Anti-feminism and Backlash Politics

• In Event: Anti-Feminism

Abstract

Societies across the globe have gradually adopted more progressive positions, particularly in the area of gender (Inglehart and Norris 2003). Previous studies reveal how feminist movements can influence policymaking and electoral politics in modern democracies worldwide (Jaquette 1989; Beckwith 2000; Cook 1993; Conover 1988; Zaremberg and Almeida 2022). Rapid feminist advances, however, can pave the way for the emergence of a backlash, i.e., the rise of attitudes against women’s advances in society (Norris and Inglehart 2019). Some research, however, finds little evidence of backlash against sexual minorities (De abreu maia, Chiu, and Desposato 2023) and other historically marginalized groups (Bartels 2023).
We argue that anti-feminism, even when it is not widespread, can influence political behavior in multiple ways. We first draw on social psychology to describe a five-item measure of voters’ dislike of feminism (Dashtgard 2022). We show that both political and socio-demographic factors predict citizens’ anti-feminism. We then lay out how anti-feminism can influence three components of political behavior: 1. participation, 2. views of national leaders, and 3. presidential vote choice.
Starting with participation, we maintain the anti-feminism can reduce motivation for citizens to join pro-equality protests in the streets, but we do not expect it to influence electoral turnout. Second, anti-feminism can influence citizens’ favorability ratings of national leaders. On the one hand, leaders from the far right often employ a discourse to attract voters who strongly disapprove of feminist movements (Mudde 2019). On the other hand, progressive leaders may promote a feminist agenda and seek to mobilize feminist supporters concerned with backlash against women’s rights. Third, anti-feminism can influence presidential vote choice when candidates’ discourses and policy proposals explicitly speak to gender issues.
We test our theoretical arguments concerning the nature and role of antifeminism in electoral democracies via a case study of Chile. This country provides three sets of advantages. First, Chileans at the beginning of the of the 1990s tended to hold socially conservative views, but public opinion here has recently and markedly shifted towards progressive positions on gender (Rovira Kaltwasser 2019). Chile’s first woman president, Michelle Bachelet, used her presidential power to advance significant pro-women change (Reyes-Housholder 2019; Waylen 2016). Re-emering in 2018, Chile’s feminist movement sustained its influence throughout two constitutional processes (2020-2023), which became the first in the world to feature gender parity (Reyes-Housholder, Suárez-Cao, and Arce-Riffo 2024).
Second, gender issues took center stage in unprecedented ways during Chile’s 2021 presidential debates. Far-right candidate José Antonio Kast won the first round having promised to close the Women’s Ministry, restrict reproductive rights, and promote traditional family roles. He then lost in the second round to leftist Gabriel Boric, Chile’s first major presidential candidate who self-identified as feminist. This match-up enables us to show how anti-feminism not only can increase support for far-right leaders but also decrease support for leaders who explicitly espouse and implement feminist policymaking.
Third, Chile is also ideal for institutional reasons. Its most recent presidential election cycle coincided with a shift from voluntary to obligatory voting. This enables us to empirically explore questions about Chileans’ support for the gender-progressive constitution (Guzmán 2023), which was rejected on September 4, 2022. It also allows us to measure the impact of anti-feminism on participation when voting is voluntary and when voting is obligatory.
We conducted a face-to-face, nationally representative survey of about 1,500 Chileans from September-November 2022. After constructing and validating an anti-feminism measurement, we show that only 15% of Chileans hold anti-feminist attitudes. This finding reinforces previous scholarly arguments that backlash is limited to a small number of voters, specifically those with affinities with the far right (Off 2023; Walter 2021). Statistical models show that, consistent with our arguments, anti-feminism is more prevalent among low-educated, male, right-wing voters with socially conservative values and authoritarian regime preferences. We moreover demonstrate that anti-feminist attitudes discourage participation in protests against inequality, favorable and unfavorable views of Kast and Boric, and retrospective presidential vote choice for these leaders. In summary, this paper shows that although anti-feminism is not prevalent among Chileans, such attitudes help us to identify a specific segment of the electorate that far right leaders could mobilize against a feminist agenda.

Authors

• Rocío Salas-Lewin, Cornell University

• Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Universidad Diego Portales