For best experience please turn on javascript and use a modern browser!
You are using a browser that is no longer supported by Microsoft. Please upgrade your browser. The site may not present itself correctly if you continue browsing.
Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES) ACES

Conservative Women: Politics and Gender from 19th century – 21th century

In this workshop we will explore the role of women in conservative political movements since the nineteenth century. To what extent is female involvement in right wing, nationalist and conservative movements a new phenomenon or can longer patterns and lineages be discerned? What were and are the motivations of women to take part in these movements and what are their strategies? Do they participate despite or because of the often explicitly patriarchal and masculinist rhetoric of these movements? How should we evaluate the impact female involvement has on right wing political movements?
Start date
2 July 2026
End date
3 July 2026

In this workshop we aim to bring together approaches from the study of conservatism and the (radical) right with insights from gender and women’s history and politics. Our main focus is Europe and the countries that form today the European Union, but global perspectives are also welcome.

Fee

The cost for two day attendance are 40 EUR (25 EUR for a single day) for regular participants (PhD/Graduate/MA). Students attend the conference for free.

Register here

Programme

Thursday 2 July: Past and Present

  • 9:30-10:00 Welcome & Introduction: Henk de Smaele
  • 10.00-11:00 Keynote Lien Verpoest: Title TBA (Introduction: Matthijs Lok)
  • 11:00-11:15 Coffee
  • 11:15-13:00 Panel I: Early Modern & Nineteenth century (Chair: Puck Limburg)
    • Geertje Bol & Mary Jo MacDonald (Gent/Oxford): Tory Women in Early Modern England
    • Lauren Lauret (Leiden): Conservative colonial women in Dutch elite society, c. 1813-1913
    • Charris De Smet (Antwerp): Between conservatism and feminocentrism: the political engagement of the Thiery women as periodical editors (Paris, 1821-1835)
    • Emma Post (Amsterdam): Maria Cristina Giustiniani Bandini (1866-1959),aristocratisch antifeminisme
  • 13:00-14:00 Lunch Break
  • 14:00-15:45 Panel II: (inter) Wars & early twentieth century (Chair: Marnix Beyen)
    • B. Förster (Bielefeld): Radical Nationalist Women During the Republic of Weimar
    • Aliena Guggenberger (München): German Dress: Verein für Verbesserung der Frauenkleidung
    • Max Lokin (Maynooth): Green Blouses for the Future: Gender Roles as a Temporal Strategy in Brazilian Integralism
    • Julija Šuligoj (Ljubljana): Slovene Home Guard (Slovensko domobranstvo) and its ideological construction of femininity
  • 15:45-16:00 Tea Break
  • 16:00-17:45 Panel III: Postwar (1950s-1980s) (Chair: TBA)
    • M. Borri (Sienna): Movimento Italiano Femminile
    • Winona Kamphausen (Luxemburg), Conservative Female MEPs and Gendered Representation in the European Parliament (1958–1963)
    • Hedwig Richter (Bündeswehr München): The Housewife as a Natural Idyll in Times of Crisis and Transformation
    • Helena Tolvhed (Stockholm University): Between conservative ideology and the New Women’s Movement. Conservative women in 1970s and 1980s Swedish politics
  • 19:30 Conference dinner (speakers and chairs only)

Friday 3 July: contemporary (historical) perspectives

  • 09:30-10:30 Key note 2 Clarisse Berthezene (introduction: Josephine Hoegaerts)
  • 10:30-11:00 Coffee break
  • 11:00-12:30 Panel I; 1980s/ 1990s / early 2000s (Chair: Hanco Jürgens)
    • Antonia Wegner (Freiburg):  Redefining Conservatism through Gender: The US “Gender Gap” and Reagan’s Presidency
    • Lisa Marie Freitag (Helmut Kohl Stiftung): Merkel as a conservative leader
    • Yan BO (Beijing Baptist university): From Mao's Shadow to America's Bulwark: Chinese Émigré Women
  • 12:30-13:30 Lunch Break
  • 13:30-15.00 Panel II (Chair: Annelien de Dijn): Contemporary perspectives I
    • Agnieszka Balcerzak (München): From Motherhood to Mobilization: Kaja Godek as the Conservative Female Face of Poland’s Anti-Abortion Movement
    • Gwenaëlle Bauvois (Helsinki): Far-right feminism France
    • Annabel Daferner (Australia): Girl Boss Nationalism: Women in leadership positions in germany’s extreme right and anti-feminist party Alternative for Germany
  • 15.00-15.15 Coffee break
  • 15.15-16.00 Panel III (Chair: TBA) Contemporary perspectives II
    • Tushara Meleppattu (Rome): Women and Right-wing Mobilization in India in the Backdrop of the Sabarimala Judge
      • Dominika Zajączkowska (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland): Femininity and the Far Right: The Polish Tradwife Movement in Online Spaces
    • 16:00-17:00 Conclusions and farewell ​(Henk de Smaele, Matthijs Lok and Josephine Hoegaerts)