The Women of the Radical Right

Abstract

As radical right forces gain momentum in Europe and beyond, we observe a growing prominence of gender issues in their politics and of women in their ranks and constituencies. Gender and women are key to the process of mainstreaming radical right politics. Radical right actors – political parties and leaders but also looser movements and influencers – actively mobilize gender issues to attract and retain women as activists and voters and to normalize their exclusionary ideas. The growing visibility of female representatives and activists of the far-right increases support for these organizations; young women of the far right increasingly mobilize as digital activists and influencers; and novel and unconventional radical right gendered ideologies emerge in the online arena around ecofeminism, wellness and anti-capitalism. Radical right positions on gender are complex and ambivalent. On the one hand, radical right actors weaponize gender equality to target the racialized Others. On the rother, they espouse heteronormative familialistic ideologies, sometimes joining forces with conservative religious actors in opposing gender+ equality. This gendered mainstreaming of radical right politics is inscribed in a broader transnational context shaped by a gendered and racialized division of work on a global scale. As neoliberalism and the pandemic amplify the economic and political marginalization of women, these may see the radical right as offering them opportunities for agency and an ‘anti-modernist’ emancipation. We welcome papers exploring radical right mobilizations in Europe and beyond, considering their gendered causes, patterns, interactions with various actors, and impact. In particular, we focus on women’s mobilization in these movements and on the impact of radical right politics on women’s lives. The panel will consider the transnational dimension and ramifications of networks and discourses of the radical right but also its inscription within contexts shaped by regional/national/local specificities and histories. The focus of the papers may include the following: How do radical right women negotiate new models of female leadership? What drives women to participate in these gender-conservative and male-dominated movements? How are they empowered by their activism? How are they marginalized in these organizations? How do radical right organizations socialize women into their gendered (and racialized and classed) worldviews, and how do they use notions of gender to secure support and to sustain mobilization? How is radical right politics – and women’s activism in its ranks - influenced by its interaction with other actors and their gendered agenda, such as political competitors and allies (the conservative right), antagonistic actors (feminists and the antiracist movement) and religious organizations or the media? How, in turn, does radical right politics contribute to define feminist debates and orient women’s mobilizations for gender equality, and how does it model feminist transmission and legacy to the younger generations? How do radical right actors shape gender policies and politics (around the family, reproductive rights, education, work, social provision, etc.) in the broader political arena, thus impacting gender equality and women’s rights in society? The panel welcomes both theoretical and empirical papers from various sub-disciplines and based on a range of methodologies.

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