By Laura SmithShare
- James Alex Fields Jr.’s mug shot was released after he drove his Dodge Challenger through a counterprotest in Charlottesville on Saturday, no one was surprised by what the image revealed: a young, white man with a neo-fascist undercut. “Alt-right” figures like Richard Spencer absorb nearly all the media glare on white nationalism, creating the impression that this is a single-sex movement, and as many have pointed out, the white supremacists who rallied on Saturday were mainly men.
When it comes to identifying the perpetrators of racial hatred in this country, it is tempting to comfort ourselves with gender tropes. But women have always played a determining role in white-supremacist movements.
ADVERTISING
While the march in Charlottesville occurred in reaction to the proposed removal of a statue of a Confederate general, women were responsible for the erection of many of these Confederate statues across the country at the turn of the 20th century. In the 1920s, women composed the most influential arm of the KKK. And lest we forget the election that emboldened these modern white supremacists: More than half of white women voted for Trump. To overlook the comprehensive picture of who makes up the extreme right is to seriously underestimate its reach.
piece on the WKKK, the organization was savvier than its male counterpart because “they were better than the men’s group at hiding their white supremacist mission behind a facade of social welfare.” The group helped to normalize the terrorism of the men’s KKK. Pamphlets from the time read, “Are you interested in the Welfare of our Nation? As an Enfranchised woman are you interested in better government?” Through picnics, lunches, and cross burnings, these white women rallied around racist immigration laws, anti-miscegenation, and segregation.
Due to infighting scandal and the Klan’s general loss of momentum, the WKKK died out by the end of the decade. But there’s no doubt that the Klanswomen channeled their xenophobia into other spheres — the classroom, the school board, local and national politics.
according to Vice, the alt-right’s “not-so-secret weapon.” As a Harper’s feature recently highlighted, a group of “self-made female pundits” with a white-nationalist agenda are seeking to amplify their voices. Across Europe, a wave of women leaders promoting an anti-immigrant, white-populist hard-line are trying to galvanize women voters.
The women within these movements have warned of the foolishness of ignoring them. Not long after Donald Trump was elected, Lana Lokteff, a woman member of the “alt-right” gave a speech intended to galvanize other women. She told the crowd, “Our enemies have become so arrogant that they count on our silence.” After all, as Lokteff said, “When women get involved, a movement becomes a serious threat.”
