America’s Gender Wars
Interview with PD Dr. Barbara Lüthi
Across the United States, struggles over abortion, gender, and sexuality have intensified, reshaping law, policy, and public discourse. State-level restrictions, the resurgence of Christian nationalist agendas, and digitally networked mobilizations (from the “manosphere” to the New Right) have put reproductive rights and LGBTQI protections under sustained pressure while reframing debates about democratic norms and social cohesion. This interview situates these developments within the longer history of American culture wars since the 1960s, clarifying key terms, actors, and argumentative repertoires and mapping their institutional effects—from regulation of reproductive healthcare to the contraction of care infrastructures. Against this backdrop, historian PD Dr. Barbara Lüthi offers a transatlantic perspective that connects contemporary conflicts to their historical trajectories. At the Research Institute Social Cohesion she conducts a research project that deals with “Culture Wars and the Critique of Moralism: Struggles over Values and Identities”.

Participants at a rally, Chicago, May 15, 1971 (© ST-20003470-0028, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM)
“Dr. Lüthi, what is the focus of your research project?”
Barbara Lüthi: From a historical perspective and in a transatlantic context, the project examines the “culture wars” and the associated conflicts over values, identities, and epistemic orders. We primarily concentrate on developments in the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. Specifically, we want to trace the historical trajectories of the contentious words gender, wokeness, and moralism within the culture wars. In order to understand how different positions in these debates affect social cohesion, we analyze the motives and argumentative patterns of concrete actors engaged in these culture-war conflicts. One focus lies on the historical genealogy of these debates, especially since the 1960s, because the “culture wars” are not new. For decades, questions of gender, identity politics, and concepts of political and cultural participation have shaped societies in the U.S. and Europe. We are also interested in the argumentative repertoires and rhetorical strategies mobilized in these debates. One of our preliminary thesis is that debates—radicalized by ressentiment and social-media dynamics—have altered discursive culture in ways that threaten social cohesion.
“When we think of child marriage, abortion bans, and extreme legal inequalities between women and men, the United States is not necessarily the first place that comes to mind. How did this come about—not just since Donald Trump?”
Lüthi: When Patrick Buchanan declared a “war for the soul of America” at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, he cast the culture wars as decisive for the kind of nation America would one day become—no less consequential than the Cold War. He framed fundamental questions of “who we are” and whether the Judeo-Christian values he believed the nation was built upon would survive. By the 1980s and 1990s, the battles over abortion, family values, feminism, homosexuality, pornography, sex education, and much else were already in full swing.
We must always historicize the struggles over abortion and over unequal treatment of women, men, trans, and gender-nonconforming people before the law, and go back at least to the 1960s to better understand the present. In the so-called “sixties,” a “new America” emerged—which the historian Andrew Hartman described as “a nation more open to new peoples, new ideas, new norms, and new, if conflicting, articulations of America itself.” These changes had even deeper roots, but in the 1960s many—especially conservatives—experienced these as an assault on “Western civilization,” as a rapid shift in the canon of values and in the possibilities for social participation. The civil-rights movement expanded participation to women, people of color, and other previously excluded groups. Many conservatives felt that they and their “great nation” was under threat; they perceived secularization and rapid change as moral decline. It is not an exaggeration to say that a new America was in the making. Previously dominant conservative norms concerning women and heterosexuality were questioned—for example, the heterosexual nuclear family, the public–private divide along gender lines. Especially during the Cold War, many on the right called for a return to “old values” and stability in a world they perceived as chaotic.
And this is where the so-called “neoconservative” intellectuals come into play: With their critique they helped forge an alliance with Christian nationalists. From the 1970s, conservative evangelicals built a political coalition with conservatives of different theological backgrounds. They opposed the New Left and the “liberal establishment,” waging a battle on the cultural front. Abortion, feminism, gay rights, and related topics played a central role.
Another important development toward the current situation under Trump was the rise of right-populist movements after 2000. These paved his path to power, including the so-called “alt-right” (today often called the “New Right”) which distinguished itself from the preceding right-wing movement primarily through online networks, social-media activism, and explicit identitarian and racist positions. It mobilized further in the antifeminist online “manosphere,” which targets feminism in all forms, tries to force men and women into “proper” roles, and obsessively politicizes trans people. The New Right’s ideology is undergirded by the notion of white supremacy. Christian nationalism also remained pivotal, fusing cultural, religious, and political values with the goal of “restoring” a Christian America. In Who’s Afraid of Gender?, Judith Butler argues that the “anti-gender ideology movement” has turned gender into a “phantasm”, representing multiple human anxieties about sexuality, sex and relationships as well as bodily attributes. Ultimately, these groups play on fears in a rapidly changing world. Many therefore placed their hopes in a “strongman” who would restore the old order.
“Since 2022, abortion policy has been devolved to the states; in Oklahoma and Texas it is banned without exceptions. What are the consequences for women living there—and for the United States more broadly?”
Lüthi: The full ramifications of these laws—and other regulatory measures—are only gradually evolving. Broadly speaking, they erode sexual and reproductive human rights. Coupled with a negatively charged discourse on abortion, the bans also morally stigmatize and discipline the women concerned. In concrete terms, the laws restrict access to the infrastructures that enable abortion. Studies show that political attacks increasingly target medication abortion by needlessly complicating the prescribing and dispensing processes on site. In states without total bans, medication abortions still accounted for a large share in 2023. Despite clear medical evidence for the safety and efficacy of medication abortion—whether provided in person or online—opponents often ignore this evidence and spread false claims about its risks.
New annual estimates from the Guttmacher Institute, a research institution and policy organization in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights in the USA and worldwide, indicate that the total number of abortions performed across U.S. states without complete bans remained relatively stable between 2023 and 2024. The numbers of people traveling across state lines slightly decreased. Stability persisted despite political shifts and restrictions. Access to abortion services—especially for people in restrictive states—depends on a broad infrastructure of funding and navigation support. Yet funding for these support networks is reaching its limits, even though demand (including travel assistance from ban states) is unlikely to decline. We also see a marked increase in online-only abortion services, underscoring its importance as access shrinks elsewhere. Where available, telemedicine abortions can significantly reduce barriers—lowering costs and travel time—even if these newer modalities are not without controversy.
Several U.S. states have enacted bans from six to eighteen weeks. Exceptions exist for severe health risks, incest, and rape—though in the latter two the burden of proof rests with the pregnant person and hurdles are high. And determining when a “serious risk” exists is itself fraught. Increasingly, doctors decline to perform abortions in restrictive states out of fear of prosecution.
It is crucial to recognize that state-level protections for abortion are steadily eroding under the legal and bureaucratic pressures of the Trump administration. This has concrete effects on women and on the medical infrastructure that supports them. These trends must also be understood in a broader political context in which a general abolition of right to abortion and contraception, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTQI) people, and gender equality is being promoted. These assaults are embedded within wider campaigns against democracy.
“Since Trump has been in power—especially since the beginning of his second term—the situation for women has deteriorated sharply. What role does religion, specifically the ideology of Christian nationalism, play in relation to women’s rights?”
Lüthi: Again, we need the long view. Conservative white evangelical groups have been pivotal which define themselves not only in terms of church affiliation, but also in terms of their political and cultural values and the goal of preserving a Christian America. In recent years this has increasingly aligned with the MAGA agenda of a white, Christian, conservative nation. Trump was not elected for piety or biblical fidelity, but because he shares key values and political aims and is seen as a protector of their interests. From their perspective, “true conservative Christianity” has long been under attack—by communists and feminists in the 1950s/60s, later by secular humanists, and today by Islamists and Democrats. They applaud Trump’s rough masculinity and ruthless persona because he defends them and empowers them; they believe God is using Trump for their advantage. White evangelicals were already visible in the 1970s as the “Moral Majority,” and by the late 1980s as the “Christian Coalition,” with Ronald Reagan’s support in the 1980s.
Because Republicans were a minority party from the 1960s into the mid-1980s, they sought new coalitions and voters. New issues were identified: abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, etc., were bundled as cultural politics. Not only the economy or foreign policy also but “personal” matters were politicized strategically. GOP leaders leading the Moral Majority thereby reached Democratic voters as well.
With the change in values during the 1960s, conservative white evangelicals mobilized—for traditional gender roles, for private (non-state) schools, and more. As historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez argues in Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, at its core was the preservation of white patriarchal power. White masculinity moved to the center of popular culture as part of a political agenda. Abortion has been central since the late 1970s. Interestingly, although many evangelicals opposed abortion earlier, there was more nuance until the mid-1970s (e.g., the idea that life begins at first breath). By the late 1970s, the picture had changed: abortion and pro-life mobilization became central to the New Christian Right—not only to “protect life,” but to defend traditional gender roles. Opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment drew heavily on anti-abortion politics (the “STOP ERA” campaign).
Yet why must abortion bans be imposed on others? Conservative evangelicals hold that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, with a special role to play in preserving a godly state. The entire nation should be based on God’s law; they see themselves as guardians of the nation. This framing convinces them that, however coercive their laws and however much persuasion is needed—even of those who do not share their values—they act in everyone’s name, so that the nation may receive God’s blessing. This message has been inculcated persistently through books, Christian radio, and a mythicized vision of the Founders as theologically akin to today’s evangelicals—or even that the Constitution was directly inspired by God. Hence, all rights in the Constitution must conform to their view of divine law. This is evident in “Project 2025,” the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page blueprint for restructuring the U.S. government under Trump’s second term, and in the stance of Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House and close Trump ally. On his website on the “seven core principles of conservatism” his entry on “human dignity” reads: “A just government protects life, honors marriage and family as the primary institutions of a healthy society, and embraces the vital cultural influences of religion and morality.”
“Is there resistance to the mechanisms of this reactionary, freedom-restricting politics?”
Lüthi: The Women’s March of January 21, 2017—the day after Trump’s first inauguration—drew more than 470,000 participants in Washington, D.C., and counts among the largest single-day protests in U.S. history. Protests continue, though they are now more decentralized across cities and target multiple aspects of Trump’s agenda that undermine democratic institutions—from environmental policy and women’s and trans rights to deportations of “undesirable” persons and migrants. Mass mobilizations such as “No Kings Day,” “Hands Off Day,” and, most recently, Labor Day rallies under the slogan “Workers Over Billionaires,” oppose the administration’s attacks on the rights and freedoms of U.S. residents.
Smaller but regular protests took place outside the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, which was closed in July 2025. In operation for three decades and among the longest-standing centers for trans youth in the country, it served thousands of publicly insured young people. Its closure signals the increasing precarity of care for trans youth nationwide.
Other forms of resistance proceed via litigation, including abortion rights and medical care for trans youth. NGOs such as the ACLU are especially active, defending reproductive freedom, women’s and LGBTQI rights, and free speech. For now, they can still file class actions in district courts. But it is likely only a matter of time before Trump—through an increasingly autocratic governing style and a flurry of executive orders—nationalizes restrictive rulings and bends the checks and balances of a democratic system to his purposes. The Supreme Court, a crucial institution, largely backs him—even if not all justices are right-leaning, and the women of color on the Court continue to voice dissent. The trend is worrying, as many of his directives violate the Constitution. Courts are not automatically bastions of democracy; they can also harbor violent and discriminatory elements.
At the societal, everyday level, we also see smaller forms of resistance: certain media continue to publish differentiated, critical analyses, though it has become difficult to counter the flood of misinformation from Fox News and others. Universities—despite funding cuts, including for Gender & Women’s Studies and Black American Studies—still attempt to teach critical thinking and cultivate solidarity under tremendous pressure. Consider also the U.S. National Park Service: thousands of staff positions were cut; many websites were taken down; LGBTQ was rewritten as LGB in many places, capitulating to government pressure against trans and queer people. Yet “Resistance Rangers” have organized via Facebook, set up information tables in parks, and held demonstrations to inform the public about these attacks. These are forms of resistance within the limits of the possible.
“On the other side, we keep hearing about so-called ‘tradwives’—women who embrace a 1950s ideal of femininity and define themselves primarily as wives and mothers. How did this phenomenon emerge, and what role does social media play?”
Lüthi: As a New York Times piece argued last year, tradwife content is not really for women but for men who want submissive wives. As the influencer Estee Williams explains it, the man works and provides for the family; the woman, as housewife, manages home and children. Tradwives also believe they should submit to and serve their husbands. The term is a portmanteau denoting “traditional wives.” As a movement of the 2010s, it represents a counter-current to what some call the fourth wave of feminism.
Some analyses attribute the trend and its popularization to figures like Hannah Neeleman of the famous “Ballerina Farm,” who emulates nineteenth-century settler-woman aesthetics. But the ideology behind it has deeper roots in U.S. history. While the use of social media and the power of traditional-woman “influencers” are new, the media’s use to reinforce conservative social norms is not. In the Anglo-American eighteenth century, “conduct literature” for women in magazines, newspapers, and novels prescribed appropriate behavior and the proper conduct of marriage. It celebrated the “virtues” of white womanhood and codified expectations of wives. Legally, too, women were subordinated: they had no independent legal personality; their bodies did not belong to them; they lacked property rights; and marital rape was not considered a crime in the eighteenth century (and only in 1993 did all 50 states criminalize it). Under certain circumstances, domestic violence was understood as disciplinary punishment for a disobedient wife.
Tradwives who insist on the “naturalness” of a submissive role implicitly accept women’s status as second-class citizens. While Estee Williams and others present it less as a movement than a lifestyle, some political actors see it differently. More than a decade ago, House Speaker Mike Johnson called for a return to eighteenth-century values, and since various rights—such as abortion—have since been stripped from women. The tradwife message is not harmless: using social media, they market a particular lifestyle, share practical household and parenting tips on TikTok and Instagram, and thereby popularize the ideology and principles of so-called “traditional” gender roles. Critics view this as a rollback—a gradual dismantling of hard-won gains in U.S. women’s history and a sign of the weakening of feminism.
“Is a comparable development for women’s rights conceivable in Europe?”
Lüthi: We must, of course, differentiate within Europe. Some countries—Poland, for instance—have very strict abortion laws, while others—Spain, for example—have liberalized in recent years. Under President Viktor Orbán, Hungary pursues an explicit anti-gender ideology—even as he disparages Gender Studies as “ideological” and removed it from the list of approved master’s programs years ago. Hungary’s strong financial and strategic role in pan-European far-right networks shows how tightly anti-gender activism is now woven into illiberal political projects. The list of countries promoting attacks on feminist causes and rights could be extended.
A new report this year by the “European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual & Reproductive Rights” documents how Christian extremist groups increasingly seek to influence politics. They strive for increased access to political power, professionalize their operations and transnational networks, and in some cases are taking over entire institutions, parties, and states. The report shows how they strategically produce ideologically driven “knowledge,” build anti-gender service infrastructures, and it highlights the rise of elite public-affairs firms and civil-society networks covertly steered by religious hierarchies. Supported by strategic partners in the United States and the Russian Federation, European anti-gender actors established a coordinated network—”Agenda Europe”—as early as 2013. Between 2019 and 2023, this network amassed an estimated US$1.18billion through the myriad organizations involved in European anti-gender initiatives. These movements are thus not only ideologically influential but also very well resourced. The key pan-European platforms include an anti-abortion coalition, an anti-LGBTQI network, a Christian political party, a social-media mobilization platform, and a pseudo-Catholic far-right alliance. Their aim is to reshape laws, policies, and public norms concerning gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights.
The U.S. connection matters, too. Trump’s second presidency—an administration represented substantially by adherents of the Christian right—has turned American power into a global megaphone for religious extremism. Their alliances with European parties, think tanks, and lobbyists influence the transatlantic strategy. This is a coordinated offensive that will, undoubtedly, affect LGBTQI rights, reproductive freedoms, and gender equality in Europe in the coming decades. Right-wing parties in German-speaking countries, such as the SVP in Switzerland and the AfD in Germany, have already included the fight against “gender ideology” and against abortion in their political programs.
Note: This interview was conducted by Marion Sippel for ARTE Germany on the occasion of the broadcast of the new documentary America’s Gender Wars on ARTE.
PD Dr. Barbara Lüthi is a historian at the Research Institute for Social Cohesion, Leipzig University. Her research examines the longue durée of the culture wars from a transatlantic perspective, focusing on Christian nationalism, right-populist mobilizations, and politics of gender and sexuality since the 1960s. She currently leads the project Culture Wars and the Critique of Moralism: Struggles over Values and Identities and previously directed Female Violence as Self-Defense in 1970s and 1980s America and Beyond. Lüthi combines conceptual clarification with historical analysis of actors, discursive repertoires, and policy outcomes.
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recentglobe (November 25, 2025). America’s Gender Wars. Global Dynamics. Retrieved December 15, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/157er
