Gender policies and the populist radical right

From Populism Newsletter #4, July 2021, pp. 9-10.

Francesca Feo

PhD candidate in Political Science and Sociology, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy

Anna Lavizzari

Postdoctoral researcher, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy

International scholarship has always looked at Italian politics as an outlier in the European context. That is due to the striking levels of political volatility the country has experienced since the 1990s, resulting mostly from the national stagnant economy and citizens’ persistent distrust towards political institutions. As such, a variety of populist parties emerged attempting to tap into the mounting popular discontent and distrust against established parties. If populism is an old acquaintance of Italian politics, recent developments have inaugurated a new balance of power between different populist actors. This happened mostly in favour of two populist radical right parties, the League – previously known as the Northern League – and the Brothers of Italy. The two parties jointly summon the support of more than 40% of Italian voters according to recent opinion polls, being the first and second most supported parties. Of particular note is the fact that the Brothers of Italy, led by Giorgia Meloni, have slowly eroded the electoral advantage of their friend and foe, the League (after the latter decided to support the ‘technocratic government’ of Mario Draghi in February 2021).

Notwithstanding the different origins and trajectories of the two parties, they share a common ground through their agendas based on anti-immigration policies, law-and-order, and the defence of Italian values and traditions. It is in this latter aspect that gender becomes of paramount importance, as the two parties stand in defence of the ‘natural’ (heteronormative) family as one of their core tenets. In addition, and similarly to other populist radical right parties, the League and the Brothers of Italy display an ‘obsession with gender and sexuality’ (Dietze and Roth 2020: 8) characterised by aversion to sex education, opposition to the so-called ‘gender ideology’, hostility towards same-sex marriage as the ultimate threat to the natural family, and restrictive stance on reproductive rights. In a recent report for the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we analysed the gender politics of these two parties, and found that, indeed, the two parties have a similar agenda concerning women’s and gender issues as they share substantial framings stemming from their nativist world view (Feo and Lavizzari 2021). The party manifestos drafted for recent national and European elections (2013, 2018 and 2019) however, display some differences in the degree of attention devoted to these issues by each of the two parties. Whereas the League touches upon these themes more extensively, the Brothers of Italy do so less often, all-the-while presenting somewhat more conservative positions, especially for what concerns reproductive rights.

Central to the two parties’ agenda, is the attention devoted to the traditional – heteronormative – family. Family is conceived as the central unit for social reproduction and, as such, the foundation of the Italian nation. People with migration background and poor economic status are identified as responsible for the so-called ‘demographic crisis’; they are also framed as an obstacle to the reproduction of the (white) national body. Instead of concentrating on economic structures to explain current social shortcomings, the League and the Brothers of Italy propose policies and welfare correctives that materially benefit traditional families, with the aim of favouring (and incentivising) higher birth rates. For example, both parties apply demographic criteria to economic decisions, resulting in a vast array of benefits, from tax cuts on childcare products to baby grants for each new-born, to support for young couples in building large families, provided that they are composed of ‘native’ citizens. In line with this rhetoric and policies, both parties hold ‘modern-traditional’ views on women, in which working women are supported, insofar that their childrearing responsibilities are also performed. The analysis of relevant policies serves to highlight the vision shared among them; a vision that leaves much ofthecareresponsibilitiestotheprivatemanagement of the family, thus reinforcing a gendered division of labour, where women are mainly considered in relation to their (unpaid) care work. For instance, the ‘natural’ role of women as caregivers is implied in the pension reform proposed by the League, ‘Woman Option’; the reform allows female employees in the private and public sectors, as well as those self- employed, to retire earlier than the regular pension age. The League’s leader Matteo Salvini welcomed this reform as, among other reasons, it gives back women their ‘right to be grandmothers’.

Another interesting point is related to these parties’ position on gender-based violence. Contrary to other far-right parties in Europe, both parties voted in favour of the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention (better known as the Istanbul Convention) on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. The ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the European Parliament in 2019, however, brought a series of dynamics to the surface. On that occasion, only the League voted in its favour while the Brothers of Italy voted against its ratification. In explaining why they voted the convention down, the Brothers MEP Nicola Procaccini declared that the text was ‘imbued with gender ideology that introduces an incredible series of sexual categories and subcategories, a real betrayal of the Istanbul Convention and symbol of the ideological drift of the European Parliament’. This about-turn in the Brothers of Italy’s support for the Convention from 2013 to 2019 can be attributed to the increased politicisation of ‘gender ideology’ in the European landscape, and the party’s subsequent radicalisation around this issue. What they frame as the ‘fight against gender ideology’ is a new entry in the party’s discourse and is attributable to their strategic alliance with Catholic conservatism. Even though the strategic element should not be underestimated, the attacks on gender ideology find their justification in the party’s nativism and extreme conservatism. For the Brothers of Italy, combating gender ideology is part of the battle to preserve the conservative vision of Italian identity. According to the party, gender-neutral and non-discriminatory language is an attempt to water down some of the central tenets of the Italian value system – such as family and traditional gender roles in the private and public spheres – that most Italians share and identify with, to the sole advantage of a minoritarian community in collaboration with ‘the elites’.

The two parties’ conservative stances also influence their positions on reproductive rights. Worrisome evidence of restrictive policies on reproductive rights has become apparent through their institutional activities at the local level. For instance, both parties have proposed several motions to push forward pro-family policies, to provide financial support to Catholic associations implementing initiatives against abortion, and promoting the establishment of ‘pro-life cities’. The cases described above serve to show the relevance of gender and sexuality in the emergence, proliferation of and competition between populist radical right parties. Gender and sexuality are crucial markers of our social identities and, as such, play an important role in the construction of ‘the people’. Likewise, the defence of traditional gender norms and relations are key to the politics of these actors, and an increasingly relevant factor in understanding their success. Future research should try to disentangle nativist conceptions of gender from the evocation of ‘the popular’; a goal that is as much of scholarly interest as it is of political importance.

References

Dietze G. and Roth J. (2020), Right-Wing Populism and Gender: A Preliminary Cartography of an Emergent Field of Research, in: Right-Wing Populism and Gender: European Perspectives and Beyond. Berlin: Transcript Verlag, pp. 7–22.

Feo F. and Lavizzari A. (2021), Triumph of the women? the female face of right-wing populism and extremism. Case study: Italy, Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung – Forum Politik und Gesellschaft.