The Right Men: How Masculinity Explains the Radical Right Gender Gap

Abstract

The radical right is disproportionately supported by men, yet there is little research on masculinity’s role in creating this discrepancy. This article breaks new ground in using masculinity as an analytical construct to explain the gender gap in one of the UK’s most significant radical right organisations: the English Defence League. Drawing on original qualitative data and interviews with past and present English Defence League activists, this article argues that English Defence League beliefs and practices were distinctly masculine. In promoting an ideology that subordinated Muslim men and women, and in providing a forum for displaying and enacting manhood, the English Defence League facilitated the supply of masculinity and therefore attracted far more men than women. The approach used in this article shows how theoretical analyses of masculinity can be incorporated within political science and offers a powerful new lens through which to understand radical right parties and movements.