Special Edition: Politics & Gender, Vol. 19, Issue 3
Papers on gender and right wing politics, morality, and more
Welcome to a special edition of the Gender and Politics Research Substack. A few times every year, we’ll be partnering with the team at Politics & Gender, the journal, and summarizing their latest publication. A big thanks to Majka Hahn for summarizing the articles below.
Linders, Nik, Stefan Dudink, and Niels Spierings. 2023. "Masculinity and sexuality in populist radical right leadership." Politics & Gender, 19(3): 653-674.
If appeals to masculinity are an appeal of the populist radical right (PRR) for voters, what do these appeals to masculinity actually look like on the part of leaders? This paper investigates this under-studied supply side question. In doing so, the authors are making both a theoretical and empirical contribution to the study of the PRR. Their theoretical contribution lies in asking how masculinity and sexuality are related to the central concept of the PRR, namely the vox populi – i.e. the “us” of “us vs. them” populist politics. Empirically, the authors look at the discourse of 3 Dutch PRR leaders from different political parties using a critical discourse analysis approach. In looking at several parties of the “crucial case” that is the Netherlands, the authors are able to draw conclusion about the discourse of PRR leadership at large.
Their findings demonstrate that PRR discourses are gendered but function differently between parties. Leaders use gender to both criticizes existing hegemonies and political actors as well as position themselves as uniquely qualified populist leaders due in part to their gender position. However, the ways in which leaders use masculinity and sexuality in their discourses is disparate from each other. These findings remind us that, as argued by other scholars of populism, the PRR is not monolithic but rather is composed of parties making their own unique (gendered) arguments for populist politics.
La Barbera, MariaCaterina, Julia Espinosa-Fajardo, and Paloma Caravantes. 2023. “Implementing Intersectionality in Public Policies: Key Factors in the Madrid City Council, Spain.” Politics & Gender, 19(3): 675–702.
When asking how intersectionality moves from theory to praxis, we can overlook those working in institutions to integrate concepts like intersectionality into policy. In this piece, the authors avoid this by asking how technical staff at the municipal level translate the goal of intersectionality into policy. They take as their case the implementation of the Madrid Human Rights Strategic Plan (2017-2019) which listed as one of its goals the integration of intersectionality into policymaking. The qualitative study comprised of interviews, focus groups, documentary analysis and participant observation. Through this multi-pronged approach, the authors were able to identify the key challenges faced in implementing intersectionality into policy.
The authors find that the tasks of implementing intersectionality in policy is hindered by five factors. First, technical staff are impeded by a lack of legal frameworks and precises guidelines to direct implementation. Second, different understandings of the definition of intersectionality pose an obstacle. Third, technical staff do not receive the training necessary to implement policy. Fourth, the work structure of the municipal government compartmentalized workers further hindering research. Fifth, problems with data (mis)use occurred due to the need for disaggregated data posed by the nature of intersectionality. These factors point to need for extensive resources in the implementation of intersectional policy.
Kreutzer, Willow. “Women’s Support Shaken: A Study of Women’s Political Trust after Natural Disasters.” Politics & Gender, 19(3): 703–33.
Do natural disasters have a gendered effect on political trust? Through a multilevel analysis using data from the World Values Survey and the Emergency Events Database, Kreutzer asks whether the gendered effects of natural disasters translate to gendered patterns in post-disaster trust in government institutions. The paper asks how the severity and distribution of harms caused by natural disasters might affect the political trust of women.
Kreutzer finds that women’s institutional trust—i.e. their trust in institutions of government like police and the armed forces—decreases when there are many disasters in a country in which a larger percentage of the population faces harm. As women experience these natural disasters and see government institutions fail to meet the needs of themselves and their neighbors, women loose trust in the government to come to their aid. As natural disasters become more common and governments continue to fail to come to the aid of those women who are affected, this lack of government trust could yield dire consequences for those who are most vulnerable.
Allam, Nermin. 2023. "Women’s Unveiling in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising: Political Opportunities and Modesty Politics." Politics & Gender, 19(3): 734–55.
Why did some of the women participating in the 2011 Egyptian Uprising choose to remove their veils? Allam connects the participation in collective action to women’s personal decision to remove their hijabs. Through field research and interviews with Egyptian women who participated in the 2011 uprising and chose to remove their veils either during the protests or soon afterwards, the author identifies key themes surrounding the decision.
Allam connects unveiling to participating in protest through three pathways. These pathways connect unveiling to other oppositional acts against the ruling government. First, Allum argues that the gendered morality promoted by the regime with regards to women’s participation opened the opportunity for women to question the roles ascribed to them. Second, the uprising against Islamist politics allowed for unveiling to be framed as political. Finally, participation in the uprising exposed women to social networks and people who understood the importance of the veil differently from themselves. These pathways illustrate the different ways that participating in protest led to the decision to unveil for these women.
Note: we covered this paper in our November 2022 issue here.
Lee, Young-Im. 2023. “A Trailblazer or a Barrier? Dynastic Politics and Symbolic Representation of the First Female President of South Korea, Park Geun-Hye.” Politics & Gender: 19(3): 756–80.
What factors shape the effects of women’s symbolic representation? Lee, in her paper investigating the legacy of former South Korea Prime Minister Park Geun-hye, identifies two factors: controversy and political dynasty. Through an original survey and focus groups the author asks South Koreas what they think about the tenure of their first female Primer Minister and what it means for other women seeking office in South Korea.
Lee finds that the historical win of a first woman as Prime Minister in this case is mitigated by her background. Due to her place in a political dynasty, survey respondents did not see Park Geun-hye’s election as a win for women’s symbolic representation. Women voters shared concerns that her impeachment and subsequent conviction would make it harder for other women to run for office. Overall, there was pessimisms about women’s future electoral prospects. These findings remind us to look beyond gender and consider other aspects of female leaders’ backgrounds when assessing their impact.
Miura, Mari, Kenneth Mori McElwain, and Tomoki Kaneko. “Explaining Public Support for Gender Quotas: Sexism, Representational Quality, and State Intervention in Japan.” Politics & Gender, 19(3): 781–805.
Why do some people want to see more women in legislature but do not support gender quotas? This “principle-policy” puzzle is at the centre of the authors paper exploring opinions about gender quotas in Japan. Using original survey data, the authors investigate the mechanisms underlying attitudes towards gender quotas that could explain this puzzle.
The authors find that two factors have strong effects on support for gender quotas even among those who support the ‘principle’ that more women should be in the legislature. Modern sexism, a belief that women are not running for office because they do not want to or that quotas would put unqualified women in office, is the first factor that accounts for opposition to gender quotes. Second, concerns about the appropriateness of government intervention are associated with respondents’ negative attitudes towards quotas. These finds demonstrate that focusing on the principle of gender quotas is not enough, rather the policy and its perceived effectiveness and appropriateness drives citizens’ attitudes.
Brisbane, Laura, Whitney Hua, and Thomas Jamieson. “Morality and the Glass Ceiling: How Elite Rhetoric Reflects Gendered Strategies and Perspectives.” Politics & Gender, 19(3): 806–40.
Politicians uses moral rhetoric to signal their party affiliations and credentials, but how is this signally affected by gender? How do female politicians use moral rhetoric to strategically navigate partisan politics? The authors in this paper explore this question through an analysis of 2.23 million tweets but U.S. Congress members from 2013-2021 using the Moral Foundation Dictionary. This analysis focuses on five factors of morality: care, fairness, authority, loyalty, and purity.
Their findings demonstrate that unique gendered moral language is at play, but only for Democrats. Democratic women, compared to men in their party, are more likely to evoke a morality of care and less likely to use a morality of authority and loyalty. On the other hand, there is no difference between the moral language of Republican women and men. The strategic use of gendered moral rhetoric is thus contingent on party affiliation.
Glaurdić, Josip, and Christophe Lesschaeve. 2023. “Choosing Women in Postwar Elections: Exposure to War Violence, Ideology, and Voters’ Gender Bias.” Politics & Gender, 19(3): 841–66.
We have good evidence that after conflict, women’s descriptive representation improves, but we know less about the relationship between exposure to conflict and voters’ support for female candidates. In their paper, Glaurdic and Lesschave take the case of Croatia to investigate how the Croatian 1991-1995 War of Independence affected gender bias in voting in the 2015, 2016 and 2020 open-list parliamentary elections. Through both survey data and an aggregate-level analysis of candidate-level data, they find that gender bias against female candidates is conditional on key factors.
In their candidate-level analysis, the authors find that voters for right-wing parties are more biased against female candidates. This is also the case for voters who were exposed to conflict during the war. The survey data reveals that there is an interactive effect on gender bias in voting between being a right-wing party voter and exposure to violence. The results of this study point to the long-term effects of conflict on voting behavior.
Sullivan, Katherine V. R. 2023. “‘Don’t Put Color in Your Hair, Don’t Do This, Don’t Do That’: Canadian Mayors’ Mixed Gender Performance on Social Media.” Politics & Gender, 19(3): 867–90.
What does online gender performance look like for female mayors in Canada? In her paper, Sullivan adds to the limited literature on Canadian mayors through an investigation of their digital political images. She conducts a visual content analysis of mayoral posts on their professional Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. She pairs this analysis with semi-structured interviews with mayors to reveal the gendered difference in the presentations of male and female mayors.
Sullivan demonstrates that mixed gender performances are present for all mayors regardless of gender. Male mayors, however, are able to perform in both gender congruent and gender incongruent ways. Female mayors, on the other hand, must deploy avoidance strategies when they perform in ways demed gender incongruent . The interviews in this study support these findings from the visual analysis; female mayors report the need to navigate through comments about their gender performance and they act accordingly to strategically modify their appearance. While all mayors perform a continuum of gender, in doing so, female mayors face more obstacles.