Explaining the Dearth of Populist Female Executives: Militarized Masculinity, Misogyny, and Deification

Scholars have long described populist executives as paternal and delighted in their overt virility, extramarital affairs, and sequential marriages to former beauty queens. Even criminal sexual violence against women has been dismissed as evidence of their rude and crude authenticity rather than anything inherently constitutive of populist power. Instead, political scientists insist that populism is a gender-neutral mobilizing strategy, equally available to men and women alike. Two datasets, one a replication set controlling for executive office and one original, indicate that of all 39 populist executives since 1990, none were women. Conversely, of 23 prominent female populists, none reached executive office, although women have occupied approximately 10% of executive offices around the world since 1990. Why would women be significantly more underrepresented among populist executives than among executives writ large? A comparative case study of right-wing populist Alberto Fujimori and left wing-populist Hugo Chavez indicates three often overlooked components of his rule - militarized masculinity, misogynistic violence against women, and deification – that may well be unavailable to women. Female populists who did employ these mechanisms were penalized in public opinion and ostracized in politics, never ascending to executive office. These findings suggest that gender is a constitutive component of populism and that populist mobilization is unlikely to be successful for female candidates aspiring to executive office.