What’s gender got to do with populism?

Donà, Alessia

doi:10.1177/1350506820929222

Cited by 19 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Not all rightist parties adopt the same positions on gender and gender equality, as national political context particularities influence their choices (Akkerman, 2015; Askola, 2019; Sauer et al, 2017). However, what they have in common is the ability to maintain ‘a double and contradictory position’ (Donà, 2020) on gender equality through what Sauer et al (2017) call an ‘exclusive intersectionality’ and what Dietze (2022) calls ‘strategic progressivism’; namely, they simultaneously support gender equality for (national) women in the context of opposing Muslim immigration and propel conservative family policies, and limit (national) women’s rights in the context of acting as the saviours of the national community’s ‘authentic’ way of life (Donà, 2020). This extends to the transnational level, since rightist parties have managed to form alliances to influence policymaking at the European level (Ahrens et al, 2018; Cullen, 2020; Paternotte and Kuhar, 2018; Verloo and Paternotte, 2018).…”

Section: Women Gender and The Far Rightmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminism contested and co-opted: Women, agency and politics of gender in the Greek and Greek-Cypriot far right

Kamenou

2023

European Journal of Women's Studies

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The literature on the gender dimension of far-right politics has established the constitutive role of gender and women’s involvement in the far right. However, knowledge about how far-right women negotiate and condition their agency within their parties and how they relate to gender, gender equality and feminism remains limited. This article builds on literature on conservative and far-right women’s agency, and on feminism’s employment by the far right. Based on interviews with female politicians and seasoned activists of the Greek Golden Dawn and the Greek-Cypriot National Popular Front, it examines how highly engaged far-right women construct their political agency at the intersections of often contradictory discourses and how, in doing so, they impact understandings of gender, gender equality and feminism. The analysis of the interview material identifies three different formulations of political agency the participants refer to: radical motherhood; female political militancy/political militant femininity and troubling of far-right gender roles. I argue that these different formulations of political agency show how, by using elements of feminism, far-right women construct flexible and versatile far-right gender discourses, which challenge gender essentialist positions that their parties convey. Moreover, they challenge delineations of far-right women’s political agency based on the compliance/(feminist) resistance dichotomy and expose the processes through which far-right women contest feminism by drawing on it. The article further argues that these formulations of political agency and far-right gender discourses may contribute to the far right’s appeal among women with diverse views on gender, gender equality, feminism and politics, as they may respond to an array of interests and demands that can be made from many different positions. Therefore, beyond contributing to discussions about the role of women, gender and feminism in far-right politics, the article demonstrates the importance of studying far-right women’s views for gaining a well-rounded understanding of this issue.

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Section: Women Gender and The Far Rightmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feminism contested and co-opted: Women, agency and politics of gender in the Greek and Greek-Cypriot far right

Kamenou

2023

European Journal of Women's Studies

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“…The term 'post-truth' has become a shorthand descriptor for a decisive cultural shift in the socio-political landscape in which established norms used to establish knowledge claims are being selectively reconstructed (Harsin, 2015;Suiter, 2016;Sismondo 2017;Boler and Davis, 2018;Kakutani, 2018: 45;Waisbord, 2018). 7 Since being named international word of the year by Oxford Dictionary in 2016, it is a term which has increasingly entered mainstream culture, used by journalists and the general public alike (Dona`, 2020). It is defined as an adjective 'relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief' (Oxford Languages, 2016).…”

Section: The Post-truth Challenge To Feminist Epistemologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anti-feminism and scepticism towards feminist constructions of gender, therefore, provide a platform for marshalling broad-based support against liberal progressive positions (Graff et al, 2019). Across many countries, women's and feminist research is under attack, both on and offline, as part of a larger attack on 'critical knowledge formations' (Dahl and kennedy-macfoy, 2020: 282; see also: Dona`, 2020;Evans and Riley, 2020).…”

Section: The Post-truth Challenge To Feminist Epistemologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Making feminist claims in the post-truth era: the authority of personal experience

Budgeon

2021

Feminist Theory

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The increased visibility of feminism in mainstream culture has recently been noted, with the presence of both online and offline campaigns embedding feminist claims in a variety of everyday spaces. By granting recognition to women’s experiences, these campaigns continue the feminist practice of generating critical knowledge on the basis of gendered experience. In the post-truth era, however, the norms governing claims-making are being significantly reconstructed, with significant consequences for critiques of gender inequality. It is argued here that these norms are linked directly to a wider context of anti-feminism in which dismissing women’s claims is consistent with the goal that opponents of gender equality have of seeking and consolidating epistemic power in the face of what is perceived as systemic male disadvantage and victimhood. Returning to earlier debates within feminism, it is argued that the kinds of post-truth rhetoric used to dismiss women’s experience provide a challenge that feminism must confront. This rhetoric is often grounded in the authenticity of individual experience; however, experience cannot provide unmediated access to truth and, therefore, cannot provide the foundation for feminist claims. On the other hand, experience cannot merely offer one of many contested versions of ‘reality’. The excesses of both foundationalist and anti-foundationalist epistemology are countered with the argument that cognition is a human practice mediated by theoretical propositions which illuminate the question of what can be known. This is the role played by feminist theory in defending the role of experience.

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“…The role of gender issues in populist radical right parties' (PRRP) ideology has found renewed interest in literature (Akkerman, 2015;De Lange & Mügge, 2015;Donà, 2020;Erzeel & Rashkova, 2017;Gwiazda, 2021). In fact, despite their reputation as männerparteienparties predominantly supported, represented, and led by men-PRRP are increasingly engaging with women's issues and gender roles in society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Opposition Leader to Prime Minister: Giorgia Meloni and Women’s Issues in the Italian Radical Right

Giorgi

Cavalieri

Feo

2023

PaG

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Under the motto “God, homeland, and family”—but also by stressing one further important marker of social identity, i.e., gender—Italian radical right party leader Giorgia Meloni multiplied her party seats in parliament from 2013 onwards. After the 2022 elections, she became the first woman prime minister in Italy. Starting from an overview of the figure of Giorgia Meloni as a radical right woman leader, we explore her and her party’s position on women-related issues and their relevance while exploring, in opposition, two different contexts: representative institutions and social media. To do that, we draw on parliamentary data—bills and parliamentary questions introduced in parliament by Fratelli d’<em>Italia</em>—and on Meloni’s public discourse—examined in an analysis of all the tweets posted by her official Twitter account, between 2013 and 2021. As expected, a low saliency of women’s issues appears in all the types of data examined, although some of them are more exposed to the shift in attention caused by the rise of related trend topics. Both Meloni and her party are strong supporters of the “natural family” and make use of women’s issues in claiming femonationalist arguments, especially on social media. However, Meloni and her party cannot be considered as fully “neo-traditional,” as are other similar parties in Europe, but rather as a combination of “neo-traditional” and “modern-traditional.”

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What’s gender got to do with populism?

Cited by 19 publications

References 30 publications

Feminism contested and co-opted: Women, agency and politics of gender in the Greek and Greek-Cypriot far right

Feminism contested and co-opted: Women, agency and politics of gender in the Greek and Greek-Cypriot far right

Making feminist claims in the post-truth era: the authority of personal experience

From Opposition Leader to Prime Minister: Giorgia Meloni and Women’s Issues in the Italian Radical Right

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