Subtitle/Alternate Title

THE INSTITUTIONALLY MEDIATED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICAL CONSERVATISM AND SEXISM

First Advisor

Dr. Ian Zuckerman

Thesis Committee Member(s)

Dr. Lara Narcisi, Dr. Amy Shreier

Reader

Dr. Anandita Mukherji

College

Regis College

Degree Name

BS

School

Anderson School of Business & Computing

Division

N/A

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Number of Pages

57 pages

Abstract

Contemporary populist-right leaders around the globe have generated a reputation for sexism, either through their more formal political rhetoric or through more casual communications. This work verifies this reputation by establishing that many populist-right leaders around the world do indeed engage in rhetorical misogyny. This rhetorical misogyny plays on a set of negative social characteristics described in the literature on precarious masculinity and offensive humor. The path by which these negative social instincts are slipped into political rhetoric is bounded and mediated by the influence of popular public social institutions, primarily government, the workplace, and more recently the Internet. These interactions are modulated by the demographics of any particular social institution and by the current nature of conservative politics, particularly in the United States. An examination of these public social institutions, particularly the Internet, reveals that the relationship between the populist-right and sexism parallels the relationship between the populist-right and conspiratorial thinking. It is this second relationship that is idiosyncratically progressive and offers populist-right leaders an unprecedented opportunity to conserve their current base while recapturing the audiences spurred away by rhetorical misogyny.

Date of Award

Spring 2024

Location (Creation)

Denver, Colo.

Rights Statement

All content in this Collection is owned by and subject to the exclusive control of Regis University and the authors of the materials. It is available only for research purposes and may not be used in violation of copyright laws or for unlawful purposes. The materials may not be downloaded in whole or in part without permission of the copyright holder or as otherwise authorized in the “fair use” standards of the U.S. copyright laws and regulations.

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