The gender gap in radical right voting has been analyzed in the literature through different perspectives, mostly focusing on gender differences in political attitudes and socio-demographic situation. Yet case-based evidence suggests an additional mechanism may be at play: the social stigma attached to radical right parties and women’s greater sensitivity to social norms. While recent studies have linked stigma to the broader dynamics of (non-)support for these parties, they have largely neglected gendered dimensions of this process. At the same time, emerging evidence indicates that among younger cohorts, the gender gap in radical right voting is widening rather than narrowing.
This article answers this puzzle by advancing a gendered account of stigma as a determinant of radical right support. Using survey data and a causal design accross West-European countries, it demonstrates that stigma significantly depresses women’s propensity to vote for RRPs but has no comparable effect among men. The findings suggest that stigma operates as a gendered constraint on radical right support—one that is shifting across generations as perceptions of political stigma evolve.
