Welcome to the RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Series February 24!

Speaker

Andrea Petö is a Professor at the Department of Gender Studies at Central European University, Vienna, Austria, a Research Affiliate of the CEU Democracy Institute, Budapest, and a Doctor of Science at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Petö is an internationally sought-after public speaker, and her works on gender, illiberalism, and politics have been translated into 25 languages. She has held guest professorships at universities in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Israel, Serbia, and Sweden.

She received numerous awards for her contributions to public life, including the 2018 All European Academies (ALLEA) Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values and the 2022 University of Oslo Human Rights Award. She is a Doctor Honoris Causa of Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. Recent publications include The Women of the Arrow Cross Party: Invisible Hungarian Perpetrators in the Second World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and Forgotten Massacre: Budapest 1944 (De Gruyter, 2021).

The highly contested category of gender is always central to her work as a researcher and teacher, as well as to my engagement as a feminist public intellectual. Over the last few years, she has analyzed and debated the relationship between illiberalism and anti-gender campaigns targeting higher education, gender studies, and gender scholars. Andrea Petö has been tireless in speaking out about the importance of historical knowledge and sustained public discourse, creating societies that are sustainable and democratic, with human rights at the core.

Abstract

The talk, based on the co-authored book Viktor Orbán’s Affairs with Women, offers a comprehensive analysis of Viktor Orbán's illiberal policies on human and gender rights. It provides an accessible introduction to how the illiberal gender playbook impacts women, presenting how the government has co-opted and eroded national and international anti-discrimination and equality provisions, thereby creating an alternative to liberal values. Moreover, the talk analyses the reasons behind the decision of women to cast their votes in favor of an illiberal government that discriminates against and impoverishes them. As the Orbán government's gender and “family-friendly policies” are the most successful illiberal soft-diplomacy product globally, this talk serves as a cautionary tale for those concerned about human rights worldwide. The talk also tells the story of how soft censorship works in Hungary in the case of this book.

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