Gender and the Far-right in the United States: Female Extremists and the Mainstreaming of Contemporary White Nationalism

Abstract

This article explores gender and the far-right in the United States with specific attention to female actors and gendered ideologies in the realms of culture and media. By focusing on several female extremists, I show how traditional and rigid ideas of home, marriage, family and community bolster the xenophobia and racism of white nationalism in the United States. This article includes a historical overview of the concept of metapolitics and emphasizes its centrality to the mainstreaming of the contemporary far-right. I suggest that the internet and social media have become the far-right's premier metapolitical spaces, which can help to explain both the normalization of white nationalism and the unique role of female extremists. Several case studies of far-right women elucidate how gender norms are performed online, and how they reinforce anxious narratives of white erasure and victimhood, while fomenting antagonism towards feminism, globalism and multiculturalism. This article explores how female actors are galvanizing white nationalism in the United States, as they build on earlier eras of far-right activism and amplify the far-right via social media.