Countering Femonationalism: Evidence from an Audio-visual Experiment in Germany

How can liberal democracies respond to the growing use of gender equality rhetoric to legitimize exclusionary immigration policies? This paper investigates the effectiveness of rebuttals to femonationalism – the strategic invocation of gender equality values to justify anti-immigrant sentiment. Drawing on a pre-registered audio-visual vignette experiment with a quota-representative sample of 3,994 German adults, we test whether different forms of counter-speech can reduce agreement with femonationalist claims and perceptions of their social acceptability. Respondents were exposed to femonationalist rhetoric in a short, news-style video, followed by one of three rebuttals: (1) a factual correction debunking the link between immigration and violence against women; (2) a symbolic critique highlighting low female representation in these parties; or (3) a substantive critique of their conservative gender policy agendas. We find that only the factual correction consistently reduces support for femonationalist views and anti-immigrant discourse. Symbolic and substantive critiques, while normatively salient, show limited or inconsistent effects. These findings underscore the potential of fact-based counterspeech to contest gendered nativism.