Abstract:

In the rise of the populist radical right-wing politics, the role of the leadership’s style and political performance has gained central importance in the agenda of populism research. The images that leaders build and reflect in the media, the symbols they use, and the communication they build with the voter crowd, are important to understand the populist radical right. The political statue used by the populist radical right-wing leaders to protect the people against both the “elites” and the “threats” from the outside, in particular against the influences of immigration and globalization, was built on gender-like political performances and speeches with society. In these performances, hegemonic masculinity performances play a central role. But those who show these performances are not only male leaders. The political style and performance of women’s populist radical right leaders provides an efficient ground to discuss the influence of social gender’s populist radical right structure. In this study, the female leader of the French Rassemblement National party, Marine Le Pen, will be examined from a gender perspective, analyzing both the image she creates and the image she creates in the media representations.

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