Women on the right: on female involvement in the radical right organizations

Despite the fact that radical nationalist milieus are predominately male, an increase in women’s participation in the radical right has recently been observed and discussed. Considering the general anti-feminist statements voiced in nationalist circles, it is crucial to find out how women in particular frame their nationalist involvement. Considering the relevance of different sociopolitical and cultural contexts for the radical right internationally, our analysis focuses on female radical right activists in two countries (Poland and Germany), in which the radical right has considerably different political and discursive opportunity structures. The presentation is based on the analysis of 13 biographical-narrative interviews (Schütze, 1992) with ten activists involved in different radical right initiatives (eight in Poland and five in Germany). Interviews were collected as part of two research projects: (1) one dedicated to the identity of the Polish nationalist movement (2011-2015), and (2) Polish-German project "Right-wing populism among young Germans and Poles: Analysis of the biographical motives for supporting right-wing parties and organisations" (2019-2020). The studies exploring the radical right’s mobilisation engage with three main analytical levels: the macro (economic, cultural and political conditions), the meso (organisational factors), and the micro (individual motives and values) (Caiani, 2019). With its focus on female activists’ life stories and perspectives, this article intertwines the meso and micro levels, while still taking into account general, region-based and gender-based macro explanations. More precisely, based on the analysis of the collected interviews, the paper will explore the narratives of the female activists about their involvement and radical right: how do they understand their radical right involvement, what does participation give them, if and how do they perceive gender-related aspects of the activists’ trajectories within the movement/organization? Taking into consideration that in both research projects the interviews with male activists were collected as well, we will be able to juxtapose the findings and explore the potential differences between female and male understanding of own involvement.