ABSTRACT
Intuitively, it seems that the rise of an explicit anti-gay politics is a response to the perceived successes of a new political movement—namely, the lesbian and gay rights movement. Similarly, anti-feminism appears to be a reactionary impulse, a retort to the demand for gender equality. These responses/reactions are located within a range of 'backlash' tendencies that came to the fore in the mid-1980s. They are constituted by a series of manoeuvres that take aim against advances won by feminists, gay activists, liberal educationalists, and so on, and they evince a desire to return to an alleged status quo where orthodox truths are not questioned and where traditional authorities are not undermined.
