: ‘Integration without prejudice to every­one’s own identity.’ It is now recognized that this slogan was a bit too easy. If every­one’s cultural identity is allowed to persist unimpaired, integration w ­ ill suffer. And integration t­ here must be, ­because the Turkish and Moroccan immigrants are h ­ ere to stay. That is now recognized by all. If integration is officially declared government policy, which cultural values must prevail: t­ hose of the non-­Muslim majority or ­those of the Muslim minority? ­Here we must go back to our roots. Liberalism has produced some fundamental po­liti­cal princi­ples, such as: the separation of church and state, the freedom of expression, tolerance and non-­discrimination. We maintain that ­these princi­ples hold good not only in Eu­rope and North Amer­ic­ a but all over the world. Liberalism claims universal value and worth for ­these princi­ples. That is its po­liti­cal vision. H ­ ere ­there can be no compromise and no truck. In many parts of the Muslim world the princi­ples I have mentioned are not honoured. Islam is not only a religion, it is a way of life. In this, its vision goes ­counter to the liberal separation of church and state. In many Islamic countries t­ here is ­little freedom of expression. The case of Salman Rushdie may be extreme but still indicates how far apart we are on this issue. The same goes for tolerance and non-­discrimination. The way ­women are treated in the world of Islam is a stain on the reputation of that ­great religion. I repeat that on ­these essential points ­there can be no compromise. ­These princi­ples have a value that is not relative but of the essence. . . . ​Every­one in The Netherlands may do and say as he pleases, and eat the food, wear the clothes and profess the religion of his choice. Muslim girls may wear a scarf if they wish, even 192 Notes to

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though that scarf stands for much more than just a head-­dress. But Muslim girls of school-­going age must attend class, even though they have reached puberty. H ­ ere again our law must take pre­ce­dence over their custom. Th ­ ese are no more than cursory remarks about a ­great and knotty prob­lem. Our relations with ­these new immigrants from a dif­fer­ent culture ­will feature very high on the list of po­liti­cal priorities in the years to come. Maximum flexibility is called for on all sides. A pragmatic approach is needed but we must also hold on to liberal princi­ples that are of the essence.” Available at http://­www​.­liberal​-­international​.­org​/­contentFiles​/­files​/­Bolkestein%201991​ .­pdf (accessed October 1, 2013). 33 Geert Wilders’s new party does not operate through membership. He is the only official affiliate. 34 According to Pantti and Wieten, Pim Fortuyn’s death “marks the re-­ affirmation of the nation through mourning, but his death as national event marks also the end of Dutch multiculturalism. . . . ​The construction of Fortuyn’s death and funeral as national events bears the marks of the unacknowledged rift between the discontent below the surface of Dutch society and the official ideology of the ­free, open and tolerant multicultural society. Defining the tragedy as national can be perceived as a way of reducing tension and forging a sense of emotional unity; that is, constructing a nationwide feeling of community” (Pantti and Wieten, “Mourning Becomes the Nation,” 312). 35 Wilders, Een Nieuw-­Realistische Visie. 36 Vossen, “Classifying Wilders,” 184. 37 Hirsi Ali and Wilders, “Het is tijd voor een liberale jihad.” 38 pvv, De agenda van hoop en optimisme, 6. My translation from Dutch. 39 The website has now been removed. But it is pos­si­ble to see still some excerpts from bbc’s reports in “Dutch Gripped by ‘Shop a Mi­grant’ Website,” February 18, 2012, available at http://­www​.­bbc​.­co​.­uk​/­news​/­world​-­europe​ -­17078239 (accessed March 12, 2015). 40 pvv, Hún Brussel, óns Nederland. 41 De Lange and Mügge, “Gender and Right-­Wing Pop­u­lism in the Low Countries.” 42 pvv, Hún Brussel, óns Nederland. 43 pvv, Geweld tegen Vrouwen binnen de Islam. 44 On several occasions the founder of the fn, Jean-­Marie Le Pen, has called the gas chambers used by the Nazi during World War II to kill Jews a “detail of history.” More recently, in August 2015, Marine Le Pen expelled him from the fn ­after he made similar Holocaust denial declarations. 45 Shields, “Marine Le Pen and the ‘New’ fn.” 46 The interview, “Marine Le Pen prend pour cible les ‘intégristes’ au nom de la laïcité,” January 5, 2012, is available at http://­www​.­lemonde​.­fr​/­election​ -­presidentielle​-­2012​/­article​/­2012​/­01​/­15​/m ­ arine​-l­ e​-p ­ en​-p ­ rend​-­pour​-­cible​-­les​ Notes to chapter 1 

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49

50

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52

53

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56 57 58 59 60

-­integristes​-­au​-­nom​-­de​-­la​-­laicite​_1­ 629953​_1­ 471069​.h ­ tml (accessed February 5, 2014). “Marine Le Pen prend pour cible les ‘intégristes’ au nom de la laïcité.” Interview with Marine Le Pen available at http://­www​.­rue89​.­com​/­rue89​ -­presidentielle​/­2012​/­01​/­25​/­marine​-­le​-p ­ en​-v­ eut​-m ­ ettre​-a­ u​-­pas​-­le​-­planning​ -­familial​-­228731 (accessed November 5, 2013). The poster can be seen in Hugo Passarello Luna, “2007, le fn s’affiche avec une jeune métisse,” Slate, April 16, 2012, available at http://­www​.­slate​.­fr​/­story​ /­52465​/­photos​-­campagne​-­2007​-­le​-­pen​-a­ ffiche (accessed May 17, 2016). See Marine Le Pen’s speech on December 11, 2010, in Lyon. É. Fassin, Démocratie précaire; Mayer, “From Jean-­Marie to Marine Le Pen”; Lestrade, Pourquoi les gays sont passés à droite. Sylvain Crépon and Nonna Mayer, long-­term experts on the fn, emphasize how both the handover from ­father to ­daughter and the fact of being a ­woman and ­mother made Marine Le Pen more appealing to female voters. See Crépon, Enquête au coeur du nouveau Front National; Mayer, “From Jean-­Marie to Marine Le Pen.” The interview is available at http://­videos​.­elle​.­fr​/­video​.­php​?­video​ =­30b5fc74441s. See also “Marine Le Pen répond à Elle: L’ivg en danger,” February 10, 2012, available at http://­www​.­elle​.­fr​/­Societe​/­News​/­Marine​-­Le​ -­Pen​-­repond​-­a-​ ­ELLE​-­l-​ ­IVG​-e­ n​-d ­ anger​-­1902970 (accessed March 2, 2013). My translation from French. Program of the fn on the ­family, available at http://­www​.­frontnational​ .­com​/­le​-­projet​-­de​-­marine​-­le​-p ­ en​/a­ venir​-­de​-­la​-­nation​/­famille/ (accessed March 16, 2014). The interview is available at http://­videos​.­elle​.­fr​/­video​.­php​?­video​ =­30b5fc74441s (accessed March 16, 2014). Program of the fn on the ­family, available at http://­www​.­frontnational​ .­com​/­le​-­projet​-­de​-­marine​-­le​-p ­ en​/a­ venir​-­de​-­la​-­nation​/­famille/ (accessed March 16, 2014). My translation from French. Le Pen, Mon Projet Pour la France et les Français, available at http://­www​ .­frontnational​.­com​/­pdf​/­projet​_­mlp2012​.­pdf (accessed November 3, 2013). Scrinzi, “A ‘New’ National Front?” Interview available at http://­videos​.­elle​.­fr​/­video​.­php​?­video​=­30b5fc74441s (accessed March 5, 2013). My translation from French. Scrinzi, “A ‘New’ National Front?” Since 2014 some lgbt activists have joined the fn (as in the case of Sèbastien Chenu) and prominent members of the fn ­were outed as homosexuals (as in the case of the fn vice president Florian Philippot). See Rachel Halliburton, “How Marine Le Pen Is Winning France’s Gay Vote,” January 2015, available at http://­www​.­spectator​.­co​.­uk​/­2015​/­01​/­how​-­marine​-­le​-­pen​-­is​-­winning​ -­frances​-­gay​-­vote/ (accessed January 30, 2015).

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61 Sabelli, “Sessualità, razza, classe e migrazioni nella costruzione dell’italianità.” 62 See the analy­sis of the poster in Chiara Bonfiglioli, “Intersections of Racism and Sexism in Con­temporary Italy: A Critical Cartography of Recent Feminist Debates,” October 10, 2010, available at http://­www​.­darkmatter101​.­org​ /­site​/­2010​/­10​/­10​/­intersections​-­of​-r­ acism​-a­ nd​-s­ exism​-i­ n​-­contemporary​-­italy​ -­a-​ ­critical​-­cartography​-­of​-­recent​-­feminist​-d ­ ebates/ (accessed May 17, 2016). 63 Scrinzi, “­Women’s Activism and Gender Relations,” available online at https://­www​.­academia​.­edu​/­4201607​/­Women​_­s​_­Activism​_­and​_­Gender​ _­Relations​_­in​_­the​_­Northern​_­League​_­Lega​_­Nord​_­party (accessed May 17, 2016). 64 The proposal is available at http://­www​.­padaniaoffice​.­org​/­pdf​/­giustizia​ _­immigraz​/­enti​_­locali​/­salvini​_­cittadinanza​.­pdf (accessed October 3, 2012). My translation from Italian. 65 Information is available on the ln website: http://­www​.­leganord​.­org​/­index​ .­php​/­notizie2​/­7743​-­Pdl​_­leghista​_­per​_r­ endere​_i­ llegale​_i­ l​_v­ elo​_­islamico​ _­integrale​_­(accessed March 16, 2014). 66 Sabelli, “Sessualità, razza, classe e migrazioni nella costruzione dell’italianità.” 67 Okin, “Is Multiculturalism Bad for W ­ omen?,” 16. 68 Okin, “Is Multiculturalism Bad for W ­ omen?,” 22–23. For a brilliant critique of Okin’s argument, see in par­tic­u­lar Volpp, “Feminism versus Multiculturalism.” 69 Hirsi Ali explic­itly and approvingly refers to Okin in her book The Caged Virgin: A Muslim ­Woman’s Cry for Reason (2006). Monica Lanfranco published Okin’s article in Italian on October 9, 2014, in the pages of her journal Marea (http://­riforma​.­it​/­it​/­articolo​/­2014​/­10​/0 ­ 9​/l­ urgenza​-d ­ ella​-l­ aicita). On the connections between Badinter and Okin, see Bassel, Unveiling Agency. 70 Bracke, “From ‘Saving ­Women’ to ‘Saving Gays.’ ” 71 “De Islam is een achterlijke cultuur,” De Volkskrant, February 9, 2002. The translation is by Sarah Bracke, in “From ‘Saving ­Women’ to ‘Saving Gays,’ ” 35. 72 Bracke, “Subjects of Debate,” 35. 73 As Sarah Bracke remarks, “It should be noted that this issue of Opzij was the last one before the 2002 national elections, and hence, Dresselhuys’ decision to dedicate her editorial column to clarify to her feminist readership why Fortuyn could be a po­liti­cal ally is quite a strong po­liti­cal statement in itself ” (“From ‘Saving ­Women’ to ‘Saving Gays,’ ” 238–239). 74 Dresselhuys, “Derde golf.” 75 Lutz, “Zonder blikken of blozen”; Okin, “Is Multiculturalism Bad for ­Women?” 76 Bracke, “From ‘Saving ­Women’ to ‘Saving Gays,’ ” 242.

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77 Jolande Withuis is the author of numerous articles in Opzij on Muslim ­women’s lack of emancipation. Nahed Selim is the author of the 2003 book De vrouwen van de profeet: Hoe vrouw(on)vriendelijk is de islam? (The wives of the Prophet: How misogynistic is Islam?). See Prins and Saharso, “In the Spotlight”; De Leeuw and Van Wichelen, “ ‘Please, Go Wake Up!’ ” 78 zami is a platform for black, mi­grant, and refugee ­women (see www​.­zami​ .­nl). Al Nisa is an organ­ization for “self-­conscious Muslim ­women” as described on the website (www​.­alnisa​.­nl). Both zami and Al Nisa have or­ ga­nized and sponsored numerous initiatives debating the role of Muslim ­women in Dutch society. 79 Outshoorn and Oldersma, “Dutch Decay,” 182–183. 80 Roggeband and Verloo, “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem.” 81 Of course, the mobilization of gender equality against Islam dates back at least to the occupation of Algeria and then to the involvement of French feminist suffragettes in the civilizing mission in the colonies. See Scott, Politics of the Veil; Boggio Éwanjé-­Épée and Magliani-­Belkacem, Les féministes blanches et l’empire; MacMaster, “Colonial ‘Emancipation.’ ” 82 It is worth noting that Chenier was the director of the Creil school that expelled the girls in 1989. See Scott, Politics of the Veil. 83 Although the law bans all religious symbols, it has been widely interpreted and discussed as a ­legal mea­sure meant to prevent Muslim girls in par­tic­u­lar from wearing the veil. See Scott, Politics of the Veil. 84 Tissot, “Excluding Muslim ­Women.” 85 Farris, “From the Jewish Question to the Muslim Question”; Scott, Politics of the Veil. As Shield notes, it is insufficiently acknowledged “that Le Pen voters have been critical in determining the outcome of ­every presidential election in France since 1988” (Shields, “Marine Le Pen and the ‘New’ fn,” 184). On the other hand, Scott argues that “it would be a ­mistake to blame the hostility to headscarves entirely on the influence of Jean-­Marie Le Pen. While ­there is no doubt that the popularity of his anti-­immigrant stance has forced the mainstream parties of the right and left to try to coopt his message, t­ here is also no doubt that Le Pen taps into a set of racist attitudes with deep roots in French history. What some have referred to as ‘Islamophobia’ antedates not only the attacks of September 11 and the war on terrorism but also the Algerian War” (Scott, Politics of the Veil, 410). 86 “Profs, ne capitulons pas!,” Le Nouvel Observateur, November 2, 1989. My translation from French. 87 “Le magazine Elle lance un appel contre le voile,” Elle, December 5, 2003. Other signatories include Julia Kristeva, Élisabeth Roudinesco, Isabelle Adjani, Sonia Rykiel, Isabelle Huppert, and Emmanuelle Béart. 88 Gerin Report, “Assemblée Nationale, N. 2262.”

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89 Gerin Report, “Assemblée Nationale, N. 2262,” 335. My translation from French. 90 See page 21 of the pdf, “La revue du droit de choisir,” available at http://­www​ .­prochoix​.­org​/­pdf​/­prochoix​.­25​.­interieur​.­pdf (accessed January 15, 2014). In an interview with the magazine Marianne, the leader of the Front de Gauche, Jean-­Luc Mélenchon, criticized the candidacy for the far-­left Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste in the 2010 regional elections of Ilham Moussaid, a Muslim ­woman who wears a head­scarf. In his words, “Po­liti­cal debate ­mustn’t take place on religious ground. Someone who takes part in an election must represent every­body and not only ­those whose religious convictions she shares.” See “Mélenchon: La candidate voilée du npa relève du racolage,” February 4, 2010, available at http://­www​.­marianne​.­net​/­Melenchon​-­la​-­candidate​-­voilee​ -­du​-­NPA​-­releve​-­du​-­racolage​_­a184635​.­html (accessed October 25, 2013). 91 Delphy, Classer, dominer. 92 Dorlin, “Pas en notre nom!,” available at http://­www​.­genreenaction​.­net​/­Pas​ -­en​-­notre​-­nom​.­html (accessed August 22, 2016). 93 Bouteldja, “De la cérémonie du dévoilement à Alger (1958) à Ni Putes Ni Soumises,” June 20, 2007, available at http://­lmsi​.­net​/­De​-­la​-­ceremonie​-­du​ -­devoilement​-­a; Tissot, “Bilan d’un féminisme d’État,” February 1, 2008, available at http://­lmsi​.­net​/­Bilan​-­d​-­un​-­feminisme​-­d​-­Etat (accessed October 25, 2013); Boggio Éwanjé-­Épée and Magliani-­Belkacem, Les féministes blanches et l’empire; Larzillière and Sal, “Comprendre l’instrumentalisation du féminisme à des fins racistes pour resister.” 94 Mazur, “­Women’s Policy Agencies, ­Women’s Movements and a Shifting Po­ liti­cal Context.” 95 See the websites for Mamans Toutes Égales, available at http://­www​.­mamans​ -­toutes​-­egales​.­com/ (accessed October 20, 2014), and for Collectif Féministes pour l’Égalité, available at http://­www​.­cfpe2004​.­fr​/­intervention​-­de​-­hanane​ -­karimi​-­en​-­tant​-­que​-­porte​-­parole​-d ­ e​-f­ emmes​-d ­ ans​-l­ a​-­mosquee​-­lors​-­de​-­l​ -­atelier​-­femmes​-­religion​-­et​-­emancipation/ (accessed October 23, 2014). 96 See the November 14, 2003, declaration on the application of the princi­ple of secularism in France by Nicole Ameline: http://­discours​.­vie​-­publique​.­fr​ /­notices​/­043000007​.­html (accessed October 21, 2015). 97 ­After the news about the court victory of Fatima Afif, a Muslim ­woman who had been sacked in 2008 by the “Baby Loup” crèche in the Paris suburb of Yvelines when she refused to take off her Muslim veil at work, Minister of W ­ omen’s Rights Najat Vallaud-­Belkacem commented that “the princi­ple of secularism ­doesn’t stop at the door of a crèche.” She suggested that a new law was necessary to uphold veil bans in private workplaces. See “Vallaud-­Belkacem: ‘La laïcité ne doit pas s’arrêter à la porte des creches,’ ” March 20, 2013, available at http://­www​ .­liberation​.f­ r​/­societe​/2­ 013​/0 ­ 3​/­20​/­baby​-l­ oup​-­la​-­laicite​-­ne​-­doit​-p ­ as​-­s-​ ­arreter​-­a​-­la​ -­porte​-­des​-c­ reches​_­889944 (accessed January 15, 2015).

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98 Larzillière and Sal, “Comprendre l’instrumentalisation du féminisme à des fins racistes pour resister.” 99 Hamel, “De la racialization du sexisme au sexisme identitaire,” 98. 100 Lanfranco and Di Rienzo, Senza velo, 19. 101 See “Laicità e fondamentalismo,” available at http://­www​.­iniziativalaica​.­it​/­​?­p​ =­22095 (accessed November 1, 2015). 102 Barbara Spinelli, “Il velo della discordia,” La Stampa, October 26, 2003, available at http://­www​.­archiviolastampa​.­it​/­component​/­option,com​_­lastampa​ /­task,search​/­mod,perdata​/­action,viewer​/­Itemid,3​/­page,1​/­articleid,0174​_0 ­ 1​ _­2003​_­0294​_­0001​_­1225314/ (accessed November 18, 2013). 103 See http://­www​.­udinazionale​.­org​/­2009​/­113​-­burqa​-­e​-­patriarcato​-­da​-­una​-­legge​ -­italiana​-­ad​-­oxford​.­html (accessed November 17, 2013). 104 Salih, “Muslim ­Women.” 105 Stano, Sotto il velo dei media. 106 See Pollastrini’s declarations in “Bufera sul burqa,” Corriere della Sera, October 9, 2007, available at http://­www​.­corriere​.­it​/­politica​/­07​_­ottobre​_­09​/­burqa​ _­reazioni​.­shtml (accessed January 7, 2015). 107 See Pollastrini, “Bufera sul burqa.” 108 See http://­pariopportunita​.­gov​.­it​/­index​.­php​/­primo​-­piano​/­1230​-­carfagna​ -­lnelle​-­moschee​-­si​-­predichi​-­in​-­italianor (accessed December 10, 2012). 109 See the Giovani Musulmani d’Italia website, available at http://­ giovanimusulmani​.­it/ (accessed December 10, 2012). 110 See the ordering page for the Qader book, available at http://­www​.­sonzogno​ editori​.­it​/­component​/­marsilio​/­libro​/­4541460​-­porto​-­il​-­velo​-­adoro​-­i​-­queen (accessed December 10, 2014). 111 See Bonfiglioli et al., La Straniera Lidia, Sabelli, “Sessualità, razza, classe e migrazioni nella costruzione dell’italianità”; Vanzan, La storia velata. 112 Western supremacy defines the perspective according to which “western princi­ples” and the “western civilization” constitute a type of universal truth that marks the superiority of the West over the rest of the world. Most recently and prominently, this perspective was put forward by Samuel Huntington in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of the World Order. Bessis defines western supremacy as the “ability to produce universals, to raise them to the level of absolutes, and to violate in an extraordinarily systematic way the princi­ples that it derives from them, while still feeling the need to develop theoretical justifications for t­ hose violations. The planetary rich of its hegemony, together with the dogged attempt to justify itself over the centuries by means of a sophisticated cultural apparatus in which universality is constantly evoked, constitutes a twofold specificity” (Bessis, Western Supremacy, 5). According to Bonnett, western supremacism emerged in the context of the crisis of whiteness at the beginning of the twentieth ­century in Australia and Britain. See Bonnett, “From the Crisis of Whiteness to Western Supremacism.” 198 Notes to

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113 Female vote: Bartlett et al., “Pop­u­lism in Eu­rope”; Mayer, “From Jean-­Marie to Marine Le Pen”; Akkerman and Hagelund, “ ‘­Women and ­Children First!’ ”; Towns et al., “Equality Conundrum.” Culture “clash”: Roggeband and Verloo, “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem,” 285. 114 Roggeband and Verloo, “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem,” 285. 115 I borrow the notion of “rescue narratives” from Bracke’s work on the similarities and differences between feminist and gay politics in the context of discussions on post-1989 multiculturalism in the Netherlands. See Bracke, “From ‘Saving ­Women’ to ‘Saving Gays.’ ” 116 Abu-­Lughod, Do Muslim ­Women Need Saving? 2. Femonationalism Is No Pop­u­lism

1 For instance, Albertazzi and McDonnell, in Twenty-­First ­Century Pop­u­lism, consider so-­called populist parties’ emphasis on the values of equality as one of the ele­ments that differentiate them from fascist parties. A prominent example ­here is usually the Pim Fortuyn List in the Netherlands. Its insistence on ­women and gay rights alongside anti-­immigration slogans is regarded as an instance of con­temporary populist politics. 2 Tarchi, “Pop­u­lism Italian Style”; Taguieff, L’illusion populiste; Vossen, “Pop­u­ lism in the Netherlands ­after Fortuyn”; Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-­ First ­Century Pop­u­lism; Zaslove, Re-­Invention of the Eu­ro­pean Radical Right. 3 Albeit stemming from an analy­sis of left-­wing pop­u­lism in Latin Amer­ic­ a, Laclau explic­itly applied his definition of pop­u­lism also to right-­wing parties in Eu­rope such as the fn and the pvv. See Laermans, “On Populist Politics and Parliamentary Paralysis.” 4 Betz, Radical Right-­Wing Pop­u­lism in Western Eu­rope; P. Norris, Radical Right. 5 Berezin, Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times, 26. 6 Berezin, Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times. 7 Betz, Radical Right-­Wing Pop­u­lism in Western Eu­rope; Mudde, “Populist Zeitgeist”; Berezin, Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times; Dézé, “Le pop­u­lisme ou l’introuvable Cendrillon,” 185. 8 Dézé, “Le pop­u­lisme ou l’introuvable Cendrillon,” 179. My translation from French. 9 In the 1970s and 1980s Murray Davis published two articles—­“That’s In­ter­ est­ing!” (1971) and “ ‘That’s Classic!’ ” (1986)—in which he illustrated the “­recipe” for a successful social theory. The work of Davis has been recently used by Kathy Davis to account for the fortunes of the open-­ended concept of intersectionality in gender studies. Cf. K. Davis, “Intersectionality as Buzzword.” Notes to chapter 2 

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10 Jacques Rancière, “Non, le peuple n’est pas une masse brutale et ignorante,” Liberation, January 3, 2011. My translation from French. On the centrality of charisma to con­temporary populist parties, see also Van Herwaarden, Fortuyn, chaos en charisma; Eatwell, “Charisma and the Revival of the Eu­ro­pean Extreme Right.” See also Remo Bodei, “Pop­u­lismo lo spettro che si aggira per il mondo,” La Repubblica, November 12, 2003. 11 Weber characterized charisma as a type of “extraordinary and revolutionary” force that questions and breaks with bureaucratic forces. Cf. Weber, Economy and Society. 12 Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-­First C ­ entury Pop­u­lism, 33. 13 Hermet, Les pop­u­lismes dans le monde. 14 Berezin, Illiberal Politics in Neoliberal Times, 8. 15 Mény and Surel, Democracies and the Populist Challenge. 16 Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-­First C ­ entury Pop­u­lism, 3. 17 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Eu­rope. 18 Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-­First C ­ entury Pop­u­lism, 123. 19 Albertazzi, “Switzerland.” 20 Laclau, On Populist Reason, 74. 21 Laclau, On Populist Reason, 117. 22 Laclau, “Pop­u­lism: What’s in a Name?”, 43. 23 Laclau, On Populist Reason, 231. 24 Žižek, “Against the Populist Temptation,” 555. 25 Schmitt, Concept of the Po­liti­cal, 26. For a reading of the Schmittian dimensions of Laclau, see A. Norris, “Ernesto Laclau and the Logic of the Po­liti­cal.” 26 Žižek, “Against the Populist Temptation,” 553. 27 Laclau articulates this issue as follows: “The po­liti­cal is linked to what could be called contingent articulation, another name for the dialectic between differential and equivalential logics. In this sense, all antagonism is essentially po­liti­cal. In that case, however, the po­liti­cal is not linked to a regional type of conflict dif­fer­ent from, for instance, the economic one. Why? For two main reasons. The first is that demands that put a state of affairs into question do not grow spontaneously out of the logic of the latter, but consist in a break with it. A demand for higher wages does not derive from the logic of cap­i­ tal­ist relations, but interrupts that logic in terms that are alien to it, ­those of a discourse concerning justice, for example. So any demand presupposes a constitutive heterogeneity—it is an event that breaks with the logic of a situation. This is what makes such a demand a po­liti­cal one. In the second place, however, this heterogeneity of the demand vis-­à-­vis the existing situation ­will rarely be confined to a specific content; it ­will, from the very beginning, be highly overdetermined. The request for a higher level of wages in terms of justice ­will be rooted in a wider sense of justice linked to a variety of other situations. In other words, ­there are no pure subjects of change; they are always overdetermined through equivalential logics. This means that po­liti­ 200 Notes to

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cal subjects are always, in one way or another, popu­lar subjects. And u ­ nder the conditions of globalized capitalism, the space of this overdetermination clearly expands” (Laclau, On Populist Reason, 231–232). 28 Ahmed, “Feminism, Colonialism and Islamophobia.” 29 “What could, then, be massively evident in . . . ​this philosophy of merciless war, in this staging of ‘physical’ killing, in this implacable logic of absolute hostility, what should be massively evident but goes as unnoticed as absence itself, what dis­appears in becoming indiscernible in the m ­ iddle of the desert, is the ­woman or the ­sister. . . . ​If the w ­ oman does not even appear in the theory of the partisan—­that is, in the theory of the absolute e­ nemy—if she never leaves a forced clandestinity, such an invisibility, such a blindness, gives food for thought: what if the ­woman ­were the absolute partisan? And what if she ­were the absolute ­enemy of this theory of the absolute ­enemy, the spectre of hostility to be conjured up for the sake of the sworn b ­ rothers, or the other of the absolute ­enemy who has become the absolute ­enemy that would not even be recognized in a regular war?” (Derrida, Politics of Friendship, 155–157). 30 Orozco, “ ‘Der totale Staat aus Schwäche,’ ” 81. My translation from German. A similar reading of Schmitt’s concept of the po­liti­cal in relation to his construction of masculinity was proposed by Nicolaus Sombart (Sombart, Die deutsche Männer und ihre Feinde) within a psychoanalytical framework. For a distinctive reflection on the masculine foundation of modern politics, see Brown, Manhood and Politics. 31 For an analy­sis of the economic dimension of the depiction of Muslims and immigrants as enemies in con­temporary western Eu­rope, see in par­tic­u­lar Basso, Razze schiave e razze signore, and Basso, Razzismo di stato. 32 Dézé, “Le pop­u­lisme ou l’introuvable Cendrillon,” 189, my emphasis and my translation from French. 33 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Eu­rope, 30. 34 This is something that Balibar also alluded to when arguing that nationalism, in its emphasis upon the commonality of interests within a national body and therefore in its denial of difference and social inequalities, possesses a populist ele­ment. See Balibar, “Is ­There a ‘Neo-­Racism’?” 35 McClintock, “No Longer in a F ­ uture Heaven,” 89. 36 Cf. Comma 18, art. 19 of the law 2/2009, available at http://­www​.­parlamento​ .­it​/­parlam​/­leggi​/­090021​.­htm (accessed March 2, 2013). 37 See the website of the Front National: http://­www​.­frontnational​.­com​/­le​ -­projet​-­de​-­marine​-­le​-­pen​/­avenir​-­de​-­la​-­nation​/­famille/ (accessed August 23, 2014). 38 See the interview with the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant in which he calls for a halt to the “Muslim tsunami”: http://­www​.­volkskrant​.­nl​/­vk​/­nl​/­2844​/­Archief​ /­archief​/­article​/­detail​/­795840​/­2006​/­11​/1­ 8​/G ­ EERT​-­WILDERS​-­PVV​-­lsquo​-­De​ -­tsunami​-­van​-­de​-­islamisering​-­stoppen​-­rsquo​.­dhtml (accessed August 23, Notes to chapter 2 

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2014). ­After an extended trial in which he was denounced for promoting religious hatred against Muslims, a Dutch court acquitted the charges in 2011. 39 Yuval-­Davis, Gender and Nation. 40 Reported as a slogan in the pvv’s 2010–2015 program “De agenda van hoop en optimism: Een tijd om te kiezen: pvv 2010–2015,” available at http://­www​ .­ans​-­online​.­nl​/­wp​-­content​/­themes​/­mimbo​/­images​/­vppvv​.­pdf (accessed January 10, 2014). 41 See the fn website: http://­www​.­frontnational​.­com​/­le​-­projet​-­de​-­marine​ -­le​-­pen​/­autorite​-­de​-­letat​/­immigration/ (accessed February 3, 2012). See the pvv website: http://­www​.­pvv​.­nl​/­images​/­stories​/­Webversie​ _­VerkiezingsProgrammaPVV​.­pdf (accessed February 3, 2012). 42 Yuval-­Davis, Gender and Nation; Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality. 43 See Cusack and Breathnach-­Lynch, Art, Nation and Gender; Leone, “È di scena l’Italia”; Landes, Visualizing the Nation. 44 Leone, “È di scena l’Italia.” 45 Though widespread, this interpretation is not, however, unanimously shared. For instance, George Mosse argues that w ­ omen as national symbols embodied “the motherly qualities of the nation, and pointed to its traditions and history. Such feminine images usually wore ancient dress, looking backward, like Germania, Britannia, or even Marianne, who ­after the revolution was for the most part matronly in appearance. They ­were not usually dependent upon changes in the nation itself, monarchical or republican, and represented through their constant visual presence the ancient values that the nation was supposed to hold dear. Thus even if Marianne was rejected for a short time ­because of her association with revolution, she was soon back in ­favor. To be sure, ­woman as a public symbol also exemplified normative social values through her sedate appearance and passive posture. . . . ​­Woman as a public symbol was a reminder of the past, of innocence and chastity” (Mosse, Image of Man, 8–9). 46 See Tamar Pitch, “Il corpo delle donne non è della Nazione,” Il Manifesto, February 26, 2011. 47 B. Anderson, ­Imagined Communities. 48 Pitch, “Il corpo delle donne non è della Nazione.” My translation from Italian. 49 McClintock, “No Longer in a F ­ uture Heaven,” 91 (emphasis in the o ­ riginal). 50 Yuval-­Davis, Gender and Nation, 27. 51 Affeldt, “Paroxysm of Whiteness”; Eckerson, “Immigration and National Origins.” 52 Kandiyoti, “Identity and Its Discontents,” 429. 53 McClintock, “No Longer in a F ­ uture Heaven.” 54 Pitch, “Il corpo delle donne non è della Nazione.” 55 Mosse, Image of Man, 6. 56 Foucault, History of Sexuality, 26.

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57 Foucault, History of Sexuality, 26. 58 Muel-­Dreyfus, Vichy and the Eternal Feminine. 59 Ipsen, Dictating Demography. 60 Moghadam, Gender and National Identity, 12. For an overview of dif­fer­ent interpretations of the theme of ­women and the nation, see Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World; Ivekovic, “­Women, Nationalism and War”; and Kaplan, Alarcon, and Moallem, Between ­Woman and Nation. 61 Yuval-­Davis, Gender and Nation. 62 Though the idea that nationalist ideologies based on ideas of Volksnation are racist is uncontroversial, I agree with Nira Yuval-­Davis when she claims that any type of nationalism, insofar as it entails a delineation of bound­aries between dif­fer­ent ­peoples, contains ele­ments of racism. For a discussion on dif­fer­ent types of nationalism and racism, see Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation. 63 Hernton, Sex and Racism in Amer­i­ca; A. Davis, ­Women, Race and Class; Braxton, ­Women, Sex and Race; Hamel, “De la racialization du sexisme au sexisme identitaire”; Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks. 64 Mann and Selva, “Sexualization of Racism,” 170. 65 Hernton, Sex and Racism, 150. 66 See also Braxton, ­Women, Sex and Race. 67 Hernton, Sex and Racism, 9. 68 MacMaster, “Colonial ‘Emancipation’ ”; Fanon, “Algeria Unveiled.” 69 See MacMaster, “Colonial ‘Emancipation’ ”; Fanon, “Algeria Unveiled.” 70 Fanon, ­Dying Colonialism, 42. 71 Fanon, ­Dying Colonialism, 45. 72 Macdonald, “Muslim ­Women and the Veil,” 9. 73 B. Anderson, ­Imagined Communities. 74 Kovel, White Racism, 68. 75 Boggio Éwanjé-­Épée and Magliani-­Belkacem, Les féministes blanches et l’empire; Scott, The Politics of the Veil; Hamel, “De la racialization du sexisme au sexisme identitaire.” I also address some of ­these issues in my article “From the Jewish Question to the Muslim Question.” 76 In a speech on December 11, 2010, in Lyon, Marine Le Pen declared that “in some areas, it is not good to be a ­woman or gay or Jewish, or even French or white.” 77 Van Walsum, ­Family and the Nation; Bracke, “Subjects of Debate.” 78 Gert Oostindie argues that Rita Verdonk and Geert Wilders ­were the only politicians to oppose Afro-­Caribbean strug­gles for recognition ­because of their links to the Dutch East Indies through their parents. See Oostindie, Postcolonial Netherlands, 127. 79 See Stefani, Colonia per maschi; Spadaro, “Italian Empire ‘at Home’ ”; Papa, Sotto altri cieli; Sòrgoni, Parole e corpi.

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3. Integration Policies and the Institutionalization of Femonationalism

1 Yuval-­Davis, Gender and Nation. 2 In this and the next chapter I use the term “Eu­ro­pean” rather than “western Eu­ro­pean” to refer to pro­cesses initiated by the Eu­ro­pean Commission at the level of the Eu­ro­pean Union (eu). The eu has been the agent and context of the civic integration policies. Furthermore, t­ hese policies have been implemented at the eu level and apply to non-­eu citizens. This notwithstanding, the focus of my analy­sis remains western Europe—­the Netherlands, France, and Italy—as the context in which the application of civic integration policies takes place. Furthermore, it could be argued that key western Eu­ropean countries (Denmark, France, Germany, and the Netherlands) have been the driving forces ­behind the pro­cess leading to the establishment of the civic integration policies across the eu. On this latter point, see Carrera and Wiesbrock, “Civic Integration of Third-­Country Nationals.” 3 Throughout this chapter I use the term “non-­eu/non-­western mi­grants” to refer to mi­grants who are affected by civic integration policies. While in all eu countries civic integration mea­sures are addressed to mi­grants from outside the Eu­ro­pean Union, in some countries like the Netherlands ­these policies explic­itly targeted non-­western mi­grants, that is, mi­grants who come from outside the eu and the western world. Citizens from Australia, Canada, Japan, Monaco, New Zealand, South ­Korea, the United States, and the Vatican City are in fact exempted from the Dutch Civic Integration Abroad exam at the time of writing. 4 For the Netherlands, see, for instance, Kirk, “Embodied Enlightenment”; Suvarieriol, “Nation-­Freezing”; Roggeband, “Victim‐Agent Dilemma”; Wilton, “Promoting Equality?”; Bonjour and Hart, “Proper Wife, a Proper Marriage”; Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?”; Van Den Berg and Duyvendak, “Paternalizing ­Mothers”; Mepschen et al., “Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands.” For France, see Bonjour and Lettinga, “Po­liti­cal Debates on Islamic Headscarves”; Mullally, “Civic Integration, Mi­grant ­Women and the Veil”; Alaoui, “L’integration sous condition”; Fassin and Mazouz, “Qu’est-ce que devenir français?”; É. Fassin, “La démocratie sexuelle et le conflit des civilisations”; Lochak, “L’intégration comme injonction.” For Italy, see Farris and Scrinzi, “Gender and the Racialization of Mi­grant ­Women in the Lega Nord Ideology and Politics.” 5 Joppke, “Retreat of Multiculturalism in the Liberal State,” 249. 6 Joppke, “Beyond National Models,” 1–2. 7 Bertossi and Duyvendak, “National Models of Immigrant Integration”; Joppke, “Immigrants and Civic Integration in Western Eu­rope.” 8 Joppke, “Beyond National Models.” 9 Joppke, “Beyond National Models,” 14.

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10 As Joppke puts it, “It would be misleading to interpret civic integration ­toward immigrants as a rebirth of nationalism or racism. ­These policies are carefully observing the dividing line between ‘integration,’ which leaves the ethical orientation of the mi­grant intact, and ‘assimilation,’ which does not” (Joppke, “Beyond National Models,” 14). 11 Joppke, “Immigrants and Civic Integration in Western Eu­rope,” 25. 12 Soysal, “Citizenship, Immigration, and the Eu­ro­pean Social Proj­ect,” 11. 13 Soysal, “Citizenship, Immigration, and the Eu­ro­pean Social Proj­ect.” 14 See, in par­tic­u­lar, Carrera and Wiesbrock, “Civic Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals”; Suvarieriol, “Nation-­Freezing”; Koopmans, “Post-­ Nationalization of Immigrant Rights”; Schain, “State Strikes Back.” 15 For a reading of the interconnections between nationalism and liberalism, see Wallerstein, Modern World-­System IV. On this point see also the classical study by Balibar and Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class. 16 The term “third-­country national” denotes an individual who is neither from the eu country in which he or she resides nor from an eu member-­state. 17 As Carrera and Wiesbrock demonstrate, certain member-­states, among them the Netherlands, significantly influenced the discussion that took place in the 2004 Council of the Eu­ro­pean Union. More specifically, “Austria, Germany and the Netherlands managed to transfer to the eu level integration policies and ­legal mea­sures existing in their respective national immigration laws (or which ­were being debated in their parliaments) at the time of the negotiations” (Carrera and Wiesbrock, “Civic Integration of Third-­Country Nationals,” 9). 18 Council of the Eu­ro­pean Union, 2004, press release, available at http://­www​ .­consilium​.­europa​.­eu​/­uedocs​/­cms​_­data​/d ­ ocs​/p ­ ressdata​/e­ n​/j­ ha​/­82745​.­pdf (accessed March 30, 2014). 19 cbp 10 and 11 are conceived as heuristics to better the coordination, realization, mainstreaming, and evaluation of the overall framework. 20 Kirk, “Gender and Integration in the Netherlands.” 21 They included postcolonial ethnic-­minority groups like Surinamese, Moluccans, and Antilleans as well as groups that had settled during the post–­WWII labor-­recruitment period like Moroccans and Turks. 22 Kirk, “Gender and Integration in the Netherlands.” 23 Kirk, “Gender and Integration in the Netherlands”; Entzinger, “Parallel Decline of Multiculturalism and the Welfare State in the Netherlands.” 24 Bonjour and Lettinga, “Po­liti­cal Debates on Islamic Headscarves,” 269. 25 Van Walsum, ­Family and the Nation. 26 As Kirk explains, “­After 1998, the scope of inburgering policies ­were expanded to include resident immigrants, in par­tic­u­lar the unemployed and ‘caring parents’ (i.e. ­mothers). ­Mothers and clergy (i.e. imams)—­who ­were brought ­under the Win in 2001—­were seen as impor­tant target groups ­because of their role in integrating ­others. Just as immigrant related policies Notes to chapter 3 

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prior to the 1980s had been dif­fer­ent for dif­fer­ent ethnic groups, inburgering came to mean dif­fer­ent ­things for dif­fer­ent social groups: immigrant categorisation was no longer based on ethnicity but on societal function” (Kirk, “Gender and Integration in the Netherlands,” 102). 27 In order to prepare for the final exam mi­grants have to follow civic integration courses on the Dutch language and Dutch society. This part constitutes half of the content of the course and is common to all applicants. The other half instead is more personalized and consists in choosing a “portfolio” during registration. ­There are four portfolios available: work; education, health, and upbringing; societal participation; and entrepreneurship. According to Kirk and Suvarieriol, the first two are the most popu­lar (“Emancipating Mi­ grant ­Women?”). 28 The electronic practical exam consists of an interview with a computer in which the immigrant is asked questions about Dutch society. Usually it consists of forty-­three questions that have to be completed in one hour. Seventy-­three p ­ ercent have to be answered correctly. The civic component of the test is also done through a computer. In forty-­five minutes applicants are shown a number of short films, ­after which they have to answer 62 ­percent of around forty-­three questions correctly in order to pass. 29 Kirk and Suvarierol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?” 30 Law of July 24, 2006, concerning immigration and integration. 31 Law N. 2007–1631, of November 20, 2007, on immigration, integration and asylum, 270. 32 Chou and Baygert, “2006 French Immigration and Integration Law”; Bonjour and Lettinga, “Po­liti­cal Debates on Islamic Headscarves.” 33 In the French presidential elections of 2002 the candidate of the far-­right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, won over the socialist Lionel Jospin in the first round, thereby making it to the run-­off elections together with the candidate of the “Rally for the Republic,” Jacques Chirac. Though Chirac eventually won the elections, the fact that a right-­wing nationalist party like the National Front—­famous for its anti-­Semitic and racist propaganda as well as for its dubious links with fascist organ­izations—­could reach the second round was a ­great shock and marked the beginning of the rise of the right in the country. 34 Fassin and Fassin, De la question sociale à la question raciale. 35 Gaspard, “Assimilation, Insertion, Intégration”; Sayad, “Qu’est ce que l’intégration?”; Lochak, “L’intégration comme injonction.” 36 Scott, Politics of the Veil; Gaspard, “Assimilation, Insertion, Intégration.” 37 Scott, Politics of the Veil; Farris, “From the Jewish Question to the Muslim Question.” 38 Einaudi, Le politiche dell’immigrazione in Italia dall’Unità a oggi. 39 Biondi Dal Monte and Vrenna, “L’accordo di integrazione ovvero l’integrazione per legge.” 206 Notes to

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40 Zincone, Secondo Rapporto sull’integrazione degli immigrati in Italia; Ambrosini and Colasanto, L’integrazione invisibile. 41 The concrete translation of t­ hese policies into national legislations thus clearly reveals the fundamental asymmetry and “improbability” (Joppke, “Beyond National Models,” 3) of assessing integration as a “two-­way” pro­cess that inaugurates an (albeit imperfectly) inclusive turn in the eu’s approach to immigrants. Although the receiving society is in princi­ple asked to “accommodate” mi­grants, “The idea that something as complex and extensive as the receiving society, a ‘society’ ­after all and not just ‘­people,’ should change in response to the arrival of by nature numerically inferior ‘mi­grants’ is unheard of ” (Joppke, “Beyond National Models,” 3). 42 The concept of discourse within cda methodology refers to a “social practice” that produces meanings by linking the linguistic and the societal level (institutions and social structures) (Fairclough and Wodak, “Critical Discourse Analy­sis,” 258). In par­tic­ul­ ar, cda is interested in identifying the linkages between (po­liti­cal) discourse and the ways in which such discourse produces and reproduces power hierarchies, ideologies, and forms of domination. 43 Information on the procedure for the examination abroad and the self-­study material is available at an apposite website: http://­www​.­naarnederland​.­nl​/­en​ /­the​-­examination​-­package (accessed March 18, 2014). 44 On ­these aspects, see Suvarierol, “Nation-­Freezing.” 45 Since in some countries it is illegal to possess movies showing scenes of nudity, the movie Naar Nederland is also available in edited versions (without the scenes but with full descriptions) in Dari, Moroccan Arabic, Pashto, Rus­ sian, Somali, Standard Arabic, Riff Berber, Thai, Urdu, and Viet­nam­ese. 46 Kirk, “Gender and Integration in the Netherlands,” 158. 47 In the 2000s when second-­generation Moroccan and Turkish immigrants married ­women from the countries of origin of their parents, rather than Dutch ­women, this phenomenon was called “import brides,” as already mentioned in chapter 2. ­These ­unions w ­ ere depicted as arranged marriages, and ­women ­were thus portrayed as victims of unwanted relationships. 48 Bonjour and de Hart, “Proper Wife, a Proper Marriage.” 49 Bonjour and de Hart, “Proper Wife, a Proper Marriage.” 50 Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?,” 8. 51 Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?” 52 Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?,” 24. 53 Kirk, “Gender and Integration in the Netherlands,” 15; Van Den Berg and Duyvendak, “Paternalizing ­Mothers.” 54 Lochak, “L’intégration comme injonction,” 7. 55 Law N. 2006–911 of July 24, 2006. The text of the law is available at http://­w ww​.­legifrance​.­gouv​.­f r​/­affichTexte​.­do​?­cidTexte​=­JORFTEXT​ 000000266495&dateTexte​=­&categorieLien​=­id (accessed March 18, 2014). Notes to chapter 3 

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56 É. Fassin, “La démocratie sexuelle et le conflit des civilisations,” 128. 57 As of 2011 the booklet is no longer used; its content, however, is replicated in a video, which is still used as introductory material, shown to newcomers at ofii offices. 58 Agence Nationale de l’Accueil des Etrangers et des Migrations, Vivre ensemble, en France, available at http://­www​.­ofii​.­fr​/­s​_­integrer​_­en​_­france​_­47​ /­vivre​_­ ensemble​_e­ n​_f­ rance​_4­ 99​.h ­ tml (accessed October 20, 2013). 59 I had the chance to watch this video during my participant observation at the ofii office in Rue de la Roquette in Paris in March 2013. 60 Chou and Baygert, “2006 French Immigration and Integration Law.” 61 Unlike in the Netherlands, however, training sessions and courses are provided to mi­grants for ­free and the residence permit is issued on the basis of signing of the contract and attending the courses and sessions, rather than through an evaluative exam. Nonattendance or noncompliance with the contractual obligations (attending the sessions and, if needed, the language course) can lead to the termination of the contract and to sanctions including the mi­grant not being granted a permanent residence permit, or the nonrenewal of the temporary permit and hence expulsion from the country. During my participant observation at the Paris ofii office in Rue de la Roquette (March 2013), I was able to witness the functioning of the cai. The contract is presented to immigrants during a half-­day session, which is held in one of the ofii offices. During the session, mi­grants are informed about the purpose of the cai and the half-­day schedule and are shown a video about French values and lifestyle, Vivre ensemble, en France. ­After the video, a meeting takes place in which each mi­grant individually receives further information on the contract, his or her language skills are evaluated through a fifteen-­minute multiple-­choice exam, his or her needs are assessed in terms of skills and employability, and he or she is informed about the dates of the courses and sessions (language courses, if applicable, a civic session, and a session on life in France). Signing the contract binds the mi­grant to re­spect the fundamental values of French society and to attend the language course and the sessions. While the civic training course lasts six hours and consists of a pre­sen­ta­tion regarding French institutions and values, the session concerning life in France has the objective of equipping the cai signatory with “sufficient knowledge” of practical life in terms of access to authorities and ser­vices, particularly training, employment, housing, health, education, and community life. Attendance at both civic training and the session about life in France is confirmed by means of attendance certificates released by the ofii. At the end of the duration period of the cai, the ofii issues a certificate attesting to compliance or noncompliance with the cai requirements, including evaluation and grades. The certificate is sent to the prefect of the signatory mi­grant’s place of residence.

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62 In France, the immigrant ­family was initially the only target of the reception platforms (plates-­formes d’accueil) developed in the 1990s. As I show, it is now the object of a specific contractual formula (caif). 63 Bonjour and de Hart, “Proper Wife, a Proper Marriage.” 64 See Elaine Sciolino, “Citing of Polygamy as a Cause of French Riots C ­ auses Uproar,” New York Times, November 17, 2005, available at http://­www​ .­nytimes​.­com​/­2005​/­11​/­17​/­international​/e­ urope​/1­ 7cnd​-f­ rance​.­html​?­​_­r​=­0 (accessed March 20, 2014). 65 See the website of the French Ministry of the Interior: http://­www​ .­immigration​.­interieur​.­gouv​.­fr​/­Accueil​-­et​-­accompagnement​/­Les​-­femmes​ -­immigrees​/­La​-­politique​-­d-​ ­integration​-­des​-f­ emmes​-i­ mmigrees (accessed March 20, 2014). 66 Information drawn from an interview on October 3, 2013, with key respondents in Piedmont—­that is, teachers in the “permanent territorial centers” (centri territoriali permanenti)—in Turin. 67 Though this has been presented as the official video for the civic integration courses, some provinces and regions use other materials. For instance, the Initiatives and Studies on Multi-­ethnicities Foundation (ismu), based in Milan, prepared a series of specific Power­Point slides and materials. 68 Points 4 and 17 in the charter. My translation from Italian. 69 Point 18 in the charter. My translation from Italian. 70 Point 19 in the charter. My translation from Italian. 71 Point 26 in the charter. My translation from Italian. 72 Some provinces, however, refused to show it and used instead other materials. See note 67. 73 As Foucault puts it, in the regime of disciplinary power, punishing is not aimed at expiation or repression, but rather at normalization. “It refers individual action to a ­whole that is at once a field of comparison, a space of differentiation and the princi­ple of a rule to be followed. . . . ​It mea­sures in quantitative terms and hierarchizes in terms of value the abilities, the level, the ‘nature’ of individuals. It introduces through this ‘value-­giving’ mea­ sure, the constraint of a conformity that must be achieved. Lastly, it traces the limit that ­will define difference in relation to all other differences. . . . ​In short, it normalizes” (Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 182–183). 74 Kofman et al., Gender and International Migration in Eu­rope; Yuval-­Davis, Gender and Nation; Moraga and Anzaldúa, This Bridge Called My Back. 75 For an analy­sis of the civic integration dimensions in the case of Muslim ­women, particularly in the French context, see Farris, “From the Jewish Question to the Muslim Question.” It should also be noted that policies targeting non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant families, and especially ­women, expect them to comply with rules (dress codes, above all) whose observance is presented as the necessary road ­toward good integration and even

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­ omen’s emancipation. By ­doing so, however, ­these policies require mi­grant w ­women (Muslim in par­tic­u­lar) to be more equal than all other ­women; in other words, as Morondo argues in “­Women’s Oppression and Face Veil Bans,” ­these policies oblige them to adopt higher standards of compliance with the princi­ple of gender equality than any other group of w ­ omen equally subjected to (western) patriarchal practices. 76 Alaoui, “L’intégration sous condition,” 130. My translation from French. 77 On the difference between race and gender as operators of po­liti­cal discourses based on toleration and equality, see the illuminating essay by Brown, “Tolerance and/or Equality?” 78 Joppke, “Role of the State in the Cultural Integration,” 4. The distinction Joppke makes between cognitive and moral demands is related to his idea that civic integration programs are fundamentally respecting the tenets of Rawlsian liberalism, albeit being at risk of falling into a kind of Foucaldian depiction of liberalism as repressive. Yet even when Joppke recognizes the Foucaldian repressive dimensions of civic integration, he still maintains that repression itself belongs to the history of liberalism, and therefore ­there is no need to invoke nationalism and racism. 79 Joppke, “Role of the State in the Cultural Integration,” 4. 80 Joppke, “Beyond National Models,” 3. 81 Spijkerboer, Inburgering en de fundamenten van het Nederlandse politieke bestel; Kirk, “Gender and Integration in the Netherlands.” 82 In 2006 when he was the minister of Interior in de Villepin’s government, Nicholas Sarkozy declared: “The first of mi­grants’ duty is to love the country that welcomes them, and to re­spect its values and its laws. Other­wise, they are not obliged to stay!” See Catherine Coroller, “Sarkozy s’addresse à ‘nos compatriotes,’ ” Liberation, May 3, 2006, available at http://­www​.­liberation​ .­fr​/­politiques​/­010146981​-­sarkozy​-­s-​ ­adresse​-a­ ​-n ­ os​-c­ ompatriotes (accessed March 20, 2014). See also Alaoui, “L’intégration sous condition.” 83 hci, “Le contrat et l’integration,” 43. My translation from French. 84 hci, “Le contrat et l’integration,” 46. My translation from French. 85 hci, “Le contrat et l’integration,” 46. My translation from French. 86 hci, “Le contrat et l’integration,” 45. My translation from French. 87 Büchler, “Islamic F ­ amily Law in Eu­rope?,” 208. In an article on sectarian conflict and ­family law in Egypt, Saba Mahmood, for instance, questions some well-­rooted assumptions regarding the genealogy of ­family codes in postcolonial settings (in the ­Middle East in par­tic­u­lar). According to Mahmood, the per­sis­tence of religious-­based ­family law in countries with majoritarian Muslim populations has been considered mostly a sign of t­ hese populations’ backwardness and incomplete secularization, as well as the result of colonial policies’ incapacity to interfere “in the religious affairs of colonized p ­ eoples” (“Sectarian Conflict and ­Family Law in Con­temporary Egypt,” 57). Yet, she continues, ­these assumptions are fundamentally flawed. Indeed, it was 210 Notes to

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precisely ­under colonization that religion, ­family issues, and sexuality ­were relegated by colonial powers in the private sphere. “The privatization of t­ hese aspects of social life . . . ​[meant that] they came to be increasingly regulated by the centralized state and its vari­ous po­liti­cal rationalities (no longer administered by local muftis, qadis, customary norms, and parochial moral knowledges)” (58). In other words, ­under the modern colonial state, ­family law became “one of the techniques of modern governance and sexual regulation. ­Family law as a distinct ­legal domain is a modern invention that did not exist in its pres­ent form in the premodern period” (58). 88 Andrez and Spire, “Droits des étrangers et statut personnel,” available at http://­www​.­gisti​.­org​/­doc​/­plein​-­droit​/­51​/­statut​.­html (accessed March 3, 2014). 89 MacMaster, “Colonial ‘Emancipation,’ ” 94. 90 MacMaster, “Colonial ‘Emancipation,’ ” 106. 91 Scott, Politics of the Veil; Delphy, Classer, dominer. 92 Miriam Ticktin, in “Sexual Vio­lence as the Language of Border Control,” has analyzed the growing focus on sexual vio­lence and w ­ omen’s rights within French mi­grant communities throughout the 2000s, claiming that this focus is the expression of the nation-­state’s desire to reinforce its bound­aries by reframing issues of gender and sexuality as prob­lems of security. Within this frame, ­women’s rights are treated as the litmus test for defining who is excluded from the nation—­namely, non-­French, Arab males—­and for justifying a stricter politics of border controls. 93 Roggeband, “Victim‐Agent Dilemma.” 94 In Rita Verdonk’s words, “Failed integration can lead to marginalisation and segregation as a result of which ­people can turn their back on society and fall back on antiquated norms and values, making them susceptible to the influence of a small group inclined to extremism and terrorism. . . . ​Ongoing radicalization implies the real risk that non-­integrated aliens w ­ ill take an anti-­western stance and ­will assail fundamental values and norms generally accepted in western Society such as equality of men and ­women, non-­ discrimination of homosexuals and freedom of expression” (quoted in van Walsum, ­Family and the Nation, 6). 95 Van Walsum, ­Family and the Nation, 6. 96 Van Walsum, ­Family and the Nation, 7. 97 Stoler, Race and the Education of Desire. 98 It should be noted that during colonial times some Eu­ro­pean feminists actively took part in the civilizing missions aiming at “emancipating” colonized ­women from their seemingly backward practices. Their involvement in t­ hese civilizing campaigns was due both to Eu­ro­pean suffragettes fundamentally sharing some of the most racist and sexist preconceptions about non-­ European cultures as primitive and patriarchal. However, ­these feminists also embraced the civilizing campaigns ­because in this way they expected to benefit from the contradictions that the mobilization of gender equality in Notes to chapter 3 

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99

1 00 101 102 103 104 105

106 107 108

the colonies opened up in the metropoles, where ­women ­were still denied the right to vote. Famously, in 1908 the British feminist Christabel Pankhurst argued that British ­women’s disenfranchised status was the sign of imperial decay: only the concession of the vote to British ­women before its concession to the “less civilized ­people” in the colonies would prove the greatness and enlightenment of British society (Burton, “White ­Woman’s Burden,” 304). Similarly, in France the suffragettes around the feminist newspaper La Française in the 1930s demanded “the vote as compensation for [French ­women’s] good deeds in the colonial setting” (Boittin, “Feminist Mediations of the Exotic,” 137). For a compelling treatment of the theme of allegiance pledging and nationality law, specifically applied to the Australian case, but with strong transnational significance, see Jenkins, “Pledging Allegiance.” Lochak, “L’intégration comme injonction”; Jenkins, “Pledging Allegiance.” Yuval-­Davis, Gender and Nation. Carrera and Wiesbrock, “Civic Integration of Third-­Country Nationals,” 1. Goswami, “Rethinking the Modular Nation Form.” Goswami, “Rethinking the Modular Nation Form,” 785 (my emphasis). In this, I share Neil Davidson’s impor­tant argument according to which “nationalism is the necessary ideological corollary of capitalism. The cap­i­tal­ist class in its constituent parts has a continuing need to retain territorial home bases for their operations. Why? Capitalism is based on competition, but cap­i­tal­ists want competition to take place on their terms; they do not want to suffer the consequences if they lose. In one sense then, they want a state to ensure that they are protected from ­these consequences—in other words, they require from a state more than simply providing an infrastructure; they need it to ensure that effects of competition are experienced as far as pos­si­ble by someone ­else. A global state could not do this; indeed, in this re­spect it would be the same as having no state at all. For if every­one is protected then no-­one is: unrestricted market relations would prevail, with all the risks that entails. The state therefore has to have limits, has to be able to distinguish between ­those who ­will receive its protection and t­ hose who w ­ ill not.” See Davidson, “Nationalism and Neoliberalism.” Joppke, “Immigrants and Civic Integration in Western Eu­rope,” 25. Joppke, “Beyond National Models,” 3. Jung, “Racial Unconscious of Assimilation Theory,” 391.

4. Femonationalism, Neoliberalism, and Social Reproduction

1 Bracke, “From ‘Saving ­Women’ to ‘Saving Gays,’ ” 248. See Boggio Éwanjé-­ Épée and Magliani-­Belkacem, Les féministes blanches et l’empire, 15, for France; and Salih, “Muslim W ­ omen, Fragmented Secularism and the Construction of Interconnected ‘Publics’ in Italy.” According to Boggio Éwanjé-­Épée 212 Notes to

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and Magliani-­Belkacem, authors of a compelling critique that places what they call French feminism’s “white supremacy” in historical perspective, the convergence between some feminists and con­temporary anti-­Islam positions is a strategic one: “If some feminists can contribute to a racist or imperialist politics, that is ­because they have captured the strategic opportunities to advance their demands by taking advantage of an opening offered by the racist system” (15). Joan W. Scott’s detailed critical reconstruction of French feminists’ positions in the affair du voile outlines the contours of the convergence between feminists and anti-­Islam po­liti­cal forces as one based on their endorsement of French republicanism: “It is the power of their unconscious identification with the republican proj­ect—­their own ac­cep­tance of the psy­chol­ogy of denial—­that led many [feminists] to unequivocally condemn the headscarf/veil as a violation of ­women’s rights and to talk as if the status of ­women in France ­were not a prob­lem at all” (Scott, Politics of the Veil, 172–173). Christine Delphy describes the convergence between feminists in ­favor of the antiveil law and French racist politics as what I take to be a type of sacrificial alignment. By contrasting antisexism and antiracism, and positioning them as strug­gles that cannot be reconciled, Delphy argues, certain feminists have chosen the former at the expense of the latter: “raciste peut-­être, mais ne pas oublier les femmes,” ­these feminists seemingly utter (Delphy, Classer, domineer, 193). Fi­nally, the sociologist Sylvie Tissot points to what could be called a conjunctural convergence between the xenophobic turn of French immigration policies in the years following the antiveil law and what she calls “state feminism,” that is, anti-­Islam feminist organ­izations that have been integrated into the state apparatuses as the official voices of ­women’s rights. She takes stock of a rather gloomy situation, arguing that “feminism has thus become one of the ‘meta­phors for racism’: it feeds racist repre­sen­ta­tions and practices, but in a euphemized way that make racism ‘respectable’ ” (Tissot, “Bilan d’un féminisme d’État,” 16). 2 A few exceptions are works by Hester Eisenstein and Elizabeth Bern­stein, though focused on the United States. With an eye on the global context in which ­women’s rights have become the new lingua franca of neoliberal and conservative politics, the US socialist feminist scholar Hester Eisenstein details both the endorsement by US “mainstream feminists” of racist and Islamophobic agendas, and the ways in which US neoliberalism used a feminist rhe­toric to further capital accumulation in the Global South. First, Eisenstein understands mainstream feminists’ support for racist and Islamophobic platforms in terms of the re-­proposition of “imperial feminism”: that is, a form of feminism that serves the American empire by participating in its neo­co­lo­nial logic. Second, she attempts to decipher the appropriation of feminist themes by neoliberals and conservatives in their crusades against Muslims and mi­grants in terms of their cap­i­tal­ist interests: “Feminist inspired gender ideology is used to enforce the idea of western Notes to chapter 4 

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cultural superiority, and thus to facilitate the penetration of multinational corporations into the pre­industrial areas of the world” (Eisenstein, Feminism Seduced, 196). Eisenstein thus connects the deployment of mainstream feminism—­understood as an individualist/liberal ideology—as a “solvent of traditional cultures.” That is, neoliberals brandish feminist ideas in the Global South in order to destabilize previous gender ­orders, create possessive individualist subjects, and thus make the penetration of cap­i­tal­ist production and consumption patterns easier to establish. With a specific focus on the encounter between abolitionist feminists, evangelical Christians, and conservative as well as liberal government officials in the United States who fight sex trafficking in the name of w ­ omen’s rights, Elizabeth Bern­stein coined the term “carceral feminism.” This term describes antitrafficking feminists’ transmutation of gender justice into criminal justice and conservative Christians’ deployment of a feminist-­friendly rhe­toric against sex work. According to Bern­stein, the convergence of feminism and conservative religious groups on the theme of sex work as “modern-­day slavery” has been pos­si­ble thanks to two con­temporary shifts taking place in each camp: “the feminist shift from a focus on bad men inside the home to bad men outside the home, and the shift of a new generation of evangelical Christians from a focus on sexually improper w ­ omen (as prior concerns with abortion suggest) to a focus on sexually dangerous men” (Bern­stein, Temporarily Yours, 66). Just as abolitionist feminists claim to rescue female victims of gender vio­lence and trafficking by demanding stricter penalties and prison for perpetrators, evangelical Christians claim to save w ­ omen from “modern-­day slavery” by adopting the language of w ­ omen’s rights and a distorted idea of social justice as law and order. In both cases, the rescue of w ­ omen amounts to the commitment to a state-­sponsored agenda of mass incarcerations and criminalization of (often non-­white/non-­western) “dangerous” males. Similar to Eisenstein in certain ways, Bern­stein also links evangelical Christian groups’ antitrafficking obsession to their business in the Global South. In countries like Thailand and China, Bern­stein notices, evangelical Christians have put the “rescued” ­women to work in jewelry-­ making proj­ects where they are micromanaged and forced to convert to and to practice Chris­tian­ity in order to retain their salary. 3 Though in this book I concentrate on care, domestic, and cleaning work, I endorse the definition of social reproduction proposed by Barbara Laslett and Johanna Brenner to refer to the “activities and attitudes, be­hav­iors and emotions, responsibilities and relationships directly involved in the maintenance of life on a daily basis, and intergen­er­a­tion­ally.” See Laslett and Brenner, “Gender and Social Reproduction,” 383. ­These activities can be paid or unpaid. Since the end of the 2000s ­there has been a growing interest in theories of social reproduction, both among a new generation of Marxist feminists, and among migration and care scholars. For a reconstruction of 214 Notes to

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5 6

7

8 9 10 11

12 13 14

the debate in Marxist feminism, see Arruzza, “Functionalist, Determinist, Reductionist”; S. Ferguson, “Canadian Contributions to Social Reproduction Feminism”; and Vogel, Marxism and the Oppression of ­Women. For a discussion of the notion of social reproduction within gender and migration studies, see Kofman and Raghuram, Gendered Migrations and Global Social Reproduction. For a discussion on the dif­fer­ent uses of the concept of “performative contradiction,” see Habermas, “Discourse Ethics”; Jay, “Debate over Performative Contradiction”; and Butler, “Competing Universalities.” Butler, “Competing Universalities.” Black feminist thought associated with intersectionality in par­tic­u­lar has elaborated at length on the forms of racial discrimination that w ­ omen of color face in the public sphere and work market. On intersectionality theory, see Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins”; Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought; hooks, Feminist Theory. Exceptions are constituted by the work of Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?,” on the neoliberal features of civic integration programs in the Netherlands and by the work of Camille Gourdeau, “Des usages contradictoires du Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration,” in France. Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 2. Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 2. Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­Country Nationals,” 2. Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 3. The other pressing challenges include increasing risks of social exclusion; gaps in educational achievement; and public concerns about the lack of integration of mi­grants. It is impor­tant to note also that in the 2011 Communication more emphasis is placed on shared responsibility among the eu, member-­states, and mi­grants’ countries of origin. “Countries of origin can have a role to play in support of the integration pro­cess in three ways: to prepare the integration already before the mi­grants’ departure; 2) to support the mi­grants while in the eu, e.g. through support via the Embassies; 3) to prepare the mi­grant’s temporary or definitive return with acquired experience and knowledge” (Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­Country Nationals,” 10). Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 4. Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 5. Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 7 (my emphasis). Notes to chapter 4 

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15 Wacquant, “Crafting the Neoliberal State”; Handler, “Social Citizenship and Workfare in the US and Western Eu­rope.” 16 Engels, Condition of the Working Class in ­England; Marx, Capital. Volume I; Polanyi, ­Great Transformation. 17 Strategy for Equality between ­Women and Men 2010–2015, 12 (my emphasis). 18 Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 5. 19 Eu­ro­pean Commission, “Eu­ro­pean Agenda for the Integration of Third-­ Country Nationals,” 7 (my emphasis). 20 See Rubin et al., Mi­grant ­Women in the Eu­ro­pean ­Labour Force. 21 In a study on mi­grant w ­ omen in the Eu­ro­pean ­labor market, which was prepared by the rand Corporation for the Eu­ro­pean Commission, Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunity, one can read, “In the case of ­women mi­grants, gender theories suggest that cultural values and perceptions often restrict the extent to which ­women can participate in the ­labour force, and determine what kinds of work are acceptable to them. Unfavourable cultural attitudes to ­women’s labour-­force participation may be pres­ent in the mi­grant’s country or culture of origin and may also prevail in the receiving country” (Rubin et al., Mi­grant ­Women in the Eu­ro­ pean L ­ abour Force, 20). 22 See “Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for W ­ omen and Men: Opinion on the Gender Dimension of Integration of Mi­grants,” available at http://­ec​.­europa​.­eu​/­justice​/­gender​-­equality​/­files​/­opinions​_­advisory​ _­committee​/­opinion​_­integration​_­migrants​_­en​.­pdf (accessed May 13, 2014). 23 The vice president of the ec on Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, Viviane Reding, for instance, came into the spotlight in 2011 for her proposal to have 60 ­percent of ­women in corporate boardrooms and to adopt a ­women’s charter. Thus, ­there has been a tendency among the policy makers of gender mainstreaming to prioritize gender equality in terms of “equal opportunities” in access to employment and to positions of power. Though ­these are undoubtedly impor­tant ­battles, their foregrounding has arguably operated at the expense of other interpretations of equality between men and ­women. Other claims related to gender mainstreaming have accordingly received much less attention: for instance, demands for public and ­free care ser­vices, for guaranteed maternity and paternity leave, and for income for working ­mothers, and so on. 24 Eu­ro­pean Council, “Establishing the Eu­ro­pean Fund for the Integration of Third-­Country Nationals,” art. 2 (1). 25 Lilian Callender was the director of the School of Economics at inholland University in Rotterdam, Haarlem, and Gravenhage (2002–2006), and Yasemin Tümer was the managing director of the tax ser­vice com­pany kpmg. 26 pavem, available at http://­www​.­ageplus​.­nl​/­downloads​/­AGEplusworkshop​ PAVEMcommission​.p ­ pt (accessed June 13, 2013). 216 Notes to

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27 As Kirk and Suvarieriol note, “The name of the programme seems to be a play on the collection of Arabic short stories ‘A Thousand and One Nights’ ” (“Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?,” 36). See http://­www​.­duizendeneenkracht​ .­nl​/­eCache​/­DEF​/­1/​ ­21​/­227​.­html (accessed August 1, 2013). 28 Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?”; Snelders et al., Doorpakken met Duizend en één Kracht. 29 Quoted in Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?,” 254. 30 See the DonaDaria website, available at http://­donadaria​.­nl​/­succes​-­met​ -­actieve​-­vrouwen​-­in​-­het​-­vrijwilligerswerk​-­2​/# ­ ​.U ­ T9C​_-­​ s­ ​-­vxN (accessed March 20, 2014). 31 One of the stories involved a ­woman who was denied social benefits b ­ ecause she was wearing a burqa and, thus, according to the municipality, not showing a real willingness to integrate. 32 Van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands,” 146. 33 Quoted in Kirk and Suvarieriol, “Emancipating Mi­grant ­Women?,” 254. 34 The professional portfolio concerns all signatories of the cai except minors, foreigners who are fifty-­five or older, and t­ hose who have a professional activity or who declare that they cannot work. 35 A brief report on the first results of the implementation of the professional portfolio is available at http://­www​.­immigration​.­interieur​.­gouv​.­fr​ /­Integration​/­Emploi​-­et​-­promotion​-­de​-­la​-d ­ iversite​/L ­ e​-b ­ ilan​-d ­ e​-­competences​ -­professionnelles (accessed May 29, 2013). 36 Page 14 of “Rapport d’activité 2012 de l’Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration,” available at http://­www​.­ofii​.­fr​/­tests​_­197​/­rapport​_­d​_­activite​ _­2011​_­de​_­1 _office_francais_de_1 _immigration_et_de_1 _​ ­integration​_­1294​ .­html​?­preview​=­oui (accessed August 2, 2013). 37 Jourdan, “Les femmes immigrées signataires du cai en 2009”. 38 Jourdan, “Les femmes immigrées signataires du cai en 2009,” 3. 39 Gourdeau, “Des usages contradictoires du Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration”; Amnesty International, Choice and Prejudice. 40 Secrétariat Général du Comité Interministériel de Contrôle de l’Immigration, Rapport au parlement, 171. 41 See the list of beneficiaries at http://­www​.­immigration​.­interieur​.­gouv​.­fr​/­Info​ -­ressources​/­Fonds​-­europeens​/­Le​-­Fonds​-­europeen​-d ­ ​-i­ ntegration​-F ­ EI​/L ­ es​ -­beneficiaires​-­du​-­Fonds​-­europeen​-­d-​ ­integration​-F ­ EI (accessed October 23, 2014). 42 See the International L ­ abour Organ­ization’s executive summary on “promoting integration for mi­grant domestic workers in France”: http://­www​.­ilo​ .­org​/­wcmsp5​/­groups​/­public​/­—ed​_­protect​/— ­ protrav​/— ­ migrant​/d ­ ocuments​ /­publication​/­wcms​_­232518​.­pdf (accessed October 23, 2014). 43 See the PromoFemmes website, available at http://­www​.­promofemmes​.­org​ /­projet​-­insertion​-­pro/ (accessed October 23, 2014). 44 Leroi and Thévenot, “Emploi peu qualifié.” Notes to chapter 4 

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45 The prominent role in the western Eu­ro­pean landscape of French republican well-­known feminists like Élizabeth Badinter and Caroline Fouret, of some gender equality organ­izations like npns (see chapter 1) or Promofemme, as well as femocrats like Jeannette Bougrab in the stigmatization of Muslim cultures and religious practices as a privileged site of misogyny and obstacles to integration comes to seem rather contradictory. Rather than empowering mi­grant ­women, the institutional discourse and practice of French intégration républicaine embraced by several feminists and femocrats have thus far appeared to work (wittingly or unwittingly) to strengthen the very forms of gendered and racial discrimination that many French feminists have been vocal in denouncing. The implementation of civic integration policies that seek to “activate” mi­grant ­women in the ­labor market in fact further exacerbates the construction of care and domestic work as a highly feminized and racialized economic sector. See, for instance, Gourdeau, “Des usages contradictoires du Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration”; Scrinzi, “Gender, Migration and the Ambiguous Enterprise of Professionalizing Domestic Ser­vice.” 46 The department gave par­tic­u­lar prominence to the case of Saana Dafani, a young girl of Moroccan descent who was murdered by her ­father in what was called a case of “honor killing,” by bringing its own civil case in the trial against the murderer. Since then, with increasing intensity, the Department for Equal Opportunities has engaged in a campaign denouncing gender vio­lence, strongly associated with non-­western (especially Muslim) mi­grant communities. 47 See the proj­ect’s website at http://­www​.­integrazionemigranti​.­gov​.­it​ /­esperienze​-­territorio​/­pariopportunita​/­Pagine​/­io​-­lavoro​.­aspx (accessed August 3, 2013). 48 The Crisalide Proj­ect brochure is available at http://­www​.­cnel​.­it​/­application​ /­xmanager​/­projects​/­cnel​/­attachments​/­shadow​_­documentazioni​_a­ ttachment​ /­file​_­allegatos​/­000​/­142​/­580​/­Quaderno​_­Crisalide​_­web​.­pdf (accessed January 2, 2016). 49 See the proj­ect’s website at http://­www​.­casa​-­project​.­eu​/­index​.­php (accessed August 3, 2013). 50 Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of ­Woman, 77. 51 De Gouge, Declaration of the Rights of ­Women and Citizen. 52 Tilly and Scott, ­Women, Work, and ­Family. 53 See, for instance, Clara Zetkin’s insistence on the right of ­women to work and to equal pay (Clara Zetkin: Selected Writings). For a discussion of socialist feminist positions on emancipation through work, see Arruzza, Dangerous Liaisons. 54 Kollontai, “Social Basis of the W ­ oman Question,” 61. 55 McDowell, “Life without ­Father and Ford.” 56 Weeks, Prob­lem with Work, 64. 218 Notes to

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57 Federici, Caliban and the Witch. 58 In France, the mechanism through which married ­women of all social ranks ­were encouraged to stay at home was through the allocation to the ­family with more than two ­children of the allocation de salaire unique (single salary alliance), which was implemented in 1946 and abolished in 1978. See J. Martin, “Politique familiale et travail des femmes mariées en France.” In the Netherlands, the rates of labor-­market participation of w ­ omen ­were among the lowest in Eu­rope u ­ ntil the end of the 1970s. According to Hettie Pott-­ Buter, the breadwinner model dominated the Netherlands for so long both ­because of the high standards of living of Dutch families and ­because of the social structure of Dutch society in which the bourgeois f­ amily with the full-­ time ­house­wife imposed itself as a f­ amily ideal already in the seventeenth ­century (Pott-­Buter, Facts and Fairy Tales about Female ­Labour, ­Family and Fertility). In Italy the sociologist Chiara Saraceno mapped the impact of industrialism on Italian welfare and the ways in which state intervention in areas related to ­family, gender relations and access to the ­labor market ­were closely linked and aimed to build the working-­class ­family centered on the male breadwinner. See Saraceno, “­Women, ­Family, and the Law”; Saraceno, “Trent’anni di storia della famiglia Italiana.” 59 Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 60 Weeks, Prob­lem with Work, 63. See also Skeggs, Formations. 61 Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, argued that “as long as the man has economic responsibility for the ­couple, [the impression of perfect equality], it is just an illusion” (589). 62 Dalla Costa and James, Power of ­Women and the Subversion of the Community. 63 Labor-­market statistics: ­Labor force statistics by sex and age: indicators, oecd Employment and ­Labor Market Statistics (database). See http://­stats​ .­oecd​.­org​/­BrandedView​.­aspx​?­oecd​_­bv​_­id​=l­fs​-d ­ ata​-e­ n&doi​=d ­ ata​-0 ­ 0310​-e­ n# (last extracted June 12, 2013). 64 Karamessini and Rubery, ­Women and Austerity. 65 Farris, “Mi­grants’ Regular Army of ­Labor.” 66 Karamessini and Rubery, ­Women and Austerity. 67 Rottenberg, “Rise of Neoliberal Feminism.” As Rottenberg puts it, “Unlike classic liberal feminism whose raison d’être was to pose an immanent critique of liberalism, revealing the gendered exclusions within liberal democracy’s proclamation of universal equality, particularly with re­spect to the law, institutional access, and the full incorporation of ­women into the public sphere, this new feminism seems perfectly in sync with the evolving neoliberal order. Neoliberal feminism, in other words, offers no critique—­immanent or other­wise—of neoliberalism” (2). 68 Weeks, Prob­lem with Work, 151. 69 Rottenberg, “Happiness and the Liberal Imagination.” Notes to chapter 4 

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70 We should note at this point that within western Eu­rope ­women from postsocialist countries that have recently entered the Eu­ro­pean Union are also mostly confined within the care and domestic sector. 71 Federici, Revolution at Point Zero; Dalla Costa and James, Power of ­Women and the Subversion of the Community. 72 For a discussion of ­these features of domestic care work and female migration in western Eu­rope, see Bridget Anderson, ­Doing the Dirty Work; Cox, Servant Prob­lem; Lutz, New Maids. 73 Mink, Welfare’s End, 23–24. 74 Fraser and Gordon, “Genealogy of De­pen­den­cy.” 75 Mohanty, “­Under Western Eyes.” 76 Though civic integration policies target only non-­eu citizens/women and the current nationalist frame identifies Muslim ­women above all as the quintessentially victimized objects, I should emphasize that female mi­grants from eastern Eu­rope as well—­including from current eu member-­states—­have been foregrounded in similar ways. While some of the ste­reo­types mobilized in order to promote the economic integration of non-­eu/non-­western mi­grant ­women—­such as the idea that they are sexually and eco­nom­ically oppressed and therefore need to be emancipated through unveiling and participation in the productive ­labor market—­have drawn on widespread and clichéd repre­sen­ta­tions of Muslim ­women in par­tic­u­lar, the ste­reo­types surrounding eastern Eu­ro­pean ­women are not all that dissimilar. In the western Eu­ro­pean imaginary the portrayal of mi­grant ­women from eastern Eu­rope (both eu and non-­eu) as victims of sex trafficking—­which is very pervasive in western Europe—­does not in fact convey an image of ­these ­women as sexually liberated and eco­nom­ically in­de­pen­dent. Rather, antitrafficking discourses emphasize that they are sexually oppressed (indeed, enslaved) and eco­nom­ically dependent on (and exploited by) eastern Eu­ro­pean male pimps. That is why antitrafficking policy makers and activists—­who also include feminists and neoliberals—­have increasingly supported ­legal proposals that call for the integration of victims of sex trafficking into the “legitimate” ­labor market. Interestingly, this “legitimate” ­labor market often coincides with the care and domestic sector—­just as in the case of Muslim and non-­ western mi­grant ­women from the Global South who are pushed to become cleaners and carers in order to be “eco­nom­ically integrated.” See Ministero per le Pari Opportunità, “Progetti sull’inserimento socio-­lavorativo delle vittime della tratta finanziati dal Fondo Sociale Europeo.” The same pattern of inclusion for trafficking victims in the care and domestic sector appears in a more recent report from the Piedmont region in Italy: “Report di ricerca sulle esperienze di formazione e inserimento lavorativo delle donne vittime di tratta realizzate in Piemonte a valere sul Fondo Sociale Europeo,” available at http://­www​.­regione​.­piemonte​.­it​/­europa​/­notizie​/­dwd​/­16052011​/­sintesi​ _­ricerca​_­tratta​.­pdf (accessed February 22, 2015). 220 Notes to

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77 Hoselitz, So­cio­log­i­cal ­Factors in Economic Development; Rostow, Stages of Economic Development. 78 Frank, Latin Amer­i­ca; Wallerstein, “Concept of National Development, 1917–1989.” 79 Fabian, Time and the Other. 80 Eisenstein, Feminism Seduced. 81 As Roggeband and Verloo report, Verdonk, who launched the pavem commission, argued that “mi­grant ­women must reproduce the steps taken by autochthonous ­women to emancipate” (see “Dutch ­Women Are Liberated, Mi­grant ­Women Are a Prob­lem,” 282). As they further note, “This repre­sen­ta­ tion of Dutch autochthonous ­women as having emancipated themselves, neglects the extensive state support for this group since the 1970s. Implicitly, the achievement of autochthonous ­women is attributed to individual efforts rather than to any active intervention by the state. This allows allocating a duty to allochthonous ­women to emancipate themselves also, without any duty on the state to support them. The state thereby withdraws its responsibility to solve the prob­lem” (282). 82 Most recently this argument was put forward by Fraser in her impor­tant text “Feminism, Capitalism, and the Cunning of History.” 83 For a reflection on the historicity of the category of ­woman and feminist demands, see, in par­tic­u­lar, Scott, Only Paradoxes to Offer: “History accounts not only for the variety of positions one finds in feminist writing, but also for the dif­fer­ent ways in which the social and individual identity of ‘­woman’ was conceived” (13). 84 In other words, following on Rehmann’s ideology-­critique approach, I contend that if we want to pursue a materialist understanding of the femonationalist ideological formation, and thus of the participation of feminism within it, we should then “focus on what is dynamic, moving, contradictory and precarious in the relationships among dif­fer­ent factions, not least in order to reveal the potential points where oppositional movements might be able to intervene” (Rehmann, Theories of Ideology, 34). 5.The Po­liti­cal Economy of Femonationalism

1 Ehrenreich and Hochschild, Global ­Woman, 11–12. 2 United Nations, State of World Populations, figure 5. 3 Eurostat uses the term “foreign-­born” to refer to citizens whose country of birth is dif­fer­ent from the one in which the survey is conducted. In this case, my analy­sis of Eurostat’s L ­ abor Force Survey data employs the term “foreign-­born citizens” to refer to t­ hose who ­were born outside the eu-15 (or western Eu­ro­pean) area. Throughout this chapter “non-­western mi­grant,” “mi­grant,” and “foreign-­born” are thus used as synonyms. Information about the country of birth of the responding mi­grant in the ­Labor Force Survey is Notes to chapter 5 

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in fact more relevant to questions about migration than information about nationality: first, ­because nationality can change over time; second, ­because the ­children of mi­grants who ­were born in the country of destination can be foreign nationals, particularly in countries where citizenship laws are based on the princi­ple of jus sanguinis; and third, ­because mi­grants are more likely to respond in a reliable way to questions about country of birth rather than nationality (Cangiano, “Immigration Policy and Mi­grant ­Labour Market Outcomes in the Eu­ro­pean Union”). 4 ­Castles, “Guest-­Worker in Western Eu­rope”; ­Castles and Vezzoli, “Global Economic Crisis and Migration.” 5 Kofman et al., Gender and International Migration in Eu­rope. 6 Kofman et al., Gender and International Migration in Eu­rope; Boyd and Grieco, ­Women and Migration; Sinke, “Gender and Migration”; Schiff et al., International Migration of W ­ omen; Donato et al., “Variations in the Gender Composition of Immigrant Populations.” 7 Morokvasic, “Birds of Passage Are Also ­Women . . .”; Phizacklea, One Way Ticket; Simon and Brettell, International Migration; Parreñas, Servants of Globalization; Kofman et al., Gender and International Migration in Eu­rope; George, When ­Women Come First; Oishi, ­Women in Motion. 8 Eurostat, Mi­grants in Eu­rope, figure 1.8. See also Bridget Anderson, ­Doing the Dirty Work; Parreñas, Servants of Globalization; Ehrenreich and Hochschild, Global ­Woman; Cox, Servant Prob­lem; Lutz, “When Home Becomes a Work Place”; and Lutz, New Maids. 9 It should be noted that the other sector in which mi­grant ­women are heavi­ly overrepresented is the sex industry. See in par­tic­u­lar Bern­stein, Temporarily Yours; Andrijasevic, Migration, Agency and Citizenship in Sex Trafficking. 10 Parreñas, Servants of Globalization; Tyner, Made in the Philippines; Oishi, ­Women in Motion; Schiff et al., International Migration of W ­ omen; Rubin et al., Mi­grant ­Women in the Eu­ro­pean ­Labour Force; International ­Labour Organ­ization, Domestic Workers across the World. 11 This differential treatment of male and female mi­grants in the Eu­ro­pean media has been highlighted in several studies. For instance, for France, see Deltombe and Rigouste, “L’ennemi intérieur”; for Italy, see Bonfiglioli, “Intersections of Racism and Sexism in Con­temporary Italy”; and for the Netherlands, see De Ridder, De witte Media. 12 Fekete, “Enlightened Fundamentalism?,” 18. 13 Marx, Capital: Volume 1, 626. As Michael Denning argues, this is a concept “often taken to be distinctively Marxist since it appears in Capital’s discussion of capitalism’s relative surplus population. However, Marx was simply adopting the rhe­toric of the British l­abor movement. Radicals, particularly the Chartists and Fourierist associationists, ­imagined the new factory workers as ­great industrial armies, and this common trope led the Chartist 222 Notes to

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leader Bronterre O’Brien to write of a reserve army of ­labor in the Northern Star in 1839. The young Engels picked up on this image in The Condition of the Working Class in ­England in 1844, and Marx would invoke the meta­ phor occasionally, distinguishing between the active and reserve armies of the working class. By the end of the nineteenth ­century, it was part of the commonsense understanding of unemployment: by 1911, even the Mas­sa­chu­ setts Bureau of Statistics of ­Labor could conclude that, ‘however prosperous conditions may be, ­there is always a “reserve army” of the unemployed’ ” (Denning, “Wageless Life,” 84). 14 Marx, Capital: Volume 1, 625. 15 Marx, Capital: Volume 1, 625. 16 Marx, Capital: Volume 1, 626. 17 Marx, Capital: Volume 1, 623. 18 Burawoy, “Functions and Reproduction of Mi­grant ­Labor”; Brox, Po­liti­cal Economy of Rural Development. 19 ­Castles and Kosack, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Eu­rope; Castells, “Immigrant Workers and Class Strug­gles in Advanced Capitalism”; Phizaklea and Miles, ­Labour and Racism; Moulier-­Boutang et al., Economie politique des migrations clandestines de main-­d’oeuvre; Brox, Po­liti­cal Economy of Rural Development. 20 ­Castles and Kosack, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Eu­rope, 377 (my emphasis). 21 Castells, “Immigrant Workers and Class Strug­gles in Advanced Capitalism,” 46. 22 Castells, “Immigrant Workers and Class Strug­gles in Advanced Capitalism,” 47. 23 Between 1973 and 1974, most Eu­ro­pean countries that had established guestworker systems in the post–­World War II reconstruction period responded to the recession with mea­sures to stop the entry of workers and, in some cases, also of their dependents. The Federal Republic of Germany banned the entry of non–­European Economic Community (eec) workers in November 1973. In France, a ban on ­labor migration was announced by the Giscard D’Estaing government in July 1974. In the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland, recruitment of foreign workers from non-­eec countries stopped in 1974 (see ­Castles, “Guest-­Worker in Western Eu­rope”). 24 Castells, “Immigrant Workers and Class Strug­gles in Advanced Capitalism”; ­Castles, “Guest-­Worker in Western Eu­rope.” 25 Koser, “Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on International Migration”; Tilly, “Impact of the Economic Crisis on International Migration.” 26 Reyneri and Baganha, “Migration and the L ­ abor Market in Southern Eu­ rope”; Harris, New Untouchables. 27 Somerwille and Sumption, “Immigration and the L ­ abor Market.” 28 Boltanski and Chiapello, New Spirit of Capitalism, 231. Notes to chapter 5 

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29 In the best-­case scenario, namely, when they are legally residents and legally employed, the permit of mi­grant workers across western Eu­rope is increasingly made dependent on the duration of the work contract, thus re-creating a Gastarbeiter system. Other­wise, they can be ­either legally resident and illegally employed in the informal sector or ­else entirely illegal and thus subject to harsh regulations and even deportation. 30 Portes and Sensenbrenner, “Embeddedness and Immigration”; Zhou, Chinatown; Piore, Birds of Passage. 31 May et al., “Keeping London Working,” 162. 32 The 1973 oil crisis is conventionally considered the date a­ fter which policies to stop immigration inflows in western Eu­rope began and a­ fter which many mi­grant workers—­particularly ­those from southern Europe—­had to go back to their countries of origin, ­whether ­because of job losses or b ­ ecause of the restrictions on residency rights. 33 International ­Labour Organ­ization, Domestic Workers across the World. The organ­ization’s International Standard Classification of Occupations defines a “domestic worker,” “house­hold worker,” and “domestic helper” as a person employed full-­time or part-­time in a ­house­hold or private residence. Domestic workers may be, for example, cooks, servants, nurses, child minders, or carers for the el­derly or disabled ­people. As the dimension of care is an integral part of the tasks of domestic workers, the term “care and domestic workers” ­will be used throughout this text to refer to all workers who are employed in private ­house­holds. 34 For instance, a recent study by Schwenken and Heimeschoff contends that in Eu­rope “rough estimations for female irregular mi­grant domestic workers alone arrive at one million” (Schwenken and Heimeschoff, Domestic Workers Count, 9). On irregular mi­grant domestic workers, see also Triandafyllidou, Irregular Mi­grant Domestic Workers in Eu­rope. 35 Scrinzi, “Gender, Migration and the Ambiguous Enterprise of Professionalizing Domestic Ser­vice”; van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands”; Finotelli and Arango, “Regularisation of Unauthorised Immigrants in Italy and Spain”; Ambrosini, “Surviving Underground.” 36 Van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands,” 142. 37 Van Hooren, “Caring Mi­grants in Eu­ro­pean Welfare Regimes”; van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands.” According to van Walsum, “Where before domestic workers ­were typified as ­house­wives who only earned money on the side and could fall back on the income of their breadwinner husbands, now they ­were being depicted as (quasi) self-­employed workers who ­were taking on the risks of illness, economic setbacks, and other calamities on their own” (145). 38 Van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands,” 147. 39 Botman, “Gewoon Schoonmaken.”

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40 Van Hooren, “Caring Mi­grants in Eu­ro­pean Welfare Regimes,” 145; Glendinning and Moran, “Reforming Long-­Term Care”; van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands,” 147. 41 Van Hooren, “Caring Mi­grants in Eu­ro­pean Welfare Regimes.” 42 Pijl and Ramakers, “Contracting One’s F ­ amily Members.” 43 Jolly et al., “L’emploi et les metiers des immigrées,” 27–28. 44 Windebank, “Outsourcing ­Women’s Domestic L ­ abour.” 45 Windebank, “Outsourcing ­Women’s Domestic L ­ abour,” 258. 46 Scrinzi, “Gender, Migration and the Ambiguous Enterprise of Professionalizing Domestic Ser­vice,” 156. 47 Scrinzi, “Gender, Migration and the Ambiguous Enterprise of Professionalizing Domestic Ser­vice,” 156. 48 Avril, “Aide à domicile pour personnes âgées.” 49 Bettio et al., “Change in Care Regimes and Female Migration.” 50 National Institute for Social Insurance, Istituto Nazionale di Previdenza Sociale (inps): http://­www​.­inps​.­it​/­portale​/­default​.­aspx​?­itemdir​=­10034, 2012. 51 inps, “Osservatorio sulle pensioni,” January 17, 2012, available at http://­www​ .­inps​.­it​/­portale​/­default​.­aspx​?­sID​=­0;7719;&lastmenu​=­7719&iIDDataset​=3­ 5 (accessed October 9, 2012). 52 Sergio Pasquinelli, “Badanti,” available at http://­www​.­qualificare​.­info​/­home​ .­php​?­id​=­585#​_ft ­ n1 (accessed October 9, 2012). 53 In my own research on mi­grant care and domestic workers in the city of Rome, I found that whereas mi­grants from eastern Eu­rope tend more often to be employed as live-in carers, mi­grants from North Africa and Bangladesh, for instance, tend more often to work part-­time and as live-­out employees (Farris, “Le donne nei pro­cessi di integrazione”). 54 This holds particularly in the case of live-in workers, that is, care and domestic workers who work and live in employers’ homes. As live-in workers they are usually on-­call twenty-­four hours a day and are paid lower wages ­because lodging and meals are provided by the employer. 55 Van Hooren, “Caring Mi­grants in Eu­ro­pean Welfare Regimes,” 59. 56 Roberto Maroni, cited in van Hooren, “Caring Mi­grants in Eu­ro­pean Welfare Regimes,” 67. 57 Van Hooren, “Caring Mi­grants in Eu­ro­pean Welfare Regimes,” 68. 58 Interview (“Maroni: ‘No sanatoria immigrati’ ”) from May 17, 2008, available at http://­www​.­repubblica​.­it​/­2008​/­05​/­sezioni​/­cronaca​/­sicurezza​-­politica4​ /­bossi​-­spagna​/­bossi​-­spagna​.­html (accessed February 20, 2015). 59 Williams and Gavanas, “Intersection of Child Care Regimes and Migration Regimes,” 14 (my emphasis). 60 Ungerson, “Commodified Care Work in Eu­ro­pean ­Labor Markets”; Pavolini and Ranci, “Restructuring the Welfare State.” 61 On the employment of the concept of the “­enemy camp,” see chapter 2.

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62 Yeates, “Global Care Chains.” 63 Baumol, “Macroeconomics of Unbalanced Growth.” 64 Bridget Anderson, “Reproductive ­Labour and Migration”; Bakker and Gill, Power, Production and Social Reproduction; Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect, 95; Ferguson, “Intersectionality and Social Reproduction Feminisms.” 65 Yeates, “Global Care Chains.” 66 Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect, 94. 67 For an overview of some of this debate, see Vogel, “Domestic ­Labour Debate.” 68 Dalla Costa and James, Power of ­Women and the Subversion of the Community, 43. 69 Mies et al., ­Women the Last Colony. 70 Mies et al., ­Women the Last Colony, 25. 71 Beechey, “Some Notes on Female Wage ­Labour.” 72 Mohanty, “­Under Western Eyes”; Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect, 96. 73 Beechey, “Rethinking the Definition of Work.” 74 Lutz, Migration and Domestic Work, 1. 75 Lutz, “When Home Becomes a Work Place,” 48. 76 Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect, 107. 77 Hooyman and Gonyea, Feminist Perspectives on ­Family Care. This distinction has been widely criticized both for a certain rigidity and particularly for undermining the affective component involved also in more physical-­ mechanical tasks (see Bridget Anderson, ­Doing the Dirty Work; Lutz, “When Home Becomes a Work Place”). 78 Ferguson, Sexual Democracy; Hochschild, “Global Care Chains and Emotional Surplus Value”; Sandford, “What Is Maternal ­Labour?” 79 Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect, 132. 80 Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect, 133. 81 Van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands,” 151–152. 82 ­These interviews w ­ ere carried out in the context of empirical research proj­ ects on the specific working conditions of mi­grant domestic workers in the city of Rome and their strategy of survival. The results are published in Farris, “Le donne nei pro­cessi di integrazione.” 83 Taggart et al., “Interactive Robot in a Nursing Home”; Folbre, Warm Hands in a Cold Age; Folbre, “Nursebots to the Rescue?”; Federici, “On Elder Care.” 84 Federici, “Reproduction of Labor-­Power in the Global Economy.” 85 Following Reyneri (“Immigration and the Economic Crisis in Western Eu­ rope”) and Schain (“State Strikes Back”), I ­here define cyclical and noncyclical occupations and sectors as ­those that are more or less exposed to the

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fluctuations of the economy, depending on the following variables: the type of industry (e.g., construction and tourism-­related industries are more cyclical than education and health care); the size of the firm and type of com­pany (e.g., small, private companies are more sensitive to economic fluctuations than big, public companies); and the relevant skill level and contractual conditions (e.g., low-­skilled or unskilled manual l­abor and fixed-­term jobs are usually more exposed to economic cycles). See also Yeates, “Global Care Chains,” 376. 86 On the other hand, one might argue that the employers are able to go to work and generate a higher income for the ­family thanks to the (usually) underpaid ­labor of a mi­grant care and domestic worker. Furthermore, the situation in which the care and domestic worker is employed through the mediation of a ­middle man (domestic placement agencies, for instance) introduces more classically cap­i­tal­ist ele­ments into the employment relation since the agency may own the “means of production” used by the care and domestic worker and extract surplus value from her. 87 Marx, Capital: Volume 1, 623. 88 Karamessini and Rubery, ­Women and Austerity. 89 Karamessini and Rubery, ­Women and Austerity (my emphasis). 90 Farris, “Le donne nei pro­cessi di integrazione.” 91 Colombo et al., Health Wanted?; A. Anderson, “Eu­rope’s Care Regimes and the Role of Mi­grant Care Workers within Them.” 92 Eurobarometer, Health and Long-­Term Care in the Eu­ro­pean Union, 95. 93 oecd, International Migration Outlook, 67. 94 uwv Report, Arbeidsmarktprognose 2012–2013, figure 5.2.1. 95 Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (insee), 2011. Available at: http://­www​.­insee​.­fr​/­fr​/­themes​/­document​.­asp​?­reg​_­id​=0 ­ &ref​_i­ d​ =­ECOFRA11f​_fi ­ chthem (accessed August 23, 2016). 96 Colin, Ser­vices à la personne, 32. 97 Alberola et al., Les ser­vices à la personne, 36–37. 98 Picchi, “Le badanti invisibili anche alla crisi?”; Sacchetto and Vianello, “La diffusione del lavoratore povero”; Bonifazi and Marini, “Il lavoro degli stranieri in Italia in tempo di crisi”; Fullin, “Immigrati e mercato del lavoro italiano”; Perocco and Cillo, “L’impatto della crisi sulle condizioni lavorative degli immigrati”; Reyneri, “Immigration and the Economic Crisis in Western Eu­rope.” 99 Karamessini and Rubery, ­Women and Austerity. 100 Beechey, “Some Notes on Female Wage ­Labour”; Anthias, “­Women and the Reserve Army of ­Labour.” 101 Anthias, “­Women and the Reserve Army of ­Labour,” 50. 102 Harvey, “ ‘New’ Imperialism.” 103 Pateman, Sexual Contract.

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104 Mills, Racial Contract. 105 Sassen, “Notes on the Incorporation of Third World W ­ omen”; Eisenstein, Feminism Seduced. 106 Bridget Anderson, ­Doing the Dirty Work; Parreñas, Servants of Globalization; Cox, Servant Prob­lem; Lutz, “When Home Becomes a Work Place”; Gutiérrez-­Rodríguez, Migration, Domestic Work and Affect; van Walsum, “Regulating Mi­grant Domestic Work in the Netherlands.” 107 Sassen, “Two Stops in ­Today’s New Global Geographies,” 488. 108 Sassen, “Two Stops in ­Today’s New Global Geographies,” 465. 109 Beechey, “Some Notes on Female Wage ­Labour”; Anthias, “­Women and the Reserve Army of ­Labour”; ­Castles and Kosack, Immigrant Workers and Class Structure in Western Eu­rope. 110 Westoff and Frejka, “Religiousness and Fertility among Eu­ro­pean Muslims.” 111 Butler, “Feminism Should Not Resign in the Face of Such Instrumentalization.” For instance, in 2007 the German government approved the Elterngeld scheme to encourage ­couples to become parents (see http://­www​.­elterngeld​ .­com​/­) (accessed April 30, 2014). In Italy, the Fondo Nuovi Nati (Fund for Newborns) allowed ­those who became ­mothers in the triennium 2009–2011 to request a bank loan (see http://­www​.­fondonuovinati​.­it) (accessed April 30, 2014). 112 Eisenstein, Feminism Seduced, 195. 113 Macpherson, Po­liti­cal Theory of Possessive Individualism. 114 Badiou, “Derrière la Loi foulardière, la peur”; Available at http://­www​ .­lemonde​.­fr​/­archives​/­article​/­2004​/­02​/­21​/­derriere​-­la​-­loi​-­foulardiere​-­la​-­peur​ -­par​-­alain​-­badiou​_­353904​_­1819218​.­html (accessed August 23, 2016). 115 Fanon, “Algeria Unveiled,” 167.

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INDEX

9/11, 2–3, 196n85. See also September 11 Abu-­Lughod, Lila, 55 Accordo d’integrazione, 90–91 affectivity, 169 Af­ghan­i­stan, 183; Afghan ­women, 183 Alleanza Nazionale (an), 37, 164 Althusser, Louis, 12–13, 187–88 Amara, Fadela, 47–48 Anderson, Benedict, 11, 69, 76, 112 antiveil, law, 47–48, 213; politics, 47 assimilation, 45, 80, 85, 89, 102, 105, 113–14, 180, 205; assimilationist, 89, 92, 105 Badinter, Élizabeth, 1–2, 46–48, 55 banlieues, 34, 36 ­bearer of the collective, ­woman as, 72, 79, 103, 110–11 Bell, Derrick, 8, 187n12 Berlusconi government, 37–38, 51–52, 68, 90, 164 Bern­stein, Elizabeth, 213–14n2 biological reproduction, ­women’s role as, 72, 78, 110–11 Black feminism, 215n6 Boltanski, Luc, 154 borders, 74–75, 87, 120, 155, 211n92 Bougrab, Jeannette, 47–48, 55, 218n45 Bouteldja, Houria, 48 Brown, Wendy, 201n30, 210n77 Butler, Judith, 117–18

cai (Contrat d’Accueil et d’Intégration), 88, 98, 103, 105, 126, 208n61, 217n34 caif (Contract d’Accueil et d’Intégration pour la Famille), 88, 98, 209n62 capital, accumulation of, 150–51, 167, 213n2; variable, 173; fixed, 173, 175 capitalism, 121, 132, 151, 168, 181, 188n22, 201n27, 212n105, 222n13; crisis of, 153; neoliberal, 144, 155, 178 care and domestic sector, 20–21, 117, 130, 137–38, 143, 150, 157, 159–62, 164, 166, 169, 172, 174–75, 177–79, 220n70, 220n76 Carfagna, Mara, 52 ­Castles, Stephen, 152 Chiapello, Ève, 154 civic integration, 2–5, 8, 14–15, 18–20, 79–82, 84, 86–88, 90–98, 101–5, 110–15, 117–19, 122, 125, 127–28, 130–31, 139–40, 148, 160, 184n8, 204nn2–3, 205n10, 206n27, 209n67, 209n75, 210n78, 215n7, 218n45, 220n76 civilization, clash of, 29, 198n112; western, 47, 186n10, 198n112 civilizing missions, 76, 104, 107, 196n81, 211n98 collusion, 6, 186n10 colonialism, colonial, 23, 48, 74–76, 89, 102, 104, 107–9, 111, 141, 152; colonial legacy, 76–77, 105, 107

commodification of care, 157, 162, 165–66, 172–73, 177–178 contradiction, 9–10, 15, 20, 28, 56, 99, 185n9, 188n21; 211n98, 215n4; as performative, 15, 117–19, 143, 145 convergence, 5–6, 8–10, 13–14, 17, 20, 28, 41, 53, 79–80, 104, 111, 113, 116–17, 123, 142, 144, 182, 184n4, 213n1, 214n2 crisis, economic, 16, 17, 21, 23, 31, 120–21, 127, 136, 153, 156, 164, 174–77, 180, 224n32 cultural reproduction, ­women’s role as, 98, 102–3 de Beauvoir, Simone, 48, 219n61 de Gouges, Olympe, 132 Delphy, Christine, 48, 213n1 Department for Equal Opportunities (Italy), 52, 128, 218n46 Derrida, Jacques, 66, 201n29 discrimination, 127, 141, 144, 162, 165; gendered, 218n45; racial, 118, 145, 215n6, 218n45 dispossession, dispossessed, 152, 156; accumulation by, 178 domestic ­labor debate, 167, 177 Dresselhuys, Cisca, 43–44, 55, 195n73 Eastern Eu­rope, 24, 26, 31, 40, 163, 188n25 ec (Eu­ro­pean Commission), 18, 82, 121, 214n2, 216n21 eif (Eu­ro­pean Fund for the Integration of Third-­Country Nationals), 124–25, 128–30 Eisenstein, Hester, 181, 184n6, 189n2, 213n2 enlightened fundamentalism, 6, 185n9 emancipation, 8, 15–16, 24–25, 28, 42–43, 45, 55, 75, 85, 95–96, 107, 117, 125, 129, 131–32, 134, 138–44, 148, 196n77, 210n75, 218n53; teleology of, 119, 138–41; emancipation strategy, 75, 107 254 INDEX

Engels, Friedrick, 223n13 Eu­ro­pe­anization, 61, 80, 110 exclusion, 73, 85, 102–3, 107, 120, 177, 215n11, 219n67 exploitation, 4, 6, 19, 28, 186n10; economic, 56, 74, 132, 139, 141, 150, 167, 179 Fallaci, Oriana, 2, 50, 184n5 Fanon, Frantz, 75 Federici, Silvia, 171 Feminist Majority Foundation, 183n4 femonationalism, 4, 6, 9–14, 17–19, 22, 53, 54, 57–58, 62, 78, 82, 113, 115, 144, 146, 149, 180–82, 187n21; definition of, 4–21 fn (Front National), 4, 7, 17, 22, 28, 33–36, 40, 46, 53–54, 57, 59–60, 66–68, 72, 116, 183n1, 187n11, 189n1, 193n44, 194n51, 194n53, 194n55, 194n60, 199n3 Fordism, 132–36, 142, 173; post-­ Fordism, 135–36, 142–44, 153–54 Fortuyn, Pim, 24, 29, 42–43, 85, 190n14, 193n34, 195n73, 199n1 Foucault, Michel, 71, 102, 209n73 Fourest, Caroline, 47 fundamentalism, Islamic, 85 gender, justice, 10, 116, 123, 144–45, 214n2; gender mainstreaming, 84, 123, 216n23; gender roles, 118, 133, 136, 144, 174 genital mutilations, 27, 41, 43, 93, 96 Global North, 147, 167 Global South, 5, 24, 27, 39–40, 126, 131, 146, 163, 167, 178–79, 181, 185n8, 191n27, 213–14n2, 220n76 Hamel, Christelle, 49 hci (Haut Conseil à l’Intégration), 89, 96, 105–6 Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, 2, 29–30, 43–44, 195n69

homonationalism, 6, 186n10 homonormativity, 186n10 homophobia, homophobic, 6, 29, 31, 36, 53, 109 honor killings, 25, 27, 32, 41, 43, 218n46 ­human rights, 8, 50, 80–81, 106 ­human ser­vices, 166 ideology, 5, 8, 13, 28, 30, 38, 54, 58, 61, 71, 78, 81, 114, 121–22, 131, 181, 187– 88n21, 213–14n2, 221n84; femonationalist, 14, 20, 29, 159, 166, 190n14, 193n34; ideological formation, 6, 10, 12–13, 20, 41, 82, 111, 114, 148, 180–81, 188n21, 221n84 illegal immigration, 37 immigration, mass, 25, 31, 34, 90; inflicted, 88, 98, 122; selective, 85, 88, 98, 120; anti-­immigration, 3–7, 12, 18–19, 22, 24, 28–29, 31, 33, 37–38, 54, 58, 64, 69, 85, 109, 115, 117, 142, 150, 164, 180, 182, 184n4, 196n85, 199n1 inclusion, 2, 73, 80, 85, 89, 102–3, 105, 111, 129–30, 132, 186n10, 220n76 Indigènes de la République, 48 instrumentalization, 6, 32, 48, 54, 185n9, 186n10 intersectionality, 199n9, 215n6 Islam, 22, 25, 27, 30–34, 36, 39, 42–45, 48–55, 96, 111, 115–17, 142, 181, 184n4, 187n11, 191n17, 192n32, 196n81 Islamophobia, Islamophobic, 3, 5–6, 9, 12, 29, 30–33, 37, 40–41, 44, 48, 53, 69, 89, 115, 118, 144, 190n14, 196n85, 213n2; anti-­Islam, 1, 3–10, 14, 17–20, 22, 24, 28–31, 33, 38, 40–41, 43, 47– 48, 50, 52, 54–58, 64, 85, 109, 116–17, 142, 184n8, 186n10, 190n14, 213n1 job first princi­ple, 121 Joppke, Christian, 79–81, 92, 103–5, 111–13, 205n10, 210n78

Kollontai, Alexandra, 132 Laclau, Ernesto, 58, 61–66, 199n3, 200n27 Lanfranco, Monica, 50, 55 Le Pen, Jean Marie, 33, 193n44, 196n85, 206n33 Le Pen, Marine, 1, 33–37, 60, 76, 193n44, 203n76 Lega Nord (ln), 4, 7, 17, 22, 28, 37–40, 53–54, 57, 59–60, 66–69, 72, 116, 164, 187n11 lfs (­Labor Force Survey), 18, 158, 175, 221n3 lgbt rights, 1, 10, 13, 186n10, 188n22, 194n60 liberal feminism, 43, 50, 132, 136; neoliberal feminism, 136, 184n5, 219n67 liberalism, 61, 80–82, 105, 113–14, 192n32, 205n15, 210n78, 219n67 Maroni, Roberto, 1, 90, 164 Marx, Karl, 146, 150–52, 156, 173 Marxist, feminism, feminists, 134, 167, 214–15n3 mechanization, 151, 171; automation, 173 mi­grant ­women, immigrant ­women, 21, 73, 103, 107, 111, 117, 119, 128–29, 177, 184n8; mi­grant men, mi­grant males, 24, 58, 67, 172, 176 misogyny, 3, 19, 22, 29, 31, 48, 51, 53, 55, 187n11, 218n45 modernization theory(ies), 140–41 modularity, of nationalism, 11, 109, 112; of femonationalism, 11–12, 109, 112 Mohanty, Chandra, 23, 139 Moller Okin, Susan, 41–43, 51 motherhood, 94, 99, 111, 125 multiculturalism, 18, 29–32, 43, 51, 79, 85, 94, 98, 193, 199n115 INDEX 

255

Muslim ­women, 1–3, 5, 7, 11–12, 14, 19, 22–26, 28, 32, 40, 42–44, 46–56, 64–65, 67, 75–76, 104, 107, 111, 116–18, 139, 141–42, 149, 160, 162, 165, 182, 183n4, 184n8, 186n10, 190n4, 191n17, 191n27, 196n77, 196n78, 209n75, 220n76 nation building, 70, 80, 112–14 nation, iconography of, 69–71 nation, w ­ omen and the, 78, 111, 203n60; national w ­ omen, 66–68, 72–73, 78, 165, 180–81; non-­national ­women, 73 nationalism, 80–82, 104, 110–13 nation-­state, 11, 13, 67, 69–71, 79, 81–82, 92, 110–13, 124, 156, 159, 211n92 neoliberalism, 2, 5–6, 8, 12–14, 20, 81, 113, 115, 123, 135–36, 143–44, 155, 184n7, 186n10, 188n22, 213n2, 219n67 noncyclical, 169, 172–73, 176, 226n85 npns (Ni Putes Ni Soumises), 47–48, 218n45 oecd (Organisation for Economic Co-­ operation and Development), 176 ofii (Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration), 98, 208n57, 208n59, 208n61 oppression, of w ­ omen, 27, 36, 50–52, 75–76, 107, 130, 139, 168, 181, 183–84n4, 186n10; gendered, 24, 106; racial, 56 Orientalist, 24, 125 pavem (Participatie van Vrouwen uit Etnische Minderheidsgroepen), 45, 94, 96, 110, 124–26, 221n26 pdl (Il Popolo della Libertà), 51–52 personal status, 106–7 pillarization model, 85 polygamy, 96, 98, 100–101

256 INDEX

po­liti­cal economy, political-­economic, 3–5, 13–14, 20–21, 54, 81, 149, 166, 182, 184n7 Pollastrini, Barbara, 52 pop­u­lism, populist, 7, 59, 63–65, 67, 185n9, 201n34; as ideology, 58; populist parties, 7, 33, 58, 60–64, 66, 199n1, 200n10 postcolonialism, postcolonial, 11, 140; postcolonial feminism, 7, 19, 58 productivist ethics, 119, 131, 133–34, 135–39 Puar, Jasbir, 6, 186n10 pvv (Partij voor de Vrijheid), 4, 7, 17, 22, 28–29, 31–33, 40, 53–54, 57, 59–60, 66–68, 72, 87, 116, 187n11, 189n1, 199n3, 202n40 racialization of sexism, 19, 49, 73–74, 76, 78, 104, 189n25 racism, 9, 19, 23, 25, 40, 49, 73–76, 78, 80–81, 107, 113, 115, 138, 149–50, 162, 189n25, 203n62, 205n10, 210n78, 213n1 regular army of ­labor, 21, 173, 177–79 Republicanism, 33–34, 79, 88–89, 92, 97, 116, 202n45, 218n45, 231n1 rescue, 2–3, 7, 17, 20, 22, 51, 55–56, 58, 65–66, 73, 75–78, 82, 116, 150, 186n10, 214n2; rescue narratives, 3, 55, 102, 186n10, 199n115 reserve army of ­labor, 20, 150–56, 166, 168, 173, 177–80, 223n13 Rottenberg, Catherine, 219n67 Salvini, Matteo, 2, 39–40, 60 Santanchè, Daniela, 51–52 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 48–49, 88, 122, 210n82 Sbai, Souad, 51, 55 Schmitt, Carl, 65

Scott, Joan W., 46, 196n85, 213n1, 221n83 second-­wave feminism, 42, 44, 134, 137; third-­wave feminism, 43 secularism, 33–34, 42, 46, 50, 55, 96–97, 197n97 September 11, 2–3, 196n85 sex industry, 11, 26–27, 222n9 sexism, 2, 9, 13, 19, 36, 40, 49, 53, 55, 73–74, 76, 78, 189n25 sexual nationalism, 6, 13, 185n9, 186n10 sexuality, 13, 49, 72, 95, 105, 108, 140, 185n9, 211n87, 211n92 sexualization of racism, 19, 69, 73–76, 78, 149–50, 185n9, 189n25 Sgrena, Giuliana, 50–51 social reproduction, 13, 15–17, 20, 115, 117, 119, 126, 128, 131, 134, 136–38, 142–44, 148, 153, 157, 165–67, 169, 172, 180, 214n3 Soysal, Yasemin, 79–81, 92, 111 spatial fixity, 169 Spinelli, Barbara, 50 Stasi commission, 46 state feminism, 44, 49, 52, 128, 184n6, 186n10, 213n1; femocrat, 2, 4, 6–10, 12, 15, 17–20, 22, 41–42, 44, 49, 52–53, 55–56, 115–18, 122–24, 137, 139–44, 182, 184n6, 184n8, 189n2, 218n45 state apparatus(es), 14, 48, 82, 180, 213n1; ideological state apparatus(es), 12–14, 187n21 Submission I (the movie), 30, 43 surplus population, 151, 178–79, 222n13 synecdoche, Muslim ­women as, 22–23, 25 tcn (third-­country national), 79, 82, 84, 88, 112, 117, 119–20

temporal distancing, 140, 142–43 temporal disjunction, 142–44 terror, war on, 3, 186n10, 196n85 terrorism, Islamic, 30, 85, 183n4, 190n4, 196n85, 211n94 Turco, Livia, 52, 89 udi (Unione Donne in Italia), 51 ump (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire), 33, 88 Vallaud-­Belkacem, Najat, 49, 197n97 value, economic, 151, 167, 172–73, 227n86 values, western, 2–3, 18–19, 25, 28–30, 42, 55, 79–80, 83, 87–88, 90, 92–93, 97, 99, 102–6, 181, 185n9, 187n11, 192n32, 208n61, 210n82, 211n94 van Gogh, Theo, 29–30, 43, 85 Van Walsum, Sarah, 76, 108–9, 126, 159, 224n37 veil, veiled ­women, 2, 26, 30, 33, 38, 45–53, 75–76, 99, 115, 127, 129, 149, 165, 196n83, 197n97, 213n1; hijab, 149, 181; burqa, 12, 36, 39–40, 45, 47, 51–52, 149; niqab, 51; full veil, integral veil, 1, 40, 100; unveiling, 75–76, 107, 130, 182, 183n4, 185n9, 220n76 Verdonk, Rita, 25, 29, 44, 76, 83, 86–87, 94, 108, 124, 203n78, 211n94, 221n81 victim, non-­western w ­ oman as, 2–3, 5, 9–11, 14, 16, 20, 22–27, 36, 40, 54, 56, 58, 64–66, 73–74, 76–78, 97, 102, 108–10, 116–17, 128, 139–40, 144, 183n4, 184n8, 189n25, 190n4, 190n11, 191n27, 207n47, 214n2, 220n76 vvd (Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Demo­cratie), 29, 31, 43–44, 87

INDEX 

257

Weber, Max, 134, 200n11 welfare state, welfare policies, 3, 16–17, 27, 32, 38, 121, 133, 135, 138–39, 150, 155–56, 159, 165–66, 176–77, 180, 219n58 western Eu­rope, 147, 204n2, 220n76 western supremacism, 54, 187n11, 198n112; westocentrism, westocentric, 8, 54, 56 Wilders, Geert, 1, 29–33, 36, 60, 68, 76, 87, 193n33, 203n78

258 INDEX

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 131 womanhood, western model of, 26, 45, 77, 103, 111 workfare, 8, 15, 18, 20, 119, 121–23, 126, 131, 138–39, 143–44 xenophobia, 12, 23, 153 Zetkin, Clara, 218n53 Žižek, Slavoj, 65