Gender populism : three cases of Finns party actors' traditionalist anti-feminism

Abstract

Gender has been marginalized in the study on populism (Mulinari & Neergard 2012; Akkerman 2015; de Lange & Mügge 2015). Ruth Wodak (2015) states that gendered discourses in the rhetoric of right-wing populist parties have been neglected and remain under-researched. Although we seem to be witnessing an upsurge in the focus on gender issues in research on populism (see e.g. the thematic issue of Patterns of Prejudice, ed. by Spierings et al. 2015), with especially the amount of analyses of the so-called gender gap in voting patterns increasing lately, the analysis of performing gender and a certain gender order in the wider political discourse is still mostly missing. In this chapter, I will look at the ways gender is performed in three cases that include active Finns Party members, namely an interview of the party secretary Riikka Slunga-Poutsalo, published in the main newspaper Helsingin Sanomat; a ‘gender campaign’ by the Finns Party Youth organised mainly in the Internet, and the book A Non-Neutral Book on Gender, published by the think tank near to Finns Party. My hypothesis is that in these cases, gender is performed in a conservative, even traditionalist way, manifesting the strict and insurmountable gender roles for men and women. For my analysis, I have developed the concept of ‘gender populism’ that refers to a simplifying understanding of gender as a ‘natural’, essential dichotomous order, based on positioning men and women in hierarchical locations in terms of power (Saresma 2014). By introducing this concept, I wish to bring gender into the research on populism, which as a phenomenon is often believed to be gender-blind, and to 178 Nykykulttuuri 122 broaden the understanding of populist logic (both populist rhetoric and populism as a mobilising force) also outside party politics.