Abstract
Sexual politics factor into today’s political, journalistic, scholarly, and public debates on immigration in Europe, many of which construct immigrant cultures as misogynistic, homophobic, and/or sexually conservative, in contrast to supposedly gender-equal, sexually progressive European cultures. This book is divided into three parts: Perceptions (of), Solidarity (with), and Participation (in) movements for gender equality and sexual liberation in the 1960s–80s. This chapter also summarizes the themes of the book.
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Notes
- 1.
On “culturalization of citizenship” and “sexual nationalism” in the Netherlands and elsewhere, see: Jan Willem Duyvendak, Peter Geschiere, and Evelien H. Tonkens (eds.), The Culturalization of Citizenship: Belonging and Polarization in a Globalizing World (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Evelien Tonkens, Menno Hurenkamp and Jan Willem Duyvendak, Culturalization of Citizenship in the Netherlands (Amsterdam: Amsterdam School for Social Sciences Research, 2008); Paul Mepschen, Jan Willem Duyvendak and Evelien H. Tonkens, “Sexual Politics, Orientalism and Multicultural Citizenship in the Netherlands,” Sociology 44 (2010); Paul Mepschen and Jan Willem Duyvendak, “European Sexual Nationalism: The Culturalization of Citizenship and the Sexual Politics of Belonging and Exclusion,” Perspectives on Europe 42:1 (Spring 2012); and Menno Hurenkamp, Evelien H. Tonkens, and Jan Willem Duyvendak, Crafting Citizenship: Negotiating Tensions in a Modern Society (Houndmills, Basingstoke and Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
- 2.
A few notes on terminology:
“Immigrants” and “Muslims”: While popular discourses today often elide immigrants and Muslims in Europe, there are millions of European Muslims who are not immigrants, and millions of immigrants who are not Muslim. This book focuses on those who arrived as immigrants in the late 1960s and 1970s, often from Muslim-majority countries. Many have grandchildren in Europe today who are labeled third-generation “immigrants” due to racial (phenotypic) differences, names, and (presumed) religion. There was tremendous diversity within the group of immigrants in the 1960s–80s, as Chapter 2 shows. On “people of color” vs. “colored,” and “visible minorities,” see note 1 in Chapters 2 and 8.
“Gay,” “Gay and Lesbian,” and “LGBTQ”: LGBTQ—an adjective for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (or trans*), queer, and also pansexual, intersex, and more—is one contemporary term for discussing sexual minorities and gender non-conforming people in general; but here, “gay” emphasizes that this group (often the cisgender-male “G”) receives the most attention with regard to many mainstream political and journalistic discourses about “homophobia” and sexual “tolerance” in Europe. As the book focuses on the 1960s–80s, the adjectives “gay and lesbian” more closely match the discourses at the time with regard to activism, spaces, periodicals, and (along with bisexual) identities, although “homo(sexual)” was and still remains a common identity in Scandinavia and the Netherlands. In the 1950s–60s, “homophile” was the preferred alternative to the (more clinical) homosexual; and some gender non-conforming people used “transvestite” through the 1980s; see Chapter 7.
“Sexual Revolution”: although this is a common phrase to denote the liberalization of laws and social mores about sexuality and (often) women’s equality, most historians acknowledge that the various changes across North America and Western Europe and beyond can better be described as collections of smaller revolutions; see for example, Gert Hekma and Alaina Giami (eds.), Sexual Revolutions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); Dagmar Herzog, “Chapter 4: Pleasure and Rebellion, 1965–1980,” in Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); David Allyn, Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution, an Unfettered History (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 2000); the primary source collection, Jeffrey Escoffier (ed.), Sexual Revolution (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003); and the dozens of related sources cited in this book.
“Right-wing” is useful but imprecise. Chapter 1 focuses on nativist, nationalist, and/or populist discourses located within parties that generally identify or align with the political Right, such as the PVV in the Netherlands, DF in Denmark, and SD in Sweden. However, these parties sometimes share more economically with the left (e.g. support for high taxes, high pensions, public education and health care) albeit for a specific (i.e. “native”) segment of the population. In 2016, for example, DF broke its support for the ruling right-wing party to align on some issues with the Social-Democrats, to the criticism of many across the political spectrum.
- 3.
In Dutch, see Sietse Fritsma, “Speech on Immigration and Asylum,” 25 November 2014.
- 4.
In English, see Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (New York: Penguin, 2006); Gloria Wekker, “Of Homo Nostalgia and (Post)Coloniality,” in White Innocence: Paradoxes of Colonialism and Race (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016). A recent challenge to this historiography comes from David Bos, who argues that the voices of gay, Muslim spokespeople in the 1970s–80s were also critical in shaping this framework: David J. Bos [in Dutch], “How Gays and Muslims Came Together: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Discourse on Homosexuality and Islam in Dutch Newspapers, Radio and Television Programs,” Religie en Samenleving 11:2 (September 2016): 206–248.
- 5.
Buruma, ibid , 57.
- 6.
For extensive analysis of the international crisis surrounding these cartoons, see: Jytte Klausen, The Cartoons That Shook the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009).
- 7.
Karsten Holt and Kenneth Kristensen Berth [in Danish], “Necessary Talk on Freedom of Speech,” Danske Folkeblad 12:3 (July 2008).
- 8.
This can be seen in the Danish People’s Party’s YouTube video “Ligeværd” [“Equal Worth”], which was uploaded 10 November 2011.
- 9.
Gert Wilders, “Speech in Malmö” (27 October 2012).
- 10.
Jan Sjunesson, quoted in Daniel Sallegren [in Swedish], “Organizers of Järva Pride Want to See More Suburban Parades,” Gaybladet.se (30 July 2015).
- 11.
Geert Wilders [in German], “Speech in Vienna” (27 March 2015).
- 12.
Geert Wilders [in German], “Speech in Dresden” (13 April 2015).
- 13.
See Wilders’ speech in Silicon Valley (11 August 2015) on YouTube; or Liam Stack, “Texas Police Kill Gunmen at Exhibit Featuring Cartoons of Muhammad,” The New York Times (3 May 2015). There have been underpinnings of pro-gay, anti-Muslim-immigrant politics in pockets of the Republican party: “You know what the Muslims do to gays,” said the U.S. conservative commentator Ann Coulter in 2010, addressing a room of gay conservatives and thanking them for their support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Coulter gave what the The New York Times described as “a knowing look” when she made this comment, which represented a rare occasion of the Republican Party winking at gay rights; see Laura M. Holson, “Outflanked on Right, Coulter Seeks New Image,” The New York Times (8 October 2010). Following the June 2016 murders of mostly gay Latino men at a dance club in Orlando, Donald Trump briefly incorporated pro-gay, anti-Muslim-immigrant rhetoric into his presidential campaign, but this framing proved short-lived: “We want to live in a country where gay and lesbian Americans and all Americans are safe from radical Islam, which, by the way, wants to murder and has murdered gays and they enslave women,” cited in Kayla Epstein, “Donald Trump Makes Overtures to LGBT Community After Orlando, But Their Response Is Mixed,” The Washington Post (17 June 2016). The post-Orlando statements received far less media attention than Trump’s earlier link—also an example of sexual nationalism—between Mexican immigrants and criminals such as rapists.
- 14.
Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007); Jasbir Puar, “Rethinking Homonationalism,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45 (2013): 336–339. See also the dozens of speeches and papers delivered at the “Homonationalism and Pinkwashing Conference,” City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center, 10–11 April 2013.
- 15.
Puar, Terrorist Assemblages (n 14), xxiv and 11.
- 16.
Judith Butler, “Speech at CSD 2010” (uploaded to YouTube 20 June 2010), last accessed September 2015 via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV9dd6r361k which is in German with English subtitles by user “andrenarchy.”
- 17.
Michael Nebeling Petersen [in Danish], “‘…With a Rainbow Flag in Hand’: Stories About Gay Inclusions and Homonationalism,” Lambda Nordica 16:1 (2011): 41–68; and Mads Ted Drud-Jensen and Sune Prahl Knudsen [in Danish], Pain in the Ass (Copenhagen: Høst, 2005).
- 18.
Sarah Schulman, “Israel and ‘Pinkwashing,’” The New York Times (22 November 2011); and the above-cited CUNY conference in 2013.
- 19.
Centralhjørnet in Copenhagen has been in the same location since 1917; and Café ‘t Mandje in Amsterdam has been in the same location since 1926, but was closed to the public from 1982 through 2007. Prior to World War II, both bars had reputations for attracting “riffraff” (e.g. female prostitutes, sailors) but were not explicitly “gay” or “lesbian” bars, although Café ‘t Mandje was established by a lesbian, and the clientele in both bars likely always included those who could be anachronistically called LGBTQ. On the homophile organizations, see Center for Culture and Recreation (COC) (Netherlands) and Association of 1948 (Denmark) in Part III.
- 20.
Drude Dahlerup, “Denmark: High Representation of Women Without Gender Quotas,” in Breaking Male Dominance in Old Democracies, ed. Drude Dahlerup and Monique Leyenaar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 149.
- 21.
Eurostat (of the European Commission), “Employment Statistics” (August 2015), last accessed February 2016 via http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/.
- 22.
See e.g. Jessica Olien, “Going Dutch: Women in the Netherlands Work Less, Have Lesser Titles and a Big Gender Pay Gap, and They Love It,” Slate.com (15 November 2010).
- 23.
This term was coined by my dear friend Madeleine, who was (also) surprised to learn there was no term to discuss the Netherlands and Scandinavia jointly.
- 24.
Open Society Foundation, Muslims in Amsterdam (New York, NY: Open Society Foundations, 2010), 31–32.
- 25.
Based on a 1970 survey; see: Ahmet Akgündüz, Labour Migration from Turkey to Western Europe: 1960–1974: A Multidisciplinary Analysis (Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 152. See also Chapters 2 and 3.
- 26.
For example, Open Society Foundation, Muslims in Copenhagen (New York, NY: Open Society Foundations, 2011), 220, 222, 223, and 236.
- 27.
Annemarie Cottaar and Nadia Bouras, Moroccans in the Netherlands: The Pioneers Tell (Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoff, 2009, in Dutch), 153. For more on women’s literacy and language-learning, see Chapter 6.
- 28.
Interview (October 2014).
- 29.
Christina Hee Pedersen, Geske Lilsig and Anne Houe [in Danish], “Danish and Foreign Workers Must Stand Together,” Kvinder 22 (October/November 1978): 3–5; see Chapter 6 of this dissertation.
- 30.
“Evaluation of HTKB activities: 1982/1983” (1983); accessed via IISG (HTKB collection); see Chapter 6 of this dissertation.
- 31.
Open Society Foundation (n 24), 51.
- 32.
Klaas Breunissen [in Dutch], “Far from Morocco, I feel a stranger here,” SEK (August 1983).
- 33.
Interview (January 2015).
- 34.
E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1966 [1963]), Preface.
Bibliography
Hurenkamp, Menno, Evelien Tonkens, and Jan Willem Duyvendak. Crafting Citizenship: Negotiating Tensions in a Modern Society. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1966 [1963].
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Shield, A.D.J. (2017). Introduction: “The disaster of Islamization…where gays are not safe to walk the streets, women are seen as inferior”: Pro-Gay, Anti-Immigrant Politics and the Right, 2000–2017. In: Immigrants in the Sexual Revolution. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49613-9_1
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