“A protest of angry men.”
It has been a common characterization of radical right-wing parties in the 21st century.
They have been men’s parties. Both the voters, the political themes and the party people have been emphatically masculine.
In recent years, however, more and more women have cleared their way to the leadership of the radical right.
In Denmark, Norway, Germany, Finland, Italy and France, the far right is now led by a woman.
You can get to know them by browsing the cards below.
There are big political differences between these women-led parties, for example in economic issues and attitudes towards Russia.
However, the parties are united by anti-immigration, defense of conservative family values and opposition to feminism.
In particular, it is in conflict with the latter two goals that women in parties lead political activities or entire nations.
Why have these parties chosen women as their leaders?
Lone Fighters
Many far-right female leaders have an interesting feature in common. They themselves do not live according to traditional gender roles and family values.
– I’m Giorgia. I am a woman, a mother, an Italian, a Christian, and no one can take that away from me! Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni roared in his campaign speech in 2019.
Despite being a Christian, Meloni has not married the father of her child.
Chairman of the German AFD Alice Weidel on the other hand, is dating a woman born in Sri Lanka, and together they have two adopted children.
In France, the president of the National Front Marine Le Pen has divorced her husband.
The contradiction does not harm the voters of the parties, the researchers interviewed by emphasize. Female leaders are committed to the politics and ideology of their own parties.
The female leaders of the far right appear as some kind of exceptional individuals. This is what a researcher working at the European University Institute in Florence says by Costanza Herman.
– Even though they are women, they represent masculine traits. They are strong. They fight. They use violent language and racist expressions. So they are similar to the fighting male leaders, says Hermanin.
Female leaders also don’t try to empower other women or raise them to the top, Hermanin states.
In addition, the female leaders of the far-right often keep their private lives, which deviate from the norm, completely separate from politics, points out Ov Cristian Norocel.
Norocel is an associate professor at Lund University who studies gender and the radical right.
He mentions, for example, Alice Weidel, whose female friend has lived in Switzerland throughout Weidel’s political career. That’s why Weidel doesn’t annoy the party’s voters who oppose the rights of sexual minorities.
Winning women voters as a strategy
The change of power at the top of the far-right reflects a broader change in the social atmosphere, the researchers estimate.
Women have increasingly risen to decision-making positions in European societies.
According to Norocel, populist right-wing parties are sensitive to detecting these changes and reacting to them.
– The strengthening of gender equality in politics is such a strong trend throughout Europe that if these parties did not react to it in any way, it would lead to an election loss, says Norocel.
Choosing a female leader is a way to communicate that gender equality is taken seriously.
Far-right parties are according to researches promoted women to prominent positions specifically to attract more female voters.
However, in light of the statistics, the parties are still popular with men.
When Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in 2016, he got only 39 percent of the female vote. In the next election, the proportion of women who voted for Trump already increased to 44 percent, but was still clearly lower than the share of men.
In Finland, the Basic Finns got in the 2019 elections significantly more votes from men than women. No research has yet been published about the last election, but Eva’s spring according to the value survey the differences in the party positions of men and women had grown even more.
Also in Sweden between the sexes voting behavior differs.
However, Meloni’s party in Italy and Le Pen in France have received as many or even more votes from women than from men.
With the help of the images brought by a female leader, far-right parties can try to undo some of the prejudices against them, says a professor at the University of Helsinki who studies the politics of European societies and gender equality. Johanna Kantola.
– For example, female leaders can be thought of as more difficult to accuse of sexism, even if their policies are against women’s rights or gender equality, says Kantola.
The same ideology with a different coating
Norocel also thinks that the selection of female managers is above all about creating images.
– It’s not about an ideological change, but about changing the messenger to a woman. It can make the message less threatening, Norocel says.
According to studies, it is above all the too radical image of the parties or excessive focus on one issue that repels female voters, says Norocel.
So the ideology can be kept as radical, but it is just coated in a different way.
Hermanin points out that men do not give leadership positions in far-right parties to women.
– These women are fighters, and they fight like men. That’s why they win, says Hermanin.
In many other parties, women’s rise to decision-making positions is held back by the fact that they do not behave like their male colleagues, Hermanin believes. He reminds that in the majority of European countries, the leadership of the ruling parties is still dominated by men.
In many cases, the rise of women to the top of the far-right party has also not changed the male dominance of the field and MPs.
In Italy, for example, there are fewer female ministers in Meloni’s government than before, and there is only one female representative in his party’s nine-member European Parliament group.
Johanna Kantola emphasizes that the rise of women to political leadership positions does not happen by itself, but requires active measures aimed at equality – often also quotas.
– Right-wing populist parties often oppose these measures. The parties rather emphasize individuals and the merits of individuals, and they do not actively commit to promoting equality, says Kantola.
The effects on equality are contradictory
Typically, the far-right has emphasized that it protects women’s rights from external threats. Especially immigrant and Muslim men are defined as such. In addition, the parties have demanded tougher punishments for sexual crimes.
In other respects, women’s rights have received little attention in the parties.
Basic Finns have systematically voted against laws aimed at improving the status of women, it appeared From Iltalehti’s report.
In Italy, Giorgia Meloni has actively weakened the rights of sexual and gender minorities in particular as prime minister.
In Sweden, worked as a spokeswoman for the Sweden Democrats’ equality policy Ebba Hermansson resigned from the Swedish Parliament in 2021. He told the reason that the Swedish Democrats did not take sexual harassment by non-foreign men seriously.
Still, female leaders of the far-right can bring up issues related to gender equality, either unintentionally or intentionally, Kantola estimates.
For example, the election of Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s first female prime minister broke one glass ceiling.
Kantola also mentions July’s NATO summit in Vilnius, where Meloni unexpectedly interrupted the press conference. Meloni said the reason was that she couldn’t stand standing in her high heels right then.
Politico magazine writethat such a comment in such a masculine environment as the NATO summit would have been impossible to hear from the older generation of female leaders who have avoided showing weakness.
According to Kantola, there is now a discussion among Italian researchers and feminists about whether Meloni reveals some masculine structures of politics and what it is like to be a woman in politics.
– Their attitude towards Melon is very contradictory.
However, according to Kantola, the most important thing in terms of equality is the policy made by populist right-wing parties. Female leaders have not changed that.
Video editing and image delivery: Marja Väänänen
Graphics: Harri Vähäkangas