Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-lcgwf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-16T13:23:03.160Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Misogyny Paradox and the Alt-Right

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2023

Tracy Llanera Open the ORCID record for Tracy Llanera [Opens in a new window]
Tracy Llanera*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Connecticut, 344 Mansfield Road, Unit 1054, Storrs, CT 06269-1054
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: tracy.llanera@uconn.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay offers a philosophical analysis of the misogyny women experience in the alternative right (alt-right) movement. I argue that this misogyny takes on a paradoxical form: the better alt-right women propagandists promote hate, the greater the hostility they experience from their fellow racists and critics; the more submissive women alt-right members become, the harsher the impact of misogyny on them. I develop this argument in four parts. Part I explores the self-conception of racist white women using the concept of social imaginaries. Part II describes three dominant images in racist propaganda—the goddess/victim, wife and mother, and the female activist—which inform the more popular images of the white power Barbie and the tradwife in the alt-right. Part III explores the misogyny paradox and presents how alt-right women could be seen as both misogynists and victims of misogyny. Part IV reflects on the absurdity of the alt-right's dependence on women's economic labor, a feature that could make the movement vulnerable to political intervention.

Information

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , Winter 2023 , pp. 157 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Atwood, Margaret. 1985. The handmaid's tale. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.Google Scholar
Beauvoir, Simone de. 2010. The second sex. Trans. Borde, Constance and Malovany-Chevallier, Sheila. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Beckett, Lois. 2020. White supremacists behind majority of US domestic terror attacks in 2020. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/22/white-supremacists-rightwing-domestic-terror-2020.Google Scholar
Blee, Kathleen. 1991. Women of the Klan: Racism and gender in the 1920s. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Blee, Kathleen. 1996. Becoming a racist: Women in contemporary Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups. Gender and Society 10 (6): 680–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blee, Kathleen. 2002. Inside organized racism: Women in the hate movement. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Center on Extremism. 2018. When women are the enemy: The intersection of misogyny and white supremacy. Anti-Defamation League. New York. https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/when-women-are-the-enemy-the-intersection-of-misogyny-and-white-supremacy.Google Scholar
Chambers, Clare. 2013. Feminism. In The Oxford handbook of political ideologies, ed. Freeden, Michael, Sargent, Lyman Tower, and Stears, Marc. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill. 2009. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Comer, Robbie Gill. 1924. The equality of woman. Little Rock, Ark: Women of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc., Imperial Headquarters. http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/WiscKKK/RiverFalls/KlanEphem/reference/wi.klanephem.i0009.pdf.Google Scholar
Darby, Seyward. 2020. Sisters in hate: American women on the front lines of white nationalism. New York: Little, Brown, and Co.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1903. The souls of black folk: Essays and sketches. Chicago: A. C. McClurg.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Andrea. 1983. Right-wing women. New York: Perigee Books.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. 1952. Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. 1961. Les damnés de la terre. Paris: Éditions François Maspero.Google Scholar
Frye, Marilyn. 1983. The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory. New York: The Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Garcia, Manon. 2021a. It's time to talk about women's submission. Blog of the American Philosophical Association (APA), April 28. https://blog.apaonline.org/2021/04/28/submission-is-womens-destiny-but-we-can-change-that/.Google Scholar
Garcia, Manon. 2021b. We are not born submissive. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Gordon, Linda. 2017. The second coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American political tradition. New York: Liveright.Google Scholar
hooks, bell. 2015. Ain't I a woman: Black women and feminism. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Horan, Geraldine Theresa. 2003. Mothers, warriors, and guardians of the soul: The female discourse in National Socialism. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, Brad. 2019. “White power Barbies”: A powerful alt-right recruiting tool. Cape Breton Post, October 10. https://www.capebretonpost.com/news/canada/white-power-Barbies-a-powerful-alt-right-recruiting-tool-362608/.Google Scholar
Judd, Bridget. 2020. Tradwives have been labeled “subservient,” but these women reject suggestions they're oppressed. ABC News, February 24. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-24/tradwives-women-say-the-movement-is-empowering-not-oppressive/11960910.Google Scholar
Lenz, Lyz. 2019. You should care that Richard Spencer's wife says he abused her. The Huffington Post, January 13. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/richard-spencer-nina-kouprianova-divorce-abuse_n_5c2fc90ee4b0d75a9830ab69.Google Scholar
Lewis, Helen. 2019. To learn about the far right, start with the “manosphere.” The Atlantic, August 7. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/08/anti-feminism-gateway-far-right/595642/.Google Scholar
Lewis, Rebecca. 2018. Alternative influence: Broadcasting the reactionary right on YouTube. Data & Society, September 18. https://datasociety.net/library/alternative-influence/.Google Scholar
Lombroso, Daniel. 2020. Why the alt-right's most famous woman disappeared. The Atlantic, October 16. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/alt-right-star-racist-propagandist-has-no-regrets/616725/.Google Scholar
Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Trumansburg, N.Y.: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Love, Nancy S. 2020. Shield maidens, fashy femmes, and tradwives: Feminism, patriarchy, and right-wing populism. Frontiers in Sociology 5:619572. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2020.619572.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Manne, Kate. 2018. Down girl: The logic of misogyny. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Marwick, Alice, and Lewis, Rebecca. 2017. Media manipulation and disinformation online. Data & Society, May 15. https://datasociety.net/library/media-manipulation-and-disinfo-online/.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1867. Das kapital. Hamburg: Verlag von Otto Meisner.Google Scholar
Mattheis, Ashley. 2018. Shieldmaidens of whiteness: (Alt) maternalism and women recruiting for the far/alt-right. Journal for Deradicalization 17 (Winter): 128–62.Google Scholar
Mehr, Latif, Kathleen Blee, Matthew DeMichele, Simi, Pete, and Alexander, Shayna. 2020. Why white supremacist women become disillusioned, and why they leave. Sociological Quarterly 61 (3): 367–88.Google Scholar
Melo Lopes, Filipa. 2019. Perpetuating the patriarchy: Misogyny and (post-)feminist backlash. Philosophical Studies 176: 2517–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, Louise Michele. 1999. White women's rights: The racial origins of feminism in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). 2019. Understanding the role of gender in preventing and countering violent extremism and radicalization that lead to terrorism. Vienna. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/0/b/420563_1.pdfGoogle Scholar
Perreras, Eli Portella. 2020. How (not) to think about anti-feminist women. Blog of the American Philosophical Association. https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/10/07/how-not-to-think-about-anti-feminist-women/Google Scholar
Reeve, Elle. 2019. She went from a liberal non-voter to burning books with white supremacists. Here's why she finally left the movement. CNN, October 31. https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/10/30/us/white-supremacist-woman-reeve/index.html .Google Scholar
Richardson-Self, Louise. 2021. Hate speech against women online: Concepts and countermeasures. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. 1943. L'être et le néant: Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.Google Scholar
Wilson, Jason. 2018. What do incels, fascists and terrorists have in common? Violent misogyny. The Guardian, May 4. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/04/what-do-incels-fascists-and-terrorists-have-in-common-violent-misogyny.Google Scholar