Reasserting hegemonic masculinity: women's leadership within the far right

Abstract The emergence of a global far right has been seen as a significant development in recent years and as a challenge to wider forms of neo-liberal globalization. While much has been written about its significance and representation, little has been written on either the gendered nature of the far right and the role that women have played as actors within it. Though there still remains a gender gap in terms of the support and participation of the far right, there has been an increasing rise of leaders and figureheads within the respective movements themselves. This article argues that despite the emergence of these women, the far right looks to construct an extreme form of masculinity in which anti-feminism appears as a significant part of its overall strategy. By engaging with both the Gramscian understandings of hegemonic construction and subsequent notions of masculinist hegemony, it argues that the appearance of women both as leaders and ‘organic intellectuals’ within respective national movements allows them to gain greater legitimacy. Rather than ‘feminizing’ or indeed moderating the form of far-right narratives, women had looked to re-inforce such extreme masculinity by adding to existing understandings of anti-immigration, nationalism and in particular of the meaning of ‘anti-feminism’. Thus, recent leaders of far-right political parties appear alongside media columnists and ‘celebrities’ in contributing to the construction of extreme masculinity with the far right.