Hashtagging the sacred: Divergently spiritual feminine influencers coalescing around right-wing politics

Our study investigates how female influencers shape political narratives around different forms of spirituality and religion. We specifically examine new-age influencers' promotion of spiritual narratives, focusing on how they participate in online politics through feminine visualcontent. Additionally, we explore the impact of social media personalities in the 'Tradwives' movement, highlighting traditional femininity in gender roles. This research underscores the influencers' role in shaping political and societal discourse and the ways in which different spiritual paths coalesce around similar right-wing political movements. In the dynamic landscape of contemporary politics and social dynamics, gender stands as a multifaceted theme, intersecting with various ideological movements. Our research views gender as a performative and socially constructed concept (see Butler 2006), constantly negotiated and renewed, rather than an essentialist, naturally occurring trait. This perspective places gender at the nexus of discourse and politics. It comes into sharper focus in the online realm, where visual representations and the influence of digital personalities take center stage. Endorsement of conspiracy theories has predominantly been associated with masculine discourse, while more "feminine" political movements connecting spirituality and conspiracy theories remain understudied. To analyze this phenomenon, we examine Kristallipuolue (the Finnish Crystal Party) rhetoric and visual communication. Kristallipuolue, with their slogan Joy, Truth, Love, and feminine, colorful aesthetics, became an official political party in Finland in 2021 arguing strongly against COVID-19 restrictions, but have not gained parliamentary positions in elections. Much of their social media communication is built on conspiracy theories, different forms of contemporary spirituality, and alternative wellness or anti-vaccination stances. They have included well-known controversial wellness influencers in their election campaigns. Kristallipuolue also embodies the global development of "conspirituality" and the traditionally feminine world of alternative wellness finding common ground with far-right, anti-EU movements, in protesting against COVID-19 measures. We contrast the new-age spirituality of Kristallipuolue and its connected influencers with the biblically-informed ‘Tradwife’ movement. Traditional wives, or tradwives, advocate for a return to traditional gender roles, arguing for a woman's primary role as a homemaker, wife, and mother, emphasizing submission to their husbands as a form of religious observance (Proctor, 2022), while at the same time centraling feminine agency in producing idealized social media material and visibility. Through social media, the tradwife movement has a performative edge, presenting itself as a lifestyle trend showcased across platforms. The curated images and narratives presented online often paint an idealized version of domestic bliss, which can sometimes overshadow the deeper ideological underpinnings, including links that some prominent tradwives maintain with White Supremacy and the alt-right (Proctor, 2022; Mattheis, 2021). This paper uses social media material from Tradwife accounts on Instagram and TikTok and Kristallipuolue accounts on Instagram on Facebook. Methodologically, it employs discourse theoretical analysis (Carpentier & De Cleen, 2007), to investigate how both movements frame gender informed by spirituality, particularly their emphasis on visual appeal, and how they negotiate the connection to far-right movements and ideologies while buildingon the positive aesthetics of love and joy.