L’invention de la “théorie du genre”: le mariage blanc du Vatican et de la science

What is it about?

The denunciation of “gender theory,” revived in the framework of the opposition to “marriage for all,” first emerged in the public debate in 2011. Backing a political mobilization against the so-called introduction of that theory in high school science textbooks, an office of the Roman Curia had then published in France a book intended to provide an argument against it. This article traces the genesis of both denunciation and book, and analyzes the supporting evidence in the latter for the “sexual identity” theory it opposed to “gender theory.” This return to the sources of antigender discourse shows that it does not stem from a fight against gender studies or from a concern to put across data from life science, both scientific fields being equally ignored by those who created it. It stems from a fight of influential members of the Catholic Church to maintain a social order assigning distinct statuses and roles to each sex, and in particular the nurturing role to women. If their coining of the term “gender theory” was successful, their attempt to place themselves in the field of scientific expertise was, by contrast, awkward, to say the least.

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