Sexism and the Far-Right Vote: The Individual Dynamics of Gender Backlash

Abstract

This article contends that sexism plays a fundamental role in the electoral rise of the far right, both as a predisposition and as a changing attitude. Using panel data from Spain, we show that modern sexism is indeed among the most important attitudinal predictors of voting for the far-right party Vox. The results also show that internal individual changes in levels of modern sexism impact far-right voting. Backlash attitudinal change, defined as increases in sexism occurring in a context of feminist momentum, contributed significantly to the recent emergence of the radical right. Our findings indicate that sexism is not a crystalized attitude but rather susceptible to showing short-term changes with important political consequences. This highlights the importance of understudied context-dependent individual dynamics of gender backlash in far-right voting.