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Articles

Where Do We Go from Here? Positioning Gender in Studies of the Far Right

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Pages 416-431 | Published online: 05 Jan 2021
 

ABSTRACT

This article sets out an agenda for the next stage of feminist scholarship on the far-right. It outlines what we know – and what we don’t know – about gender and the far right, and suggests four directions for future feminist scholarship: (1) creating a conceptual framework for the far right that seriously engages political efforts that rely on or build support for misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, and gender and sexual essentialism; (2) moving beyond the search for gender salience in the far right, and toward investigating when gender is more or less salient or more or less present or absent in far-right politics; (3) examining far-right political efforts at varying levels – from micro-level studies of recruitment to meso-level studies of party and movement dynamics and macro-level studies of social and cultural contexts; and (4) formulating the next big claims about gender and the far right.

Acknowledgements

This article revises ideas from a lecture and working paper prepared for the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo (see https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-and-events/news/2018/blee-next-steps.html) and from lectures at the European Consortium for Political Research Summer School at Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence. Audiences at each forum provided valuable feedback, as did the editors of this special issue and the article’s anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Kathleen Blee Distinguished Professor of Sociology Kathleen Blee has published extensively on gender in US white supremacism, including the books Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s and Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement. Her most recent book is Understanding Racist Activism: Theory, Methods, and Research (Routledge).

Notes

1 I follow Cas Mudde in using the term ‘far right’ to encompass a broad range of rightist political efforts that include what are variously also described as ‘right-wing extremism’, ‘the radical right’, ‘right-wing populism’ and ‘white supremacism’. See C. Mudde, ‘The populist zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition, 39:4 (2004), pp. 542–563; see also C. Miller-Idriss, Hate in the homeland: The new global far right. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020).

2 Miller-Idriss 2020, op. cit.

3 Miller-Idriss, 2020, op.cit.; P. Simi and R. Futrell, American swastika: Inside the white power movement’s hidden space of hate (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010); P. Simi, B.F. Bubolz and A. Hardman, ‘Military experience, identity discrepancies, and far-right terrorism: An exploratory analysis’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 36:8 (2013), pp. 654–671.

4 Miller-Idriss, 2020, op.cit.; Mudde, 2019 op.cit; B.R, Teitelbaum, ‘Implicitly white: Right-wing nihilism and the politicizing of ethnocentrism in multiracial Sweden’, Scandinavian Studies, 89:2 (2017), pp. 159–178.

5 R. Futrell and P. Simi, ‘The [un]surprising alt-right’, Contexts, 16:2 (2017), p. 76.

6 T. Bjørgo, Racist and right-wing violence in Scandinavia: Patterns, perpetrators, and responses (Leiden, The Netherlands: University of Leiden, 1997); K. Fangen, ‘Right-wing skinheads: Nostalgia and binary oppositions’, Young, 6:2 (1998), pp. 33–49; K. Fangen, ‘A death mask of masculinity: The brotherhood of Norwegian right-wing skinheads’, in S. Ervø and T. Johansson (eds) Among men: Moulding masculinities, Vol. I (London: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 184–211; C. Miller-Idriss, ‘Soldier, sailor, rebel, rule-breaker: Masculinity and the body in the German far right’, Gender and Education, 29:2, (2017), pp. 199–215; E. Pearson, (2020). ‘Gendered reflections? Extremism in the UK’s radical right and al-Muhajiroun networks’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1759270;. Simi, Bubolz & Hardman, 2013, op cit; F. Virchow, 2008, ‘Die Bedeutung von Männlichkeitsstereotypen im Rechtsextremismus.” Manuscript for Brave Mädels und echte Kerle? Theorie und Wirklichkeit von Geschlechtsrollen im Rechtsextremismus.’ Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Conference, Berlin, 23. January 2008, cited in Miller-Idriss, 2017, p. 206.

7 S. Darby, Sisters in hate: American women on the front lines of white nationalism. (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 2020); W. Grzebalska and A. Petö, ‘The gendered modus operandi of the illiberal transformation in Hungary and Poland’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 68 (2018), pp. 164–172; J. Mulholland, N. Montagna and E. Sanders-McDonagh (eds), Gendering nationalism (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2018); M. Sehgal, ‘Mothering the nation: Maternalist frames in the Hindu nationalist movement in India’, in K. Blee and S. Deutsch (eds), Women of the right: Comparisons and interplay across borders (State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2012), pp. 192–210.

8 K. Blee, Women of the Klan: Racism and gender in the 1920s. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991); J. Busher, The making of anti-Muslim protest: Grassroots activism in the English Defence League (London: Routledge, 2016); Pearson, 2020, op.cit., E. Sanders-McDonagh, ‘Women’s support for UKIP: Exploring gender, nativism, and the populist radical right (PRR)’, in J. Mulholland, E. Sanders-McDonagh and N. Montagna (eds), Gendering nationalism: Intersections of nation, gender and sexuality in the 21st century (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 203–219; O. Szekely, ‘Exceptional inclusion: Understanding the PKK’s gender policy’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 2020. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1759265

9 The scope of this article is limited by being confined to scholarship published in English. And it draws more extensively from studies of the USA and Europe than elsewhere, reflecting both my research focus and, as discussed below, global North–centred assumptions about the nation-state that are foundational in the concept of far-right politics.

10 C. Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987).

11 V. De Grazia, How fascism ruled women: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993).

12 K. Blee, 1991, op.cit.; N. MacLean, Behind the mask of chivalry: The making of the second Ku Klux Klan (Oxford University Press, 1995); more recently, L. Gordon, The second coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American political tradition (New York: Liveright, 2017).

13 K. Blee, 1991 op.cit.; K. Blee, Understanding racist activism: Theory, methods, and research. (New York: Routledge, 2018); R. Ely and I. Padavic, ‘A feminist analysis of organizational research on sex differences’, Academy of Management Review, 32:4 (2007), pp. 1121–1143.

14 For a discussion of the similar situation of gender in terrorism studies, see A. Gasztold, Feminist perspectives on terrorism: Critical approaches to security studies (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020).

15 (Pearson, 2020), p. 3; see also S. Walby, The future of feminism. (Cambridge: Polity, 2011).

16 F. Scrinzi, ‘Gendering activism in populist radical right parties: A comparative study of women’s and men’s participation in the Northern League (Italy) and the National Front (France)’ (Preliminary analysis report, March 2014). https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/sociology/projects/genderingactivisminpopulistradicalrightparties/publications/preliminary%20report/; see also P. Bacchetta and M. Power (eds), Right-wing women: From conservatives to extremists around the world (New York: Routledge, 2002); K. Blee and S. Deutsch (eds), Women of the right: Comparisons and interplay across borders (State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2012); M. Köttig, R. Bitzan, and A. Petö (eds), Gender and far-right politics in Europe (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); C. Miller-Idriss and H. Pilkington (eds), Gender and the radical and extreme right (London: Routledge, 2018); J. Mulholland, N. Montagna and E. Sanders-McDonagh (eds), Gendering nationalism (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2018).

17 See N. Mayer, ‘From Jean-Marie to Marine Le Pen: Electoral change on the far right’, Parliamentary Affairs, 66:1 (2013), pp. 160–178; S. Meret, ‘Charismatic female leadership and gender: Pia Kjærsgaard and the Danish People’s Party’, Patterns of Prejudice, 49:1–2 (2015), pp. 81–102.

18 K. Blee, Inside organized racism: Women in the hate movement (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002); J. Busher, 2016, op.cit.; K. Fangen, ‘Separate or equal? The emergence of an all-female group in Norway’s rightist underground’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 9:3 (1997), pp. 122–164. M. Latif, K. Blee, M. DeMichele, P. Simi and S. Alexander, ‘Why white supremacist women become disillusioned, and why they leave’, The Sociological Quarterly, 61:3 (2020), pp. 367–388; A.A. Mattheis, ‘Shieldmaidens of whiteness: (Alt) maternalism and women recruiting for the far/alt-right’, Journal for Deradicalization, 17 (2018/2019), pp. 128–161; Simi & Futrell, op cit., 2010.

19 K. Fangen, 1998, op. cit.; F, Virchow 2008, as cited in Miller-Idriss, 2017, p. 205; D. Duriesmith and N.H. Ismail, ‘Militarized masculinities beyond methodological nationalism: Charting the multiple masculinities of an Indonesian jihadi’, International Theory, 11:2 (2019), pp. 139–159.

20 K. Fangen, 2003, op.cit.; M. Kimmel, ‘Racism as adolescent male rite of passage: Ex-Nazis in Scandinavia’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36:2 (2007), pp. 202–218; Miller-Idriss, 2017, op.cit.; C. Picciolini, Romantic violence: Memoirs of an American skinhead. (Chicago: Goldmill Group, 2015).

21 Busher op.cit.

22 See also Duriesmith & Ismail, op.cit., Pearson, 2020).

23 See, for example, K. Blee, 2002, op.cit.; K. Blee and A. Linden, ‘Women in extremist right parties and movements: A comparison of the Netherlands and the US’, in K. Blee and S. Deutsch (eds), Women of the right: Comparisons and interplay across borders (State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2012), pp. 98–114; Darby, 2020, op.cit.; Koonz, 1987, op.cit.; Mattheis, 2018/2019, op. cit.; Sehgal, 2012, op.cit.; A. Sen, ‘Teach your girls to stab, not sing’: Right-wing activism, public knife distribution, and the politics of gendered self-defense in Mumbai, India. Signs, 33:3 (2019), pp. 743–770; Teitelbaum, 2017, op.cit.

24 K. Blee, ‘Does gender matter in the United States far-right?’ Politics, Religion & Ideology, 13:2 (2012), pp. 253–265; K. Blee, M. DeMichele, P. Simi and M. Latif, ‘How racial violence is provoked and channeled’, Socio, 9 (2017), pp. 257–276; Kimmel, 2007, op.cit.; M. Latif, K. Blee, M. DeMichele and P. Simi, ‘Do white supremacist women adopt movement archetypes of mother, whore, and fighter?’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2020). Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1759264; P. Simi, K. Blee, M. DeMichele and S. Windisch, ‘Addicted to hate: Identity residual among former white supremacists’, American Sociological Review, 82:6 (2017) pp. 1167–1187; S. Walby, ‘Is Europe cascading into fascism? Addressing key concepts including gender and violence’, Politics and Governance, 6:3 (2018), pp. 67–77.See also C. Banks, ‘Introduction: Women, gender, and terrorism: Gendering terrorism’, Women & Criminal Justice, 29:4–5 (2019), pp. 181–187; M. Bloom and A. Lokmanoglu, ‘From pawn to knights: The changing role of women’s agency in terrorism?’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2020). Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1759263; Duriesmith & Ismail, op.cit.; H. Matfess, ‘Part and parcel? Examining Al Shabaab and Boko Haram’s violence targeting civilians and violence targeting women’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2020). Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1759262

25 K. Belew, Bring the war home: The white power movement and paramilitary America. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019); Blee, 2002, op.cit.; Latif, Blee, DeMichele, Simi & Alexander, 2020, op.cit.

26 C. Miller-Idriss & H. Pilkington, ‘In search of the missing link: Gender, education and the radical right’, Gender and Education, 29:2 (2017), pp. 133–146.

27 F. Scrinzi, ‘2014, op.cit.

28 E. Pearson, ‘Extremismq and toxic masculinity: The man question re-posed’, International Affairs, 95:6 (2019), pp. 1251–1270.

29 M. Latif, K. Blee, M. DeMichele and P. Simi, ‘How emotional dynamics maintain and destroy white supremacist groups’, Humanity & Society, 42:4 (2018), pp. 480–501; Latif, Blee, DeMichele, Simi & Alexander, 2020, op.cit.

30 N. Spierings, M. Lubbers and A. Zaslove, ‘“Sexually modern nativist voters”: Do they exist and do they vote for the populist radical right?’ Gender and Education, 29:2 (2017), pp. 216–237.

31 V.M. Moghadam and G. Kaftan, ‘Right-wing populisms North and South: Varieties and gender dynamics’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 75 (2019).

32 Blee, 1991, op.cit.; Blee 2002, op. cit.; Latif, Blee, DeMichele & Simi, 2020, op.cit.; A, Koronaiou and A. Sakellariou, ‘Women and Golden Dawn: Reproducing the nationalist habitus’, Gender and Education, 29:2 (2017), pp. 258–275; Teitelbaum, 2014, op.cit.

33 E.S. Corredor, ‘Unpacking “gender ideology” and the global right’s antigender countermovement’, Signs, 44:3 (2019), pp. 613–638; S.R. Farris, In the name of women’s rights: The rise of femonationalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017); M. Verloo, ‘Gender knowledge, and opposition to the feminist project: Extreme-right populist parties in the Netherlands’, Politics and Governance, 6:3 (2018), pp. 20–30; M. Verloo and D. Paternotte, ‘The feminist project under threat in Europe’, Politics and Governance, 6:3 (2018), pp. 1–5.

34 G. Brustier, ‘France’, in E. Kováts and M. Põim (eds) Gender as symbolic glue (Budapest: Foundation for European Progressive Studies, 2015), pp. 19–40.

35 K. Blee, ‘Women and organized racial terrorism in the U.S.’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 28:3 (2005), pp. 421–433.

36 Cas Mudde, ‘The populist zeitgeist’, Government and Opposition, 39:4 (2004), pp. 542–563.

37 Blee, 1991, op.cit.

38 See, for example, M. Avanza, ‘Plea for an emic approach towards “ugly movements”: Lessons from the divisions within the Italian pro-life movement’, Politics and Governance, 6:3 (2018) pp. 112–125; Koronaiou & Sakellariou, 2017, op.cit.; D. Mulinari and A. Neergaard, ‘Doing racism, performing femininity: Women in the Sweden Democratsì’, in M. Köttig, R. Bitzan and A. Petö (eds) Gender and far-right politics in Europe (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 13–27; O.C. Norocel, ‘Antifeminist and truly liberated: Conservative performances of gender by women politicians in Hungary and Romania’, Politics and Governance, 6:3 (2018), pp. 43–54; Verloo, 2018, op.cit.; Verloo & Paternotte, 2018, op.cit.; T. Ylä-Anttlia and E. Luhtakallio, ‘Contesting gender equality politics in Finland: The Finns Party effect’, in M. Köttig, R. Bitzan and A. Petö (eds) Gender and Far-Right Politics in Europe (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 29–48.

39 Corredor, 2019, op.cit.; P. Ďurinová, ‘Slovakia’, in E. Kováts and M. Põim (eds) Gender as symbolic glue (Budapest: Foundation for European Progressive Studies, (2015), pp. 104–125; M.F. Johnston, M. Iqbal and J. True ‘The lure of (violent) extremism: Gender constructs in online recruitment and messaging in Indonesia’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2020). Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.17592; R. Kuhar, ‘Playing with science: Sexual citizenship and the Roman Catholic Church counter-narratives in Slovenia and Croatia’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 49 (2015), pp. 84–92; A.B. Martins Teixeria, ‘A growing threat to human rights? Gender and political ideologies in Brazil’, Gender and Education, 31:7 (2019), pp. 938–994; D. Paternotte and R. Kuhar, ‘Disentangling and locating the “global right”: Anti-gender campaigns in Europe’, Politics and Governance, 6:3 (2018), pp. 6–19; A. Pető, ‘Eastern Europe: Gender research, knowledge production and institutions?’ in Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2019), pp. 1535–1545.

40 Farris, 2017, op. cit.

41 Bacchetta & Power, 2002, op.cit.; W. Grzebalska, ‘Poland’, in E. Kováts and M. Põim (eds) Gender as symbolic glue (Budapest: Foundation for European Progressive Studies, 2015), pp. 83–103; Koronaiou & Sakellariou, 2017, op.cit.

42 Blee & Deutsch, 2012, op.cit.

43 K. Fallon and J. Moreau ‘Righting Africa? Contextualizing the notions of women’s right-wing activism in sub-Saharan Africa’, in K. Blee and S. Deutsch (eds) Women of the right: Comparisons and exchanges across national borders (State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2012), pp. 68–80.

44 See, for example, K. Fangen, 1998, op.cit.

45 P.A. Dignam and D.A. Rohlinger, ‘Misogynistic men online: How the red pill helped elect Donald Trump’, Signs, 44:3 (2019), pp. 589–612

46 C. Enloe, The big push: Exposing and challenging the persistence of patriarchy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2017).

47 Spierings & Zaslove, 2017, op.cit.; H. Coffé, ‘Gender and the radical right’, in J. Rydgren (ed) The Oxford handbook of the radical right (Oxford University Press 2018), pp. 200–211.

48 N. Mayer, ‘From Jean-Marie to Marine Le Pen: Electoral change on the far right’, Parliamentary Affairs, 66:1 (2013), pp. 160–178.

49 See also Pilkington, 2017, op. cit.

50 Mudde, 2004, op.cit.

51 Miller-Idriss, 2020, op.cit.

52 Blee, 2012, op.cit.

53 Sen, 2019, op.cit.

54 J. Daniels, ‘The algorithmic rise of the “alt-right”’, Contexts, 17:1 (2018), pp. 60–65; P.C. Díaz and N. Valji, ‘Symbiosis of misogyny and violent extremism: New understandings and policy implications’, Journal of International Affairs, 72:2 (2019), pp. 37–56; Futrell & Simi, 2017, op.cit.

55 R. Blazak, ‘The prison hate machine’, Criminology and Public Policy, 8:3 (2009), pp. 633–640; Miller-Idriss, 2020, op.cit.; Miller-Idriss & Pilkington, 2017, op.cit.; Simi & Futrell, 2010, op.cit.; Simi et al., 2013; S. Windisch, P. Simi, K. Blee and M. DeMichele, ‘Understanding the micro-situational dynamics of white supremacist violence in the United States’, Perspectives on Terrorism, 12:6 (2018), pp. 23–37.

56 Corredor, 2019, op.cit.; Grzebalska & Pető, 2018, op.cit.; C. Mason,‘Opposing abortion to protect women: Transnational strategy since the 1990s’, Signs, 44:3 (2019), pp. 665–692; Paternotte & Kuhar, 2018, op.cit.

57 Blee, 2017, op.cit.

58 Moghadam & Kaftan, 2019, op.cit.

59 Scrinzi, 2014, op.cit.

60 See Norocel, 2018, op.cit.

61 E. Kováts, ‘Questioning consensuses: Right-wing populism, anti-populism, and the threat of “gender ideology”’, Sociological Research Online, 23:2 (2018). pp. 528–538, p. 530.

62 Blee, 1991, op.cit.

63 Simi et al., 2013, op.cit.

64 Grzebalska and Pető 2018, op.cit.

65 Pető 2015, op.cit., p. 130.

66 C. Enloe, The curious feminist: Searching for women in a new age of empire. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).

67 R. Bitzan, ‘Research on gender and the far-right in Germany since 1990: Developments, findings, and future prospects’, in M. Köttig, R. Bitzan and A. Petö (eds) Gender and far-right politics in Europe (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 65–78, here at p. 69.

68 M. Della Sudda, ‘The Daughters of the Manif pour Tous: When right-wing ecology meets AlterFeminism’. Paper presented at the Inaugural Conference of the Center for Right-Wing Studies, University of California Berkeley, 25–27 April 2019.

69 Duriesmith and Ismail (2019, op.cit., at p. 155).

70 V. Asal, N. Avdan and N. Shuaibi, ‘Women too: Explaining gender ideologies of ethnopolitical organizations’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, (2020). Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1759256; A. Blum, ‘Germany’ in E. Kováts and M. Põim (eds) Gender as symbolic glue (Budapest: Foundation for European Progressive Studies, 2015), pp. 41–61; G. Brustier, ‘France’, in E. Kováts and M. Põim (eds) Gender as symbolic glue (Budapest: Foundation for European Progressive Studies, 2015), pp. 19–40; A. Félix, ‘Hungary’, in E. Kováts and M. Põim (eds) Gender as symbolic glue (Budapest: Foundation for European Progressive Studies, 2015), pp. 62–82; E. Pearson (2020), op.cit.

71 Pető (2015), op.cit., p. 130.

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