'Danishness' repressive immigration policies, and exclusionary framings of gender equality

By analysing policies, party programmes and interviews with representatives of minority women’s organizations on gender equality and integration, this chapter explores how and why the dominant politics of gender equality defines Muslim/migrant women as an anomaly in need of reform, and how this politics is challenged. The chapter profits from theories on neoliberal governmentality, nationalism and racism, alongside queer scholarship. It shows how the dominant politics of gender equality operates to assimilate and/or exclude ‘the other’, and how the racialization of gender-equality deficiencies serves strategic functions. Moreover, the chapter reveals how neoliberal and right-wing ethno-nationalist parties converge in exploiting gender-equality deficits for labour-market, anti-Muslim, and welfare-chauvinist interests, and demonstrates how minority women’s organizations both resist and comply with these agendas.