Gendered identity politics are often used as tools of mobilization among political actors. Especially masculist narratives that claim masculinity itself and men in general are under threat have become increasingly popular among far-right actors. Beliefs that masculinity and men in general are under attack are often accompanied by considerable negative group-based emotions like feelings of threat and fears of status decline. Far-right actors capitalize on such affective gendered narratives by appealing to nostalgia and promising to bring back the clear structures of “traditional” gender role norms and family models that they link to several other cultural issues. Affective gendered narratives thereby become a powerful tool of mobilization and an effective narrative bridge that functions as a gateway to far-right discourses and ideologies even among non-right-wing audiences. This paper aims to showcase the power of perceived masculine group threats and associated victimhood narratives as affective gendered narrative bridges to far-right ideologies. We are applying a mixed-method approach and compare findings from qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in 2021 among men in Germany (N = 27), who were reposting right-wing narratives online and findings among men in the third wave of the quantitative representative population survey “Menschen in Deutschland” conducted in 2023 (N = 2 187). The results are complementary to each other and show strong links between perceived masculine group threats their associated negative group-based emotions and an openness to far-right ideologies such as Antifeminism, Nativism, Social Darwinism, and Racism.
