Forward to the Past

The Feminine Art of Radicalisation

There's a strong precedent of women in far right communities, but what roles do they play in them? In this episode, Lo is join by Emily Gorcenski, Jake Hanrahan,

Daniel Lombroso, Jane Fae, and Dr Eviane Leidig to discuss the gender ideology of right wing extremism, from tradwifes to neo-nazi mysticism.

About Lois Shearing:

Lo Shearing is an activist, freelance journalist and writer based in London.Their writing has been published by The Independent, The Advocate, DIVA magazine, Gay Star News, INTO, and Openly and their first book Bi the Way, is available now. They are the founder of the Bisexual Survivors Network and are the founder of the #DoBetterBiUs campaign, which aims to challenge biphobia.

Book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/bi-the-way/lois-shearing//9781787752900

Website: https://faithfullwords.wordpress.com

Twitter: @loshearing

Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/loisshearing

Interviewees:

Emily Gorcenski - www.emilygorcenski.com

Jake Hanrahan - www.jakehanrahan.com

Daniel Lombroso - http://www.daniellombroso.com

Dr Eviane Leidig - www.evianeleidig.com

Jane Fae - twitter.com/JaneFae?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author

Quoted sources:

https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/state-of-hate-2019-final-1.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/30/elliot-rodger-puahate-forever-alone-reddit-forums

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/going-dark-julia-ebner-review-jessica-stern/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/05/donald-trump-religious-right-george-floyd-racism

https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/undercover-women-social-media-extremists-want-traditional-roles-return/384588/

https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/12/far-right-talk-about-women-and-girls-same-way-they-talk-about-land-and-territory

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/far-right-uk-brexit-muslims-tommy-robinson-protests-extremism-a9011171.html

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/14/alt-right-handmaidens-and-the-white-baby-challenge/

A huge thank you to my voice actors, Alex Dytrych, Saddie Clark, Sophie Connor, Tom Naylor-Clements, Polly Davies, and Dr Pip Williams.

Transcript:

it started with concerns about ethics in gaming journalism %HESITATION well accurately it didn't gamergate as it came to be known was started by Erin Joni when he posted a blog falsely accusing his ex girlfriend so we Quinn of sleeping with a journalist in exchange for positive reviews of her in the game it snowballed into months of targeted harassment against several prominent women involved in gaming at its core gamergate was a right wing reactionary backlash against feminism is growing influence on gaming culture it was in this fertile soil the sum of the seeds of what would become the old right sprouted many of the figureheads and tactics used in gamergate became key components of the movement also mixed into the shit he put the %HESITATION right grew out of was of course the menace fear as we discussed in the last episode the man is fair has played a key role in the radicalization of many young men into the open spot right in twenty nineteen U. K. anti extremism charity hope not hate included the mantis Faye and estate of hate report here's a quote from that report one influence on the contemporary far right understanding of gender politics is the manifestation of this collection of websites forums blogs and vlogs concerned with men's issues and masculinity oriented around opposition to feminism and within pots embrace of extreme misogyny the prevailing interpretation within the menace that is the feminism is about promoting the Sandry contempt of purchase of men rather than gender equality and later on in that report they say the ministry is core ideas have snowballed into an ideology that has taken on a life of its own outside of its online each in part because the rejection of feminism a broader conspiratorial outlook continue to find resonance with the wide at contemporary far right ironically a big seller in in the pipeline from the menace fit to the all right what's the website and community known as P. U. a hate dot com that's pick up artistry hate dot com well this might sound like a group of sensible people rallying against creeps who've game ified human intimacy and deeply walked the way that many young men view women it was actually a group of guys frustrated with pick up artistry because it didn't work for them and somehow that's women spoke you may recognize the name P. U. a hate dot com from being name checked in the manifesto of the Santa Barbara Modra and the Raja Nicky Woolf wrote in twenty fourteen I need some of these forums and subreddits was P. way hate dot com which one user described as one of the few truly Redhill communities founded to such rise and discredit pickup artists it became a place by sexually frustrated men could go to vent and show students scientific theories about within so unlike traditional far right movements which it deeply misogynistic often more driven by white supremacy and hatred of ethnic minorities reactionary misogyny anti feminism is baked into the foundations of the old right don't get me wrong all right is a white supremacist movement but whereas no such me could be seen as more of a by product of the far right ideologies it's a core component of the %HESITATION right yet women play crucial roles within these communities often in ways that seem to contradict what they themselves as saying I'm also sharing I'm an old five journalist and activist based in the UK in this series I'll be exploring how women a radicalized intellectual far right hatred and violence this is a family of radicalization episode two went to the pub all right has always been a male supremacist movement which views women as subservient however what exactly that subservience looks like defense lightly between the different groups %HESITATION within the alt right it's more of a kind of %HESITATION these pathetic loser this is so it's so cringe but you know these kind of tried to you know traditional %HESITATION ideology where they they basically want to live in a kind of world where women stay at home and they cook and they have only one sexual partner and you know it's it's that kind of I was like living in the forties or something and it would be like to weeds on Twitter that kind of say they want to live like that was really be an absolute like sexual deviants on pornhub was quiet when it so you get that side of it with them they will accept women within the all right if they kind of fit into that gap like if they do you know if they kind of fit within the metal prime as well they want to be like but I'm generally aware the more extreme like neo Nazis knowledge optimal from the seeds the conical cultists Satan is no Nazism that is different that's more like all women I just objects and we will treat them as such and if they wanna be treated any other way than that useless and they should be killed or whatever you know what I mean it's very doc that was J. Kammer hand a journalist who spent several years undercover investigating neo Nazi and far right groups the view that we need to return to a world where women and just how many kids and baby make is is known as a trad wife movement and is surprisingly popular with both men and women just a note I'm going to be talking mostly about men and women in this series because those are the only genders that these groups recognize the far right's world view doesn't have much room for non binary and gender non conforming individuals I will be talking about transphobia a little later back to trap wives in article red pill factories just custom sums up the truck wife movement as such like the other groups that make up the misogynistic online community known as the man is fair tried wives believe the heterosexual world to be a market place where women of the sellers and man the buyers of sex a woman's sexual market value will SNV is a measure of her appeal to men only appearances matter a sense of humor and education or exotic interests are irrelevant the tribe wife movement isn't strictly out right it doesn't necessarily have a political position of the advocating for a return to traditional gender roles I love the track wife movement overlaps with the fundamental Christine right which is probably what go to find Celinda in general that's a lot of overlap between these groups of in the five right but many of them having similar ideologies and visions but different plans of how to achieve them the Christian right movement was started by Jerry Falwell senior who mobilized white Christians to oppose desegregating schools since then it has fought against pretty much any kind of progress in regards to human rights by claiming that they infringe on religious liberties office Sarah Posner explains today trump space echoes similar claims the prosecution came in the LGBTQ plus rights for example infringe on Christians religious freedom all the state governors restrictions on large gatherings during the cave in nineteen pandemic infringe on the fast and the rights of churches throughout his candidacy and presidency white evangelicals a step behind trump because many of them say his teammates privileges freedom president in history so while the tried wife movement stretches across the spectrum of the political right the %HESITATION right view of womanhood it's pretty much built on its ideas women are objectified not only as sexual objects like Jake mentioned but as pellets of western civilization that not only need to be protected by men but also a reward for the man the fighting to uphold west in society his doctor even leading a researcher focusing on gender on the far right and who has an upcoming book exploring female far right influences I think the message to these men as fast you know if you join our movement of five other women like us so it's sort of like this attention may try to offer %HESITATION and in many ways you know these women are seeking to delegitimize a generalized %HESITATION far right narratives and ideologies which are harmful %HESITATION because you know they're not too boisterous and they're not like sort of aggressive and violent out there as you might think about sort of male organizations like the cowboys for example this idealized version of womanhood is a common theme amongst memes and images shad all right platforms images often include drawings or photos of smiling white families in typical nineteen fifties attire attending church %HESITATION doing other traditional activities like having barbecues all looking for corn fields together these images sometimes have a glitch filter over them and the Everest with phrases like this is what they took from you all forward to the past it's also what we see in the region a well Jack name you know that crudely drawn blonde couple of the man who strong Jordan he's concerned looking wife in a floral dress Daniel Ambrose %HESITATION the journalist behind the document you white noise which focuses on free call figures from the old right including factually pin up girl learn seven explains the goal of having a woman in the movement is to show an avatar of traditional femininity so you can say you know we have strong men we have warriors but we also have these perfect women who fulfilled the ari an ideal of course announcing only Anderson western or whatever euphemism they choose to use but everything from the iconography you know like the blond hair in the build down to the words they're using about baby making and whatever really harkens back to like traditional the role of women in traditional fascist movements in the twentieth century where women really saw the role as a being in the home but if they were public the public role of a woman must chat with to talk about domesticity in the role of domesticity %HESITATION in the written piece I did online southern I talked about how she's in a way sort of like a modern Phyllis Schlafly who is a conservative activist in the eighties seventies and eighties very pro Reagan very crucial question but also played on race issues as well and Lauren and and Phyllis Schlafly embody this very similar contradiction which is you know Phyllis Schlafly believe that women that feminism was horrible and women shouldn't be working in women should be in the home and yet Phyllis Schlafly was spent her entire life on the road giving speeches he was the most ambitious career woman of her of her for age and you know she was first off we always struggled with reckoning that contradiction that was inside of her and and Lauren in two years I spent with her also could never really figure out how this fit knowing very publicly says you should be having kids you should be married at twenty two %HESITATION you know we should be at home and yet she's out in the world making racist propaganda films and she's on the road Mr crested view and Genda relies on essentialism to explain the inalienable differences between men and women often this is biological essentialism and an example can be seen in a blog post by right wing philosopher and coma patient Jordan Peterson called magenta scandal he writes where are the largest differences men are less agreeable more competitive harsher tough minded skeptical I'm sympathetic critically minded independent and stubborn this is in keeping with their proclivity also documented cross culturally to manifest higher rates of violence and anti social or criminal behaviour such that incarceration rates of men versus women approximately fifteen to one women are higher in negative emotion or neuroticism experience more anxiety emotional pain frustration grief self conscious step and disappointment something in keeping with their proclivity to experience depression at twice the rate of men these differences appear to emerge appeared wraps it's a consequence of women smaller size and the danger that posed a conflict perhaps it's a consequence of their sexual vulnerability perhaps and this is the explanation I favor it's because women have taken primary care of infants who are exceptionally vulnerable I must therefore suffer from hyper vigilance to correct the factions of the far right gender differences a down to mystic essentialism that means that the differences between men and women and I rose in society I'm not down to social conditioning or even biology the intelligent design of I make is for the Christian right this is of course caught but another strong through line in far right propaganda and ideology is the Nordic pagan ideals of the mother and the hunter Nordic mysticism is very popular in the all right you may remember that the Q. anon chairman who turned up at the January sixth insurrection wearing horns and Sarah Jane fae activist and journalist explains further right you see a I did some of her strongest state desired returned all schools will start war world fifties some traditional values this sort of mysticism mystic essential core that's where the male version is %HESITATION minus hunter %HESITATION Bahria well didn't help zone which I think the house he said and women side but you you're actually sometimes there was never a niche market helps you referenced a sacred menstrual blood yeah so what is gender rose trapped wives and the %HESITATION right also see women's attractiveness as determined by buff these groups see women's main worth as SO called sexual market place value which is mostly determined by a woman's looks although see although these can be slightly in Hans by being Finn and feminine it's mostly dictated by that genetic makeup however a woman's S. M. V. can be depleted by doing things like cutting out Heschel getting tattoos and piercings being competitive having a high powered career getting old and of course sleeping around I personally take several of those boxes I'll leave it to you guys to work out which ones in her book going dark the secret lives of extremists Julie Epona shares her experiences in the sub reddit reddit paled women's like P. and G. T. O. W. men's rights activists these women perceive gender roles as the result of sexual economics the heterosexual community they play should be seen as a market place where women SLS unmanned buyers of sex a woman single most important resource is that for according to them S. M. V. this radically simplistic view of gender relations is used to legitimize the objectifies ation of women to make it acceptable even necessary to rate trade and replace women like market goods women's highest value to men is huh sexual values and she's most valuable when she's in her sexually pristine state this kind of essentialism is also how the %HESITATION and far right views other aspects of identity particularly race by making these characteristics immutable they can then use them to create hierarchies his chain again M. I. C. superior about rice has to be in the area cases where it counts runs what I see this is main street what is going on with the all right is a must reject sure all units seventy when it comes to rights a rejection of the idea of rights inalienable what about you the sanity says everybody has rights so what seems to me very yeah is that once you start going down the sensuous few centrist views on a jeep a woman is exactly like this she almost defined by all G. is very similar to a racialised racist view of the world it's saying that people this because they all it starts hierarchies the stock was very easy to say people American horror what's women's role as the wife and mother to be protected is also often weaponized to enforce these hierarchies for example an incredibly common far right talking point in Europe is that refugees from Muslim countries like Syria pose a danger to women the commission for countering extremism said some groups deliberately distort the truth to persuade the audience to adopt discriminatory and hateful attitudes and warned that the tactic was drawing in white communities he would not normally support the five right journalist Eleanor penny notes those who claimed the mantle of defender of women tend to talk about women and girls in the same way they talk about land and territory this is not new and it's not a coincidence this faux concern rooted in a toxic mix of misogyny and ethno nationalism gives us a peek into the warped far right world picture which considers women and girls to be exactly that land %HESITATION tree property to be defended by force in other words sexual violence against women and girls is not considered bad because it's horrifying violent act a system of global domination it's bad only because it's an infringement of white men's property rights this strategy is very effective especially given how mainstream anti Muslim views off journalist Lizzie Dearden explains those who publicly limit that racism to Muslims the nine the suppose suppression of the rights and freedoms and came to represent the oppressed people this is a corrupt elite echoed the views of much larger sections of the British public and also found success in attracting large numbers than any time since the nineteen thirties of course these men's desire to quote unquote protect white women from immigrants and outsiders it's also deeply rooted in protecting racial purity as well as viewing men of color as dangerous and sexually aggressive the %HESITATION and fall right view women as promiscuous and unfaithful throwing themselves at the nearest alpha male despite the very real and violent hatred for women the far right also knows that it needs six white women to continue the white race Alexandra Minna stern writes for Cylon one response to looming white extinction anxiety is to produce white babies many more white babies principally of northern and western European ancestry unlike immigration or refugee bans forced deportations or the reintroduction of racial segregation which require heavy handed policies white nationalism Colm Gorey three procreative means tested by pro naturalist programs as one contributor to counter currents proposes having three or five oh eight white children is probably the most pro white thing a passing can date on the most resistant to any charge of racism so the role of women in the far right is something of a contradiction women are expected to only be wives and mothers yet the movement needs visible women at a veneer of respectability women a sexualized and objectified and slut shamed it resented for their attractiveness and lack of availability to men just because the movement tolerate some women in positions of authority doesn't mean they actually have any power Emily this can ski a day to researcher and activist who created the site first vigil explains further I think most of the far right groups are a bunch of rampaging misogynists and they do not respect women %HESITATION that's not to say that they don't respect some women or that they don't let someone into their inner circles and like everything else %HESITATION it is we have to understand the identity based forms of oppression are not rooted in discrimination they're rooted in subordination rooted in power dynamics and it's possible for this for example a Jewish person or a black person to join what is otherwise considered the white power movement I'm because fundamentally if they're willing to act in the service of white supremacy does want to promises groups are often more than willing to accept them %HESITATION for that sort of %HESITATION that form of of %HESITATION that former subordination right they they even just allowing them into that circle is an act of dominance over that person the same is true with with sex and gender I'm women can sometimes enter these movements and it's viewed as they're being let into the movements right the men still have the power and the women are being let in these movements will then turn it around and say look we're not sex is we have a woman you know we're not white supremacists we have a black man you know we're not a white power group were led by Hispanic dude and this is this is true for women as well that's sad when we look at the chat logs me at goes through these these sort of leaks %HESITATION we do see that there are a number of people who are just violently misogynist and are they outright curse women they disrespect them they say horrible things column slurs %HESITATION and that's extremely common in the next episode of the feminine out of radicalization we'll be looking at the house of how women a radicalized into five right exploring the types of metrics and platforms used to love women in thanks so much for listening I'm I'm sharing and you can cancel me on Twitter at at low shearing

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