What is backlash? What does it look like, where does it happen, to whom and why? How can backlash be resisted? The Backlash Project, a collective of multidisciplinary scholars from across the United States and in the UK, seeks answers to these questions as they apply to women in politics and advocates of gender justice.
The Backlash Project
The Backlash Project is a group of multidisciplinary scholars who investigate retaliation against the participation of women and gender justice advocates in politics and civil society. How can we understand this retaliation, which includes sexual harassment and even murder, and how can it be resisted? The Backlash Project is working to answer these two questions.
The Project includes publications, resources for researchers and presentations at seminars and academic conferences in the US and abroad. Jennifer Piscopo’s publications on violence against women include a 2018 op-ed in the New York Times. A team of Backlash participants produced an annotated bibliography and report for USAID about retaliation to women’s participation in politics in the global South. Another team compiled an annotated bibliography that includes research on theory-building and backlash in the global North. A third group of scholars presented papers at a Feminist Research Seminar at the Institute for Women and Gender at the University of Michigan and are currently revising those papers for publication.
Photo credit: Charlotte McClintock Photography