Femonationalism’s Alliance Between Nationalists, Neoliberals, and Feminists

A Book Review of Femonationalism: In the Name of Women’s Rights (2017) by Sara Farris

Here is a prosaic grand narrative: the male Muslim migrant is an oppressor, a barbarian for whom all fault and failure of their societies lie; the female Muslim migrant, however, may be redeemable. She is a lovely exception, for she can be re-positioned as an avenue for moral posturing and profit. It is a simple narrative, perhaps true or perhaps not, but irrelevant all the same. Because, by focusing on three countries (the Netherlands, Italy, and France), British sociologist Sara Farris argues that there has been a convergence of nationalism, neoliberalism, and feminism in their (mis)uses of the female Muslim migrant. In her coinage, this is femonationalism.

Farris begins by defining femonationalism as the political alliance among the aforementioned trifecta of isms (nationalist, feminist, and neoliberal forces) that instrumentalizes women’s emancipation to legitimize xenophobic and racist agendas, particularly against Muslim communities. The term is a means of critique to describe a troubling trend in European politics. State institutions, political leaders, and even certain feminist voices exploit the image of the “oppressed Muslim woman,” recasting them as either victims in need of saving or laborers to be economically utilized; either way, the idea of emancipation, liberation, and the like are tools (re-tooled?) for a nationalist project of cultural purification and neoliberal restructuring.

Since the turn of the century, right wing-parties have bankrolled their concern for women’s rights despite a history of anti-women rhetoric and policies (left-wing parties are no strangers to this, their zionism is an obvious example, but her focus here is right-wing movements). For example, in the Netherlands during the early 2000s, gender equality and gay rights were upheld as values of modern Dutch society, so Muslims were quickly identified as a threat to these values. Farris mentions Geert Wilders, leader of the nationalist right-wing party Party for Freedom (PVV), who produced the movie Fitna in which Islam is portrayed as especially and uniquely vicious towards women and gays, showcases the celebration of Nazis, among other hideous tropes. In 2016, Wilders stated,

“It is in the interest of our own Western civilization, but also in the interest of the Muslims themselves, that we encourage as many Muslims as possible to turn their backs on Islam and become Christians or atheists or whatever. The more Muslims freeing themselves from Islam and the yoke of Muhammad, the better.”¹

Wilders also collaborated with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, poster-woman for all things on the Muslim to athiest feminist pipeline (though, note she announced her conversation to Christianity in 2023)—women’s rights being a priori defined as conflicting with Islamic law, here—despite lying about her past² and instrumentalizing the anti-Muslim need for rescuing Muslim women to flame the sense of urgency in opposing the threat to Europe. Also, she is an immigrant herself.

Farris identifies a similar pattern in France with Marine Le Pen, who has explicitly prefaced her support of gender equality “to the extent that she defends women’s rights, which are threatened by Islam.” Outside of opposing these threats , however, she fails to tackle women’s issues, as seen in her lack of proposals addressing sexual assault and rape in French society, and her party’s family policy allowances “reserved for families with at least one French parent.” I am not especially a fan of whatabouttery, for Muslims in do have a number of geo-political-social problems (welcome to Traversing Tradition, where we try to discuss the gamut of them), but the lopsidedness of her concern, loud when it comes to “Islam,” muted when it comes to France, lays bare that slogan of “women’s rights” more than any genuine political project.

Similarly, right-wing politician Moroccan-born Italian politician Souad Sbai was a proponent of the burqa and niqab ban, accusing “western multiculturalism of failing to defend migrant and Muslim women’s rights.”³ Italy’s Ministry and the Department for Equal Opportunities between Men and Women endorsed a framing of gender violence that linked it to Muslim culture and Islam, supported by both the left and right sides of the political spectrum, despite rising rates of Italian men committing femicide (apply the same disclaimer as to whatabouttery).

Later chapters set out to support the thesis that Muslim women, victims of racist and orientalist tropes, are still assumed to have the capacity and autonomy to integrate and escape the oppression of their male counterparts. Farris examines the way gender equality is articulated by the state in integration programs, thus serving neoliberals politics (emphasis mine): 

“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 women to undo gender by substituting for them in the household, 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 reproduction and emotional life of the elderly and disabled, thus providing the welfare goods from whose provision states increasingly retreat.”

In encouraging migrant women’s fulfillment of “reproductive work,” the same work these nations have tried to divorce as the exclusive domain of women, is what enables the career aspirations of the ‘native woman.’ This is where feminism and neoliberalism converge. Although the existence of this alliance does not undermine the imperative for women’s equity and liberation, feminism has not excused itself from furthering violent policies and acting as a handmaiden of state interests. Far, far from. Feminism, with its euro-centric, material diagnosis of the women’s conditions and motivation to free women in the Global South, only to for them to be available for exploitation in the market in the service of native, more progressed women, aligns with both neoliberal interests and nationalists’ creation of a hierarchy that conveniently positions Muslim male migrant at the bottom.

Many readers may find the writing tedious in the way of many academic works, particularly the Marxist analysis on types of labor and discussion on semantics. However, the book is an academic work in discourse with other academics. For a layperson like myself, the chapters of most relevance were on the institutionalization of femonationalism in France, the Netherlands, and Italy (chapter 3), push for “economic” integration (chapter 4), and double standards in treatment of Muslim migrant men as disposable and Muslim migrant women as cheap labor repackaged as liberation (chapter 5).  

One of the book’s points I struggled to understand is the reductive treatment of nationalism. The author frames nationalism as inherently exclusionary and incompatible with feminist aims, concluding that any alignment between the two is a betrayal of feminist principles. This approach, to me, is not evaluative of the ideological nature of both movements, overlooking instances where nationalist movements have advanced gender equality (for a particular group and self-serving aims), for example, with Zionist feminism. Feminism and nationalism have at times been mutually reinforcing, not inherently contradictory. Moreover, feminism has its own history of exclusion that cannot be cast aside as ‘not true feminism’ and should invite scrutiny of its persistent liberal and material assumptions, whether it be marginalization of working-class women, African American women, etcetera. By casting nationalism as the primary corrupting force, we sidestep feminism’s internal hierarchies and potentiality in actively perpetuating them. The same goes for liberalism, neoliberalism.

Farris provides a helpful conceptual framework to analyze the alliance between feminism, neoliberalism, and nationalism. I am indebted to her for the acquisition of a new vocabulary. For Western readers, Farris’ book offers a vocabulary to describe the alliance between feminists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and right-wing white supremacists, or the utterly bankrupt and genocidal rhetoric espoused about Palestinian. South-Asian readers may see a version of femonationalism manifest in the BJP or educated elite circles in their attempts to appeal to women while simultaneously perpetuating violence and rape against Muslim women. Politics was an insidious game in the past, and it is no less today. We are overdue for a new set of conceptual glasses.

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Works Cited:

1. Wilders, Geert. “Muslims, Free Yourselves and Leave Islam.” Geert Wilders, https://geertwilders.nl/in-de-media-mainmenu-74/nieuws-mainmenu-114/94-english/1996-muslims-free-yourselves-and-leave-islam. Accessed 14 July 2025. [↩]
2. Burke, Jason. “Jason Burke in Rotterdam.” The Guardian, 21 May 2006, www.theguardian.com/world/2006/may/21/jasonburke.theobserver. [↩]
3. Farris, Sara R. In the Name of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism. Duke University Press, 2017, p. 51. [↩]