Sticky feeling politics: affective feminist resilience to anti-gender politics in the Spanish Parliament

The rise of anti-gender and far-right actors threatens feminist, anti-racist and LGBTQIA+ politics. While responses to these forces are being researched, the affective dynamics of parliamentary resistance remain underexplored. This article examines how affect shapes feminist resilience to anti-gender politics in Spain’s National Parliament, foregrounding the affective dynamics of parliamentary debates, which are especially relevant to understand because anti-gender actors weaponise emotions against feminism. Building on Ahmed’s ‘sticky affects’ and Bargetz’s ‘feeling politics’, we propose the concept of ‘sticky feeling politics’ to explore how affective parliamentary dynamics shaped by anti-gender politics attach feelings to gendered and racialised bodies, and how feminist members of Parliament (MPs) feel, navigate and contest these. Drawing on 12 debates and 22 interviews with MPs, staff and allied organisations, we trace practices of embodied resilience, solidarity and political rationality. The article advances scholarship on the affective life of institutions, showing how feminist actors foster affective political resilience within hostile terrains.