Between conservatism and antigenderism: Explaining the Popular Party and Vox’s gender discourse in the Spanish House of Representatives.

The European Populist radical right (PRR) has adopted as one of its ideological pillars an exacerbated antifeminism that seeks to reverse the implemented gender equality policies. In the face of the political –and democratic– challenge that some of its proposals represent, all other actors play a key role in its political decisions, but especially the mainstream right-wing parties. As Bale and Rovira (2021) warn, if the mainstream right continues to empty itself ideologically, it will allow other actors, probably PRR parties, to set the political agenda of the right . Spain is no exception in this respect. The Popular Party (PP), like other mainstream right-wing parties, is facing electoral competition from the radical right-wing populist party, Vox. But, having such a heterogeneous electorate –with moderate and conservative sectors in social policy– is making it harder for the PP to define its political positions. The aim of this paper is to identify the representations of gender and the dynamics that are taking place around this issue between the mainstream right Popular Party and the radical right populist party Vox through their speeches, policy proposals and votes in the Congress of Deputies in Spain. The argument developed is that the strategy chosen by the PP to deal with this tension threatens the continuity of gender equality policies: keeping a “low profile” on gender-related issues in Congress, PP is allowing Vox to be the one who determines the issues of parliamentary debate on the right-wing side. Drawing on the gender theories of right-wing and radical right-wing populist parties, this paper will contribute to bring the experience of the Spanish case to the debate on how the mainstream right could respond to the challenge of the PRR. The Spanish case shows the gender equality backsliding that takes place when the mainstream right-wing allows the PRR to set the gender agenda. The analysis of discourse and dynamics between both formations will be carried out at the national level, through the speeches and political initiatives debated in the Congress of Deputies in the period from November 2019 –the start of the legislature in which Vox obtained its highest representation to date (15.2 percent)– up to the present. Content analysis will be applied to all parliamentary sessions and initiatives in which issues related to gender equality were debated.