CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Flaismanova, Anna |
|---|---|
| Title | The Relationship between Populism and Portrayals of Womanhood in Czech Far-Right Imagry, 2015-2025 |
| Summary | This thesis attempts to understand how far-right actors in the Czech Republic, specifically Tomio Okamura and Eva Hrindová of the Freedom and Direct Democracy party and the Angry Mothers group, respectively, use visual media and populist narratives that facilitate attacks on gender ideology and societal inclusion of sexual and ethnic minorities. Using Roland Barthes and Charles Sanders Peirce’s frameworks of visual semiotic analysis, this thesis breaks down and analyses examples of visual materials from 2015 to 2025, in particular relating to prominently discussed themes including immigration, sexual violence, Czech traditional culture, and the European Union. These analyses argue that despite repeatedly claiming to be defenders of women’s freedoms and equality, both these actors act as examples of the Czech far-right’s tendency to reduce women to nothing other than symbolic embodiments of Czech national purity, which reinforces conservative gender roles and denies women agency to define their own position within ideas of patriotism and their ways of engaging national pride, while vilifying progressive “Western” ideas of gender equality. Furthermore, these images and their messages actively promote the exploitation of women’s insecurities towards exclusionary ends, especially when they arise in the context of major crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic. |
| Supervisor | Stewart, Michael; Sachseder, Julia |
| Department | Nationalism Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/flaismanova_anna.pdf |
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