Gender, Populist Radical Right Politics and Female Leadership

Rightwing populism, nationalism and nativism is growing in contemporary Europe and until recently men-led RRP parties were considered the general rule, since men also were overrepresented among the party voters and members. This situation changed recently with RPP women as party leaders in several European countries. Only a few feminist studies exist of the role of female populist leaders and their impact on the party politics. This paper aims to analyse the role of female political leadership and the articulations of gender and the family in nationalist parties’ politics across Europe. The selected part parties leaders are, Pia Kjærsgaard the Danish Peoples’ Party [DF], Siv Jensen the Norwegian Progress Party [FrP], Marine le Pen, the French Front National [FN] and Frauke Petri Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The objective is to contribute to gender the academic debate on populist nationalism/nativism and political leadership by developing the feminist approaches to political leadership.