https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4653-0501
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ABSTRACT
In this article, we aim to explore how affects work within and through gender discourse in the Spanish far right. We address two burning topics: the connection of (anti)gender and far-right politics and the political potential of affects. Opposing traditional views, we argue that far-right groups are not exclusively driven by hate. In Vox leaders’ speeches, love appears as a political affective narrative with political effects. Love brings the ‘us’ together while creating an affective and political border between the ‘objects of love’ (nation, family, equality and men) and the ‘objects of hate’ (feminism, immigration, gender and sexual pluralism).
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. On the prevalence of fear and hate in far-right mobilisations, see, for example, Winter (Citation2019), Jost (Citation2019), Kuebler and Schopper (Citation2021), or Castro and Díaz (Citation2021).
2. In the Organic Law 2/3 March 2010, on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, abortion is decriminalised during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, and 16- and 17-year-old women do not need the permission or consent of their parents. This law was approved by PSOE (the social-democrats) in 2010 and, during the 2011 national electoral campaign, PP promised to suppress it. However, after huge feminist mobilisations, the conservative Spanish government decided only to modify the need for parental consent for 16- and 17-year-old women.
3. For example, other Spanish far-right parties, such as España2000 (Spain 2000) and Plataforma per Catalunya (Platform for Catalonia), joined Vox or decided not to run in the 2019 national elections in order to support Vox.
4. Ferreira (Citation2019) argues that populism is less present in Vox. However, we consider that Vox has completed its ‘populist turn.’ Also, Turnbull-Dugarte (Citation2019, p. 2) classifies Vox within the populist radical right (PRR) family due to its clear similarities with the rest of the European PRR parties.
5. All translations are made by the authors. Original speeches were in Spanish.
6. In the beginning, Vox maintained a clear opposition to same-sex relationships. In the party’s first national electoral manifesto, it is claimed that the ‘natural family’ is only formed by a man and a woman (Vox Citation2015). Once the party arrived in mainstream politics, this sentence was erased from its manifestos. However, Vox is still against same-sex marriage and proposes the term ‘civil union’ instead.
7. Grzebalska and Pető (Citation2018) define familialism as ‘a form of biopolitics which views the traditional family as a foundation of the nation and subjugates individual reproductive and self-determination rights to the normative demand of the reproduction of the nation’ (p. 167).
8. This refers to the feminist chant: ‘Alone and drunk, I want to get home.’ It is used to highlight women’s vulnerability and men’s impunity in sexual assaults when women are drunk. Its popularity in the Spanish right-wing is due to the use of this expression in a tweet announcing the approval of the Sexual Freedom Law (see note 8) posted by the Ministry of Equality.
9. The Sexual Freedom Law has the objective to ensure women’s right to live free of sexual violence. The law declares that sexual encounters are only consensual when there is an affirmative response, guaranteeing the feminist ‘only yes is yes.’
10. Ministry of Equality’s tweet announcing the approval of the Sexual Freedom Law. Available online at: https://twitter.com/IgualdadGob/status/1234812417101660161?s=20.
11. In Spain, the Organic Law 3/2007, of 22 March 2007, for the effective equality of women and men, establishes the requirement for ‘a well-balanced presence of men and women on electoral candidates lists.’ This meant that, when compiling the lists, political parties must maintain a 60–40 ratio between men and women. This mandatory ratio in the candidates’ lists is what Vox calls a ‘quota system’.
12. In September 2019, an Iranian delegation planned to visit the Spanish Congress. The protocol sent to the national MPs to prepare this visit discriminated against women, prohibiting them from shaking hands with Iranian men or looking them in the eyes. Vox publicly denounced the situation and Congress ended up cancelling all meetings with the Iranian delegation.
13. During the rally, references to Islam appeared only twice: in Macarena Olona’s speech and in a commentary made by Rocío Monasterio arguing that Islam is a patriarchal religion. However, when writing about Vox’s othering of migrants, one of the authors spontaneously wrote ‘Muslim men.’ Despite the lack of explicitness, following Wodak (Citation2001), we decided to maintain the word Muslim (but in brackets) because it makes explicit today’s racial and political context: in Spain, the immigrant (as a national alien) tends to be embodied by the Muslim man.
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Notes on contributors
Alexandre Pichel-Vázquez
Alexandre Pichel-Vázquez is a predoctoral researcher at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and a member of the research group ‘MEDUSA: Genders in Transition. Masculinities, Bodies and Affects’ (UOC). He holds a BA in Political Science and two MAs in Communication and Gender Studies respectively. His work focuses on the different interactions between gender, body and affects in the Spanish far right.
Begonya Enguix Grau
Begonya Enguix Grau is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). She is the leader of the research group ‘MEDUSA: Genders in Transition. Masculinities, Bodies and Affects’ (UOC). She lectures and conducts research on gender (particularly masculinities), bodies, sexualities, affects, identities, and their assemblage with the media, activism and politics.