ATGENDER statement on Hungary’s proposed ban on Gender Studies

ATGENDER, the European Association of Gender Research, Education and Documentation has been informed last week by colleagues of our network about the proposal by the Hungarian government to ban gender studies programmes at the country’s universities, because they are not “economically rational”. We follow the developments with serious concern and would call on the Hungarian government to reconsider the proposal. As the European professional membership association of gender scholars and experts, we do not only denounce the logic that the provision of academic degrees should be made dependent on financial merit, but also wish to highlight that gender studies is a well-established academic discipline across the world, which has contributed to robust scientific analysis of (intersectional) gender structures and relations in and across different contexts. ATGENDER appeals to the Hungarian government to uphold the principle of academic freedom for researchers, teachers and students, irrespective of scholarly discipline.

The ATGENDER board

Stefanie Boulila (University of Goettingen, DE)

Sara de Jong (Open University, UK)

Edyta Just (Linköping University, SE)

Kateřina Kolářová (Charles University Prague, CZ)

Katarina Lončarević (University of Belgrade, SR)

Sabrina Marchetti (Ca’Foscari University of Venice, IT)

Christine Quinan (Utrecht University, NL)

Marianne Schmidbaur (Goethe-University-Frankfurt/M, DE)

Aggeliki Sifaki (Utrecht University, NL)

Giovanna Vingelli (University of Calabria, IT)

Sibel Yardımcı (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, TR)