International study examines how Giorgia Meloni exploits women’s rights as a political strategy
- Pedro Simão Mendes
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
A recent study, conducted by an international research team with participation from Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, analyzed posts on the official social media accounts of Italy’s current prime minister, revealing how women’s rights are exploited as a political strategy, contributing to narratives of exclusion and division between “us” and “them.” The findings aim to prompt reflection on how these strategies can undermine inclusive policies across Europe.
“The visibility of women in power does not necessarily promote feminist politics, but may instead support conservative or even anti-feminist agendas,” explains João Manuel de Oliveira, a researcher at the Center for Psychological Research and Social Intervention (CIS-Iscte), current coordinator of PsyChange-Psychology for Societal Change, a CIS-Iscte research group, and one of the study’s authors. The research led by Diego Lasio (University of Cagliari, Italy) analyzed 41 posts on Giorgia Meloni’s official Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (now X), and YouTube accounts between 2015 and 2022. Focusing on topics such as gender, women’s rights, and migration, the research team identified three central discursive strategies that show how these themes are used to stigmatize migrants and legitimize anti-immigration positions.
This study arises in a context of growing affirmation of the far right in Europe, with leaders such as Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Viktor Orbán, who has been in power in Hungary for 16 years, as well as parties such as Vox in Spain, Chega in Portugal, and Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, continuing to strengthen their political influence. In this climate, immigration has become one of the central themes of public debate, often associated with rhetoric that reinforces perceptions of insecurity and threat.
According to João Manuel de Oliveira, this context requires “understanding how these discourses are constructed and how they influence public opinion.” By focusing on the mobilization of women’s rights, the study sheds light on how values associated with equality can be used to fuel and justify narratives of exclusion, helping to foster a more critical understanding of the dynamics of current politics.
The research team identified three recurring strategies used by Giorgia Meloni: the “good mother of the nation”; the Christian defense of civil rights; and the far-right’s commitment to women’s rights.
"Meloni uses high-profile cases of violence to generalize behaviors, associate them with specific groups, especially Muslim migrants, and build the idea that they represent a threat,” explains the CIS-Iscte researcher, “thereby justifying the need to impose greater restrictions on immigration,” he adds.
Additionally, researchers found that Meloni’s discourse links episodes of violence to a cultural and religious explanation, generalizing behaviors to Muslim men and reinforcing stereotypes that fuel a perception of threat associated with immigration. At the same time, Meloni presents herself as a woman and a mother with moral authority, while portraying Muslim women as passive victims or silent accomplices, sustaining a narrative that legitimizes more restrictive immigration policies under the guise of “saving” these women.
The study also points out that this discourse constitutes a form of “pseudo-feminism,” which places Western Europe, and Italy in particular, on a pedestal of cultural superiority, treating gender equality as a goal that has already been achieved, while excluding Muslim women themselves from the debate. Thus, a Eurocentric and colonial division is established between the Western, Christian “us” and the Islamic “other,” often described as inherently backward and violent.
The study’s findings raise important questions about the impact of this type of discourse in the public and political spheres, both in Europe and around the world. By highlighting how women’s rights (and, in some cases, the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community) are selectively mobilized, the research points to a contradiction: while they are invoked as symbols of Western values to be protected, these same rights are often contested or devalued by the very political actors who use them. According to the research team, this instrumentalization weakens the impact of these struggles and contributes to legitimizing racist narratives of exclusion, influencing public perception of immigration and reinforcing social divisions.
This text was written by Carolina Morais, a student on the Master's Degree in Social and Organizational Psychology (Iscte) as part of her internship at CIS-Iscte.
