UNTWIST: Policy Recommendations to Regain Feminist Losers as Mainstream Voters

Untwist旨在推动性别平等成为欧盟的核心价值观，保护欧盟免受极端民粹主义政党的反对性性别言论所代表的新威胁。通过制定将性别平等作为一种价值观和生活方式的政策建议，我们的项目将有助于塑造全球未来，从而实现欧盟2019年至2024年期间政治议程的相关目标。通过理解极端民粹主义政党是否扮演着利基政党的角色，实质性地代表(但也扭曲)公民的需求和要求，他们感到被当前主流的女权主义话语和政策抛弃或丧失权力，它将共同创造解决这些公民问题的替代方式。因此，制定和实施新的政策，以对抗压制性别平等的战略和极端民粹主义政党的政策。因此，通过更好地保障性别平等，代议制民主将重新焕发活力，并赋予公民权利。为此，Untwist的主要工作战略将包括赋予欧洲(非激进/民粹主义)政党权力，通过定义、加强和转让一本政策建议手册，提高其对公民基于性别的利益的代表性，该手册包含以证据为基础的政策建议：1)帮助主流政党改善其对性别和基于性别的需求的实质性代表性，以降低极端民粹主义信息的吸引力(消除对立的性别信息，特别是来自右翼民粹主义的信息)；2)有助于扩大性别期望的视野，并克服当前公民中的“性别疲劳”。这些政党在实质性民主代表性方面的改善将降低公民对激进或民粹主义政党的反女权主义信息的兴趣。

UNTWIST aims to promote gender equality as a core value of the EU, defending it from the emerging threat that the oppositional gender rhetoric from extreme populist parties represents. By developing policy recommendations that uphold gender equality as both a value and a way of life, our project will contribute to shaping the global future, thus fulfilling relevant objectives in the EU’s political agenda for the period 2019–2024. By understanding if extreme populist parties are acting as niche parties, substantively representing (but also twisting) the needs and demands of citizens “at the margins”, who feel abandoned or disempowered by current mainstream feminist discourses and policies, it will co-create alternative ways of addressing those citizens. Thus, developing, and implementing new policies that can counter gender-equality-repressive strategies and the policies of extreme populist parties. Representative democracies will consequently be reinvigorated, and the citizenship empowered, by a better safeguarding of gender equality. UNTWIST’s main working strategy toward that end will consist of empowering (non-radical/populist) parties in Europe to improve their representation of the gender-based interests of the citizenry through the definition, enhancement and transfer of a policy recommendation handbook with evidence-based policy recommendations that: 1) help mainstream parties improve their substantive representation of sex- and gender-based needs and demands in ways that diminish the appeal of extreme populist messages (untwisting oppositional gender messages, particularly from right-wing populism); and 2) contributes to the widening horizon of gender expectations and overcomes current “gender fatigue” among citizens. The improvement in substantive democratic representation by these parties will decrease citizens' interest in the anti-feminist messages of radical or populist parties.