Narratives of Women Members of Populist Radical Right Parties. A Comparative Analysis of Italy and France

Based on a comparative qualitative study (ERC Starting grant, Gendering activism in populist radical right parties) of gender and activism in the Front national (France) and the Lega nord (Italy), this paper explores the narratives and experiences of women activists in these two populist radical right (PRR) parties. The activists’ narratives in the two parties differ in relation to the ways in which these women identify with the activists’ group and negotiate partisan identities. Lega nord women identify with the party’s anti-establishment/populist agenda through celebrating naturalised gender differences and constructing their political engagement as an extension of their private domestic roles. Most Front national women instead deny that gender has an impact on political engagement and describe themselves as ‘individuals’ who are members of the nation. Only a minority of Front national women belonging to the (currently marginalized) Catholic traditionalist strand of the party claim make sense of their activism as an extension of their domestic roles. The paper concludes that these diverse gendered narratives and experiences of PRR women activists are shaped by a combination of macro-level (context-dependent factors such as national gender regimes and models of integration and citizenship) and meso-level factors (parties’ political cultures and histories as well as organizational forms of women’s activism, more specifically the existence or absence of a women’s party organization).