Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-7drxs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T05:51:25.317Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Burschenschaft Hysteria: Exposing Nationalist Gender Roles in Contemporary Austrian Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2021

Get access

Summary

BURSCHENSCHAFT HYSTERIA (the Hysteria fraternity), an Austrian political protest group, impersonates a traditional all-male student fraternity not only to subvert the gender stereotypes and ideology that prevail in nationalist groups like the Burschenschaften (male student fraternities), but also to expose the restrictions that these essentialist gender roles impose on individuals, men, and women alike. Their particular strain of political activism is located alongside a history of initiatives against the political right—specifically the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria, FPÖ). Since the FPÖ's founding in 1956, Burschenschaft groups have found support for their political interests, expanding their influence within the party's political elite. This chapter seeks to demonstrate how Hysteria's parody of a Burschenschaft fraternity raises awareness of the link between nationalism and the exercise of patriarchy, highlighting the endangerment of women's rights when the extreme right gain political power. Furthermore, it will be suggested that Hysteria's act of impersonation is an example of “identity nabbing”— engaging with Amber Day's description of political activism as a form of parodic impersonation. In this spirit, Hysteria takes on the guise of a Burschenschaft through a series of performative gestures: affirming their identity through traditional dress, the performance of rituals, adopting a name in the Burschenschaften-style, using a heraldic animal, and inventing a founding myth explicitly mocking the Burschenschaften's origin story. Drawing on Judith Butler's notion of “gender parody” as an act of political dissent, we show that Hysteria's “drag” act, serving as an allfemale Burschenschaft, redefines attributes of masculinity as feminine and vice versa. By making gender the focal point of their parody, Hysteria's activism ironically mocks the Burschenschaften's traditionalist views on gender, radically inverting stable gender roles and mocking their ideal of the submissive, family-oriented pan-Germanic woman. Taking as our focus the Burschenschaften's alarm at extreme feminism, or the so-called “femocracy,” we argue that Hysteria can be seen as successful political activism, confirming their discursive group's (i.e., their followers’) sentiments toward FPÖ politics, and encouraging followers with a similar disposition to become politically active themselves.

Type
Chapter
Information
Politics and Culture in Germany and Austria Today
Edinburgh German Yearbook Volume 14
, pp. 222 - 250
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×