Right-wing populism and safe identities

ABSTRACT

Recent events such as the US presidential campaign have polarised public opinion, particularly in terms of support for ‘populist’ political figures, e.g. Donald Trump, and the seemingly non-egalitarian ideologies that they promote. One might anticipate that disempowered social groups, such as women or sexual minorities, would reject ‘rightwing populism’, as it rarely appears to advocate their interests or facilitate their empowerment. Yet the existence of movements like ‘Gays for Trump’ and ‘#WomenWhoVoteTrump’ indicate more complex patterns of support. How might we understand this from gender and sexualities perspectives? This paper presents the proceedings of a round table discussion. Our contributors, members of a crossinstitutional social psychological Gender and Sexualities Research Group, each presented a brief five-minute interpretation of the phenomenon. They did so from gender and/or sexualities perspectives, drawing upon different social psychological theory. A chaired debate followed. Key themes from the round table are identified which are potentially helpful in understanding the phenomenon. The broader implications of these themes for practice and theory are considered in terms of the concept of ‘safe identities’.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• political masculinities
• right-wing populism
• safe identities
• sexualities
• sexism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Rosemary Lobban is based at the University of Greenwich, London. Her current work demonstrates how social constructionist and gender theory can facilitate novel insights into the nature and function of (hetero)sexist microaggressions. She has published work, presented papers and co-organised conferences on social psychological and interdisciplinary perspectives on gender and related research methods.

Russell Luyt is Head of the School of Human Sciences at the University of Greenwich, London. He has published widely in the field of men and masculinities. His work is focused primarily on the social psychology of gender, looking at the cross-cultural intersection of gender, ‘race’ and social class; the critique of traditional masculinity, femininity and gender measurement; media representations; masculinities and aggression; masculinities, prejudice and sexual minorities; and qualitative methodologies.

Sam Martin’s research is focussed on developing QueerViBE, an online practical intervention that aims to empower transgender, queer and questioning (TQQ) youth using applied discourse analysis and interactive video tutorials. They have a master’s degree in Psychodynamic Counselling and Psychotherapy and have published work about counselling as a site for the dilemmatic negotiation of masculinities.

Ashley Brooks is a member of Anglia Ruskin University’s Gender and Sexualities research group and is an independent scholar based in British Columbia, Canada. To date, his research has focused on how heterosexual ‘audiences’ negotiate sexuality disclosure – ‘coming out’ – by others, and on developing a novel framework and psychometric measure of ambivalent prejudice towards gay men, delineating hostile (repellent and adversarial) and benevolent (romanticised and paternalistic) prejudices.

Daragh McDermott is Head of School and Principal Lecturer in Psychology in the School of Psychology and Sport Science at Anglia Ruskin University. His research focusses on human sexuality, the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people, and testing the efficacy of interventions designed to ameliorate prejudice towards sexual and gender minorities. Examples of ongoing work include the development of a novel theory of ambivalent prejudice towards gay men and the use of Information and Communications Technologies as a means of developing resilience and wellbeing in LGBTQ+ young people.

Dr Magdalena Zawisza-Riley is a Reader in the School of Psychology and Sport Science at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Her research interests include gender, consumer and social psychology and focus mainly on issues of gender, sexism and advertising. She is a co-editor of The Routledge International Handbook of Consumer Psychology and a review editor of Frontiers’ Gender, Sex and Sexuality Studies section. She runs her own research consultancy, Insights, devoted to responsible advertising, and publishes in leading peer-reviewed journals. Her work has attracted media attention from The Independent, the BBC and Newsweek, and was recognised by the Advertising Standards Authority, among others.

ORCID

Rosemary Lobban http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7680-8514

Daragh McDermott http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7005-6446

Notes

1 Tajfel himself did not recognise the value of applying Social Identity Theory to the study of gendered phenomena, although this endeavour was taken up later by a number of women who had studied under his supervision. Notably, allegations of sexual misconduct have recently clouded his psychological heritage (Young & Hegarty, 2019).