Femonationalist politics

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

This session of the Gender Working Group features a presentation by Ana Catalano Weeks, Associate Professor at the University of Bath

Over the past two decades, political parties in Western Europe have increasingly employed gendered rhetoric to advance anti-immigrant or anti-immigration policy stances. This femonationalist discourse appears in election campaigns, social media, and national parliaments. While scholars suggest nativist parties—particularly the populist radical right—use femonationalism to expand electoral support, its effectiveness remains underexplored. We argue that femonationalism shapes party perceptions, and in turn, voter support, in two ways: by providing an additional justification, it increases the acceptability of nativist views; by shifting focus to other issues, it alters the perceived policy positions of the party. To test this, we conduct a preregistered survey experiment involving 20,000 respondents across four Western European countries manipulating exposure to different types of femonationalist rhetoric. Our findings confirm that femonationalism shifts respondents’ perceptions of parties. We show that femonationalist statements are perceived as more socially acceptable than traditional anti-immigration framings, translating into higher levels of voter support for parties that employ them. In addition, politicians using rights-based femonationalism are perceived as more moderate on the left-right spectrum and more supportive of gender-egalitarian values. Femonationalism thus enables parties to gender-wash their brands and increases their likelihood of being perceived as having a more mainstream position. Finally, we show that the gender of the speaker is irrelevant: femonationalism is equally effective when articulated by women or men. Our findings advance research on the strategic use of gender equality in nativist politics and demonstrate how symbolic framing reshapes party reputations and electoral support.

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