Burschenschaft Hysteria: Exposing Nationalist Gender Roles in Contemporary Austrian Politics

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.