Introduction

Right-wing xenophobic movements and related political parties have been gaining ground in many European countries, among them, Sweden (Wodak, Khosravinik and Mral, 2013; EXPO, 2014). Their success has brought to the fore questions about their agenda regarding women's rights and gender equality. Extreme right-wing xenophobia is of course not a new phenomenon in Sweden. However, during the most part of the post-Second World War era, support for organisations with nationalist and racist discourses has been marginal in the political and public arenas. But, starting in the late 1980s, an increase in the public visibility of neo-Nazi activities was followed by the emergence of New Democracy, a populist anti-migrant party, and the creation and establishment of the Sweden Democrats. In the 2014 elections, the Sweden Democrats, with nearly 13% of votes, doubled the electoral support they had received in the 2010 general election, and gained a presence in almost all municipalities and counties (Crouch, 2014).

Scholarship on the Sweden Democrats identifies the party's historical roots in fascism and neo-Nazi political circles, conceptualising the ideology of the party as both value-conservative and ethno-pluralist (Fennema, 1997; Hellström and Nilsson, 2010; Ekman, 2010). While racism is the key through which both value-conservatism and ethno-pluralism are understood, gender poses difficult challenges for the party, as gender-equality policies are a central feature of the social and economic organisation of the Scandinavian countries. The scholarship on this and similar parties is well established; the role of gender in general (Blee, 2012), and of gender-equality discourses in particular, for the racist articulation of these parties’ agendas generates new research concerns.

The establishment of right-wing xenophobic parties has gone hand in hand with politicians’ (especially from right-wing parties, but at times also from the social-democratic party) arguing for policies aimed at connecting citizenship rights with assimilation, sometimes linking migrants with welfare ‘cheating’, criminality and failing to identify with ‘western values’ (Razack, 2004; Bredström, 2009; Hübinette and Lundström, 2011). Sweden has long been known internationally as a model multicultural welfare state that has extended substantial citizenship, welfare and labour rights to everyone within its borders (Schierup, Hansen and Castles, 2006). However, under the twin pressures of neoliberalism and a commitment to ‘managed migration’, this Swedish exceptionalism has been and continues to be substantially eroded (Schierup and Ålund, 2011; Sager, 2011).