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One of the earliest and best-established findings about electoral support for populist radical right-wing parties1 is that they attract proportionately more men than women (Betz, 1994, p. 142). However, this finding might no longer apply to France. In the 2012 presidential election, contrary to her father, Marine Le Pen, the new leader of the Front National (FN), realized almost the same score among female and male voters (Figure 1 - See PDF,). After controlling for other sociodemographic and attitudinal variables that explain electoral support for the FN, there is no gender gap in the radical right-wing vote any more (Mayer, 2013a, 2013b). Explaining the closing of this gender gap is the aim of this article. The first section offers a brief outline of the literature dealing with the emergence of what has become known as the 'Radical Right Gender Gap' (RRGG) (Givens, 2004). The second part ascertains the disappearance of a RRGG gender in the 2012 French Presidential Election. The third section outlines and tests possible explanations for this disappearance. A concluding section debates whether this is a temporary or a lasting phenomenon.
The Emergence of the 'Radical Right Gender Gap' (RRGG)
The term 'gender gap' was coined by the National Organization of Women at the time of the election of Ronald Reagan. For the first time since they gained the right to vote, women gave noticeably more support to the Democrats in the 1980 American presidential race. Since then this gap has persisted, and there is a robust relationship between gender and the party vote, still significant after controlling for age, class, race and religion (Manza and Brooks, 1998; Whitaker, 2008; Abendschön and Steinmetz, 2014). As shown by Inglehart and Norris (2003) in The rising tide , a similar divide has appeared in several post-industrial democracies, and notably in Europe (Giger, 2009; Mossuz-Lavau, 2009). It is an established finding that women move more to the left than men whatever the indicator used. It was called the 'modern' gender gap, in opposition to the previous 'traditional' gender gap.
Just after being granted the right to vote, women tended to be more conservative, and gave more support than men to right-wing parties with a traditional view of women's role (Mossuz-Lavau and Sineau, 1983). But their...