Women's engagement with the far right: A quest for a more holistic understanding

Abstract

AbstractThe idea that women do not support the far right endures despite the contemporary resurgence and global electoral successes of the far right in its many guises. The aim of this article is to critically interrogate four dominant assumptions surrounding women's alleged lack of support for the far right and unpack whether they ‘tell’ researchers anything new about this support or merely consolidate existing blind spots in the scholarly literature on the topic. The article makes the case that for researchers to understand women's far‐right support, they must take a more holistic approach to the topic of gender and political behaviour, and pay closer attention not only to the socio‐cultural, historical, and political factors which underpin far‐right support in this context, but the different ways in which some women ‘do’ politics in order to make their voices heard.