Politics, Religion & Ideology ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftmp21 Editorial: special issue on gender and the far right Katrine Fangen & Inger Skjelsbæk To cite this article: Katrine Fangen & Inger Skjelsbæk (2020) Editorial: special issue on gender and the far right, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 21:4, 411-415 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2020.1851866 Published online: 05 Jan 2021. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ftmp21 POLITICS, RELIGION & IDEOLOGY 2020, VOL. 21, NO. 4, 411–415 https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2020.1851866 Editorial: special issue on gender and the far right Debates about, as well as changes in, gender norms and gender policies have great potential for political mobilization: they encircle social and political developments as movements towards societal stabilization—or its opposite, destabilization. Contested issues include abortion, family policy, whether women are by nature more suited for childcare than men, sex education in schools, teaching of gender studies at universities, views on sexual minorities (including homosexuals’ right to marry and to adopt children). Positions on these issues follow political dividing lines, with the far right at one end of the spectrum. At the same time as the global governance system is pushing for increased gender equality, there are powerful forces opposed to such a goal. Anti-feminist and anti-gender-equality sentiments mark new nationalist policies and rhetoric, as well as populist and extremist mobilization. Several scholars have argued that we are witnessing the rise of a new form of patriarchy and masculine norms and grievances, as well as the fear of a low of traditional values.1 Male resentment and victimhood among certain groups is heralded as one of many explanatory factors for much of the nationalist mobilization and political change observed in recent years: from the coming to power of Donald J. Trump in the USA, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, to Brexit and illiberal democratic developments in Europe.2 Against this backdrop, the centrality of gendered arguments and gendered policies to the far right has become increasingly clear. This is evident not only in national policies, as recently exemplified by the ban on abortion in Poland and the ban on gender studies in Hungary, but also in far-right populist parties and the importance accorded to family policies and traditional gender roles,3 and in the utilization of support for women’s (and sometimes gay) rights, particularly in arguments against Islam. Further, more and more women are engaging at all levels of the far right—as followers, members and leaders4—and this upswing comes at a time when threats from the far right have spurred increasing security concerns in many Western European countries.5 Research on the importance of gender for the 1 C. Enloe, The Big Push: Exposing and Challenging the Persistence of Patriarchy (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017); P.E. Johnson, ‘The Art of Masculine Victimhood: Donald Trump’s Demagoguery’, Women’s Studies in Communication, 40:3 (2017), pp. 229–250. doi:10.1080/07491409.2017.1346533; A.R. Hochschild. ‘The Ecstatic Edge of Politics: Sociology and Donald Trump’, Contemporary Sociology, 45:6 (2016), pp. 683–689. doi:10.1177/0094306116671947. 2 Enloe op.cit.; R. Kuhar and D. Paternotte, ‘“Gender Ideology” in Movement: Introduction’ in R. Kuhar and D. Paternotte (eds) Anti-gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing Against Equality (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), pp. 1–22; S. Reicher and S.A. Haslam, ‘The Politics of Hope: Donald Trump as an Entrepreneur of Identity’ in M. Fitzduff (ed), Why Irrational Politics Appeals: Understanding the Allure of Trump (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2017), pp. 25–40. 3 T. Akkerman, ‘Gender and the Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Aagendas’, Patterns of Prejudice, 49:1–2 (2015), pp. 37–60. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2015.1023655. 4 C. Miller-Idriss and H. Pilkington, ‘Women are Joining the Far Right—We Need to Understand Why’, The Guardian, 24 January 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/24/women-far-right-gender-roles-radical-rightmigrant-muslim. 5 Deutsche Welle (9 July 2020). ‘Number of Right-wing Extremists in Germany on Rise, Security Report Suggests’, https:// www.dw.com/en/germany-right-wing-extremists/a-54105110; V. Dodd and J. Grierson, ‘Fastest-growing UK Terrorist Threat is from Far Right, Say police’, The Guardian, 19 September 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ 2019/sep/19/fastest-growing-uk-terrorist-threat-is-from-far-right-say-police; France24 (19 March 2019), ‘European © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 412 EDITORIAL far right includes studies of gendered voter support6 and of the gender of leaders and followers of far-right parties and movements.7 If we are to grasp, respond to and conceptualize the far right, then, gender analyses are essential. Such analyses can help us not only to understand the intersection of gender and politics within the far right, but also to conceptualize the changing dynamics of this political phenomenon In this special issue, we present four articles that analyse the importance of gender for the far right. They are written from four very different angles, but all show how gender and the far right can be studied, as well as the kinds of insights that such studies might yield. The idea of producing this special issue came in May 2018, when we, the editors of the special issue, organized a workshop on gender and extremism for the Center for Research on Extremism (CREX) at the University of Oslo.8 Having identified scholars from different corners of the world and different disciplines who had contributed to the research field of gender and extremism, we invited 20 of them to Oslo. Many of them did not know each other; many had never attended a workshop or conference where the sole focus was gender and extremism. The studies of these scholars ranged in time from the turn of the previous century to the present; they were global in focus, including Europe, the Americas and beyond; and multitopical, spanning cultural expressions and media, policies, ideologies and identities. Further, they covered many forms of extremist groups—right-wing, left-wing, Islamist and more. We wanted to follow up the productive discussions from this the workshop by producing a special issue. However, it was necessary to narrow down the focus, so we decided to concentrate gender, far-right discourses and counter-policy initiatives. Several anthologies addressing gender and the far right, mostly focusing on the European context, were published around the time of our workshop, and others have since followed.9 A strong theme within these publications is the anti-gender ideology agenda and its various outcomes—which include, on the one hand, the resurgence of conservative Christian family values and growing resistance to LGBTQ rights and recognition and, on the other, the instrumental use of women’s and gay rights in arguments against Islam. There has been an increasing awareness that an analysis of gendered issues are important to understand the far right as a key issue in need of further exploration. Mudde underlines that analyses of female participation in far right movements open up for new ways of analyzing the men of the far right, where ideas of male supremacy and the manosphere, linked to what he terms ‘benevolent’ and ‘hostile’ sexism (particularly online), are essential for improving our conceptualizations of the far right.10 Intelligence Services see Far-right Extremism as Growing Threat’, https://www.france24.com/en/20190319-europeintelligence-far-right-extremism-growing-threat-christchurch. 6 T. Immerzeel, H. Coffé and T. Van der Lippe, ‘Explaining the Gender Gap in Radical Right Voting: Cross-national Investigation in 12 Western European Countries’, Comparative European Politics, 13 2 (2015), pp. 263–286. doi:10.1057/ cep.2013.20; N. Spierings and A. Zaslove, ‘Gendering the Vote for Populist Radical-right Parties’, Patterns of Prejudice, 49:1–2 (2015), pp. 135–162. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2015.1024404. 7 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. doi:10.1080/0031322X.2015.1023657. 8 The Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) is a cross-disciplinary centre for the study of right-wing extremism, hate crime and political violence. It is a joint collaboration by five of the leading Norwegian institutions involved in research on extremism. C-REX’s three main objectives are: (1) to develop cutting-edge empirical and theoretical knowledge on right-wing extremism, violence and hate crime in Norway, Europe and beyond; (2) to serve as an international hub on multidisciplinary research on right-wing extremism; and (3) to disseminate research-based knowledge to stakeholders, policymakers, the public, civil society organizations, schools and the media. The editors of this special issue, Katrine Fangen and Inger Skjelsbæk, are research leaders at C-REX. For more information on C-REX, see https://www.sv.uio. no/c-rex/english/. 9 See, for example, M. Köttig, R. Bitzan and A. Pető (eds), Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and R. Kuhar and D. Paternotte (eds), op.cit.; G. Dietze and J. Roth (eds), Right-wing Populism and Gender: European Perspectives and Beyond (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2020). 10 C. Mudde, The Far Right Today (Cambridge: Polity, 2019). POLITICS, RELIGION & IDEOLOGY 413 Gendered dimensions of the far right is not an entirely new research field, however. Studies of gender and the far right during the 1990s and early 2000s examined such issues as women in the Ku Klux Klan in the USA and separate women’s groups in the far right in Europe;11 racism, sexism and anti-Semitism as masculine reassertions in Western countries;12 and gender and fascism in Europe.13 In the growing support for populist right-wing political parties from Europe to the USA that we see today, gender dimensions form part of the interchange between populist movements and extremist groups, but often in seemingly self-contradictory or inconsistent ways. On the one hand, the anti-immigration and Islamophobic attitudes that characterize groups ranging from the English Defence League in the UK, to Stop Islamization of Norway/Stop Islamization of Europe in Scandinavia, to the Golden Dawn in Greece draw on a rhetoric of progressive gender values (‘femonationalism’).14 In order to position themselves as different from the perceived imminent Islamic threat that they link to immigration, such groups include gender equality and women’s emancipation as ‘true national values’ that are threatened by immigration from Muslim countries. Some political parties—for example, the National Rally (Rassemblement National) in France and the Pim Fortuyn List in the Netherlands—also identify themselves as LGBT-friendly (‘homonationalism’).15 Mobilization along the lines of progressive policies therefore serves the anti-immigration purpose. On the other hand, mobilizing against gender equality has also proven useful. Genderequality and pro-gender norms, which include increased acceptance of and legal rights for LGBTQI communities, are framed as part of a globalization agenda. Members of the nationalist and anti-globalist core in extremist movements across Europe and the USA ironically unite transnationally in resistance to what is called ‘gender ideology’ (e.g. social constructivist understandings of gender), a term that encompasses attitudes that oppose ‘full’ gender equality and sexual citizenship.16 Traditional gender values and roles for men and women are at the heart of this resistance, where the ideals of ‘Kinder, Kirche, Küche’ find support across various nationalistic, religious and extremist groups. Gender-equality norms, therefore, are a central issue for right-wing extremist groups. Such norms play a key role in defining what the groups are for and what they are against, even if this involves positions that are sometimes inconsistent. The upsurge of studies on gender and the far right has come as a response to several factors. First, while there have been female leaders in far-right political parties for some time in Europe, and these number have increased. As a result, the gendered dynamics of leadership and power structures become more visible, spurring a renewed focus on gender. Second, far-right mobilization is often anchored in an opposition to pro-gender norms and support for traditional gender roles, a phenomenon that has become more accentuated in recent years. The emergence and rhetorical use of the term ‘gender ideologies’ functions as 11 K.M. Blee, Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement. (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002); K.M. Blee, Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008); 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. doi:10.1080/09546559708427419. 12 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 T. Johansson and S. Ervø (eds) Moulding Masculinities, Vol. 1 (London: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 184–211; M. Kimmel, ‘Globalization and its Mal(e)contents: The Gendered Moral and Political Economy of Terrorism’, International Sociology, 18:3 (2003), pp. 603–620. doi:10.1177/ 02685809030183008; M. Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era (2nd ed.) (London: Hachette UK, 2017). 13 C. Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987); K. Passmore (ed), Women, Gender, and Fascism in Europe, 1919–45 (Manchester University Press, 2003). 14 S. Farris, In the Name of Women’s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017). 15 J.K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007). 16 R. Kuhar and D. Paternotte, ‘Gender ideology’ in movement’, op. cit., p. 3. 414 EDITORIAL a unifying element for particular forms of extremist mobilization, serving to unite them against other forms of more progressive, and global, gendered changes characterized by gender equality and tolerance for sexual diversity. By studying gender, then, we can achieve a more complete picture of how far-right ideologies take form. This special issue thus adds to the emerging academic and policy-related literature on gender and the far right. Our claim is that gender dimensions are no longer on the margins of studies of the far right; instead, these dimensions are on the point of becoming mainstream. For this special issue, we have carefully selected contributions that highlight several major changes in studies of gender and the far right. First, Kathleen Blee, a long-time scholar of gender and the far right, opens the special issue by mapping the field, asking what we already know, what we still need to know more about and what directions future research needs to take if we are to expand this field of study. She frames these issues as an invitation to feminist scholars to think anew about how gender and the far right intersect, and thus sets out a research agenda for the next generation of scholars of the far right. Second, Christine Agius, Annika Bergman Rosamond and Catarina Kinvall exemplify and expand upon Blee’s suggestion to revisit the intersection of gender and the far right through their examination of contemporary concerns linked to populism, security and nationalism. They focus on how ideas of gendered nationalism and populism inform ontological security discourses, and how populist leaders have engaged a masculinist promotion of the nation specifically in relation to the climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Third, Katrine Fangen presents a study of how gender imageries are formed and described in selected anti-Islamic Facebook groups, thus introducing readers to a key site in which much contemporary radicalization takes place. Through careful netnography, we learn not only about methodological challenges and opportunities related to the study of far-right discourses and how they are formed, but also about how gendered imageries of the Muslim Other are constructed in unfiltered contexts. Her article presents rich empirical data that exemplify femonationalism in antiIslamic Facebook groups in Norway. Finally, Inger Skjelsbæk, Julie Hansen and Jenny K. Lorentzen move to the policy domain and present a study of policy documents that explicitly address gender in the context of efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism. Their overview shows that while there is increasing concern about far-right terrorist attacks and violence in the global North, most of the policy literature where gender concerns are explicitly addressed has focused on Muslim terrorist and extremist threats, along with the gendered possibilities for addressing this issue. Far-right concerns have remained marginal: indeed, the gender analyses and prescriptions presented in these policy documents may end up exacerbating the situation they are attempting to prevent. It is our hope that these articles will spur further interest in and studies on gender and the far right, thereby contributing to a better understanding of this research field. Katrine Fangen Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway katrine.fangen@sosgeo.uio.no Inger Skjelsbæk Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) and Center for Gender Research (STK), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway POLITICS, RELIGION & IDEOLOGY 415 Notes on contributors Katrine Fangen is Professor in Sociology at the University of Oslo and the thematic leader of the ‘Gender and Extremism’ and ‘Ideology and Identity’ research areas at the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), at the University of Oslo. She has written numerous articles and books on the far right. In addition, her research has focused more broadly on nationalism and national identity, right-wing populism, migration, and qualitative methodology. Inger Skjelsbæk is Professor in Gender Studies at the Center for Gender Studies (STK) and the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) at the University of Oslo, and Research Professor in Peace and Conflict at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). She holds a PhD in political psychology from the Norwegian University of Technology and Science, and has been a guest researcher at the University of California—Berkeley, and at the London School of Economics. She is the author of, inter alia, the monograph The Political Psychology of War Rape (Routledge, 2012) and co-editor of the forthcoming Gender Equality and Nation Branding in the Nordic Region (Routledge, 2021), in addition to authoring many international articles and book chapters focusing on gender, political violence, the Balkans, political psychology and methodology.