Women are increasingly joining extremist groups, demanding the removal of their own rights and submission to men. Our Writer at Large explores the disturbing phenomenon
YOU’VE probably heard of “red-pilling”. It’s internet slang that originates from the cult sci-fi movie The Matrix.
In the film, characters are offered the choice to take a red pill. If they do, their illusions are shattered and they come to see the dark truth of how the world really works.
The term was adopted by the “manosphere” – the online realm inhabited by extreme misogynists. That’s pretty ironic as The Matrix was created by two trans women, Lana and Lilly Wachowski. However, it’s also rather fitting. As you’ll discover, much of what follows often filters through today’s so-called gender wars.
The notion of “red-pilling” also caught on with the extreme far right. Those who espoused conspiracy theories and hate around anti-Semitism, white supremacy, homophobia and misogyny claimed to have “taken the red pill”. The term was nearly always used by men and about men.
However, as we’ve seen over recent years, women are increasingly prominent in the ranks of the far right and the populist right. In America, Donald Trump’s MAGA movement boasts plenty of women, many of whom want to strip abortion rights from other women.
The far-right Giorgia Meloni runs Italy, pushing a “family, faith and flag” agenda. In France, the far-right Marine Le Pen, who is virulently anti-immigrant, could soon be president. Closer to home, Britain First – considered a fascist party – had Jayda Fransen as deputy leader.
There’s an equivalent expression to “red-pilling” when it comes to the radicalisation of women: getting “pink-pilled”. Indeed, that’s the title of the forthcoming book by the investigative journalist Lois Shearing, which explores the phenomenon of women who hate. Shearing spent almost two years uncovering what it means to be a woman in the far right.
Shearing has skin in the game, however. The author of Pink Pilled: Women and the Far-right identifies as genderfluid. To extremists, that makes Shearing the enemy.
Investigative journalist Lois Shearing
Poster-girl
Lauren Southern is perhaps the poster girl for what it means to be a woman in the far right. The Canadian made a career out extremism online and was banned from entering Britain.
America’s hate-monitoring organisation The Southern Poverty Law Centre said: “Her anti-feminist, xenophobic, Islamophobic diatribes tiptoe at the precipice of outright white nationalism, while she coyly smiles at her viewers in a video on her YouTube channel alongside a graphic reading ‘I am not a Nazi’.”
Today, across the West, there are millions like Southern. Shearing believes it’s thanks to society’s inherent sexism that most people tend to see the far right as a male realm. Women can be just as hateful, the writer says.
The role of women in the far right first captured Shearing’s attention when the writer began exploring the manosphere. It was a “mirror”, Shearing says, “reflecting back” some of the most hateful views in society.
The manosphere drips with misogyny and homophobia. Delving into the manosphere felt like a “form of self-torture”, but Shearing ploughed on as it was clear these sites had become a major “radicalising force” in the modern world.
Steve Bannon, one of Trump’s most prominent supporters and chief strategist during his first White House term, was, says Shearing, an early idol for the manosphere. From investigating extremist male culture online, Shearing began exploring the radicalisation of women.
The writer uncovered a world of female influencers promoting ideas like “biblical womanhood”. Multiple websites and social media channels, with huge follower numbers, pushed “bigotry dolled up in fairy lights”, and promoted “Christian nationalist” lifestyles for young women.
“I was struck by how much the content was almost identical to the manosphere,” the writer says. The content is “incredibly anti-feminist, very racist and very Islamophobic”.
Shearing wanted to know “why women would be parroting this stuff? How could they not see this was just so bad for them? They’re talking about how women shouldn’t have their own bank accounts when they’re married. It just seemed absolutely bizarre and I was fascinated”.
After lengthy investigations, Shearing says there are multiple reasons why women embrace the far right. Some women come to extremism through family and tradition, usually “evangelical women”.
“It’s very much about their religious upbringing. They’re taught from a young age that their role is to be what they call a ‘helpmeet’ – that they exist just to serve men.”
For other women it’s “very much about whiteness, they’re drawn to these movements because while they’re marginalised as women, these movements offer them power as white women. To be revered as white women is a very big draw for a lot of women in the far right”.
Other women are sucked in through a combination of loneliness and a need for community. Particularly during Covid, many women – just like many men – found themselves isolated and drawn to online communities. Fears about vaccines and lockdowns were often a gateway to extremist communities online and from there some women found themselves getting deeper and deeper into far-right ideology.
The dreadful irony for women who think they’ve found “sisterhood” in the far right, says Shearing, is that these movements are dominated by men who both “hate women”, yet tell women “you’ll be looked after, you’ll be treated like the mother of the nation. That’s a really powerful narrative for women who feel powerless”.
Shearing discovered that the more isolated a woman was, the more “vulnerable” she is to radicalisation. “Religious communities and traditional households” tend to leave woman more isolated than their peers. However, Shearing says that everyone has it in them “to be radicalised, we all have weaknesses that can be exploited”.
Pro-life demonstrators listen to US President Donald Trump as he speaks at the 47th annual "March for Life" in Washington, DC
Covid
THE amount of time that young people spent online during Covid accelerated radicalisation for some. Shearing explains that young women who ventured into extremist online communities were no longer “interacting with lots of people from different backgrounds” – as they did at work or university – so there was nothing to offset or balance out the views they were hearing and reading.
“Teen girls are today talking about how to ‘step into their divine femininity to find a high-value man’, they’re taking about how birth control makes you less feminine and is a government conspiracy,” Shearing adds.
Many would use the term “toxic femininity” about far-right women, just as the term “toxic masculinity” is used to describe extremist male influencers like Andrew Tate, the online misogynist arrested and indicted in Romania on charges of human trafficking, rape, and forming a gang to sexually exploit women.
Shearing resists the term, however, as far-right women themselves have adopted it in a “faux ironic way” and see it as a badge of honour. Many far-right women are what are known as “femme trolls” online – posters who deliberately abuse and provoke others, often those seen as liberal.
Rather than give far-right women the attention they crave with the term “toxic femininity”, Shearing instead defines them as women peddling “male supremacy”. The only difference is that “when men join these movements their anger goes outwards very violently, whereas women internalise this hatred of womanhood and it becomes internally violent”.
Shearing notes that although there are cases of women carrying out acts of violence in the name of extremist ideologies, that’s very rare compared to men. “When we talk about the radicalisation of young girls, they are far more likely to hurt themselves [in cases of self-harm] than to hurt others.”
There are high levels of domestic abuse and coercive control by men against women in far-right movements. “Men in these communities are violent to them and that includes sexual violence and grooming.”
Women and girls, though, are “horizontally violent, they bully each other in the same way girls bully each other at school”. However, rather than bullying each other over the newest trends, Shearing says, “they’re bullying each other saying ‘you’re not racist enough’, ‘you don’t believe in eugenics enough’. You might see most girls online arguing about whether Charlie XCX or Taylor Swift is better, but [extremist girls] are saying ‘you haven’t read Mein Kampf so you’re not a real white nationalist’. And they’re 16 years old”.
Girls as young as 14 are embracing this material, Shearing adds.
Mein Kampf
Degrading
Far-right men, says Shearing, either sanctify or degrade women – often in the same breath. Some of the degrading language used can’t even be printed in redacted form in this newspaper but broadly far-right men fixate on the “goddess/whore” trope. “They talk about women as ‘the birthers of the nation’ who we need to raise our children, and mothers in particular are venerated as this pure force, but then they hate women so violently. They want to sexually degrade and harm women.”
In some cases, women are effectively “trafficked” once they become involved in the most extreme organisations like neo-Nazi groups. Shearing compared this to the NXIVM cult. Leader Keith Raniere was jailed for racketeering, sex trafficking and possessing child abuse images. Sometimes on the extremes of the far right “women are brought in by other women in order to be harmed by men sexually”.
Men on the extremes of the far right have a “specific hatred for liberal white women – that they’re race traitors who should know better and be raising their children as white nationalists, white supremacists”.
When it comes to other women – “women of colour, queer women, disabled women” – extremist men “fundamentally don’t want them to exist because all women exist for is to birth white children. If you can’t do that, why would they let you exist?”.
Many neo-Nazi men avidly espouse the belief system found in The Turner Diaries – a novel by the white supremacist William Pierce which imagines an American race war. The story – which inspired Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh – features “the Day of the Rope” when so-called race traitors are hanged. When it comes to “women of colour and queer women”, says Shearing, the term “Day of the Rope” is often deployed.
While many extremist men see women’s sole purpose as “breeding”, there’s an increasing minority who believe “white women’s consent to birth children for these movements is a nicety, not a necessity. If they can force women into reproductive labour, then many of them would prefer that over women doing the reproductive labour willingly”. In other words, they favour a system of mass rape.
Shearing stresses that it’s important to see the far right as a spectrum. The most extreme views are only held by outright Nazis, not political parties operating in what’s become the mainstream in Europe and America, such as Trump’s MAGA iteration of the Republican Party.
However, it should be noted that Trump was found guilty in a civil court of sexually abusing a woman. Some prominent members of his team have also had serious allegations of mistreating women made against them.
Abortion
EVIDENTLY, the infringement of women’s rights is at the heart of many now mainstream far-right movements. Many MAGA supporters – including women – support curtailing abortion rights. In Britain, Nigel Farage, leader of the populist hard-right Reform party, has suggested MPs should debate rolling back the abortion limit.
Protesters in the USA
Some MAGA women, says Shearing, have embraced what’s called the “trad wife” trend. This sees women adopting a 1950s approach to marriage: staying at home, supporting and being ‘submissive’ to their husband, raising children, cooking and cleaning. It’s often closely tied to “evangelicals and fundamentalists” as it promotes “traditional womanhood and biblical femininity”. The well-know far-right figure Lauren Southern adopted this “trad-style” marriage.
Shearing calls these women “useful idiots”. It becomes a “powerful narrative” for far-right men to have women backing their anti-feminist views. It plays into the “red pill narrative of seeing the light” if women talk about “how brainwashed they were by feminism and then woke up to see how its really male domination that’s best for women, and having their rights restricted, and being a helpmeet for men”.
However, once inside these movements – at the most extreme end – these women “don’t have any power, they’re not treated well, but they’re useful to keep around to point to”.
Joining these extremist movements does satisfy some need in certain women, says Shearing – whether it’s race hate, hatred of trans people, internalised misogyny, or some form of sadomasochism which draws them towards organisations and men who are dangerous and might harm them. There’s also the simple “sense of power” that’s gained.
It can be difficult for men to leave neo-Nazi organisations, but for women, once they’re in, it can be impossible to get out. If they’ve entered a traditional relationship, says Shearing, then they’ll have no control over money, and access to friends and family may be limited and controlled. “If a woman joins a hate movement and has three kids and is in a horribly abusive relationship with no money or job, she can’t leave. How do you get that woman out?”
Shearing says there’s another type of woman in the far right: “grifters” in it for money, fame and power. “If they could make as much money being fitness influencers or makeup bloggers, they’d do it.”
For other women, especially vulnerable or damaged women seeking support and friendship who then get sucked into extremism, Shearing feels some “empathy”, but adds: “At the same time, they’re f*****g horrible people. They might not be killing people, but they’re harming people by spreading this ideology.”
All this poses the big question: are women just as, or even more, right wing than men? Today, women “skew more progressive” than men, especially women under 50, says Shearing. However, “this hasn’t always been the case”. The split between progressives and conservatives is “almost even for men and women over 65”.
Women, as Shearing notes, have “historically been reliable voters for right-wing and conservative parties”. In the 1970s and 1980s, some of the leading hardline conservative voices in Britain and America were women – like Mary Whitehouse and Phyllis Schlafly. But Shearing says that as more women gained access to university education, greater numbers starting veering to the liberal left.
Trans
NEVERTHELESS, says Shearing, “women have played a really important role in the upkeep of white supremacy and patriarchy”. In recent years, Shearing adds, “the gender-critical movement for women” – seen by trans people as opposing the expansion of their rights – “has been one of the most successful radicalising narratives”.
Shearing fears that trans people are being used as a “battering ram” for the far right to get at the rights of women, particularly on abortion. Shearing says the LGBT community has long warned that if the far right is attacking the “bodily autonomy” of trans people, they’ll eventually come for the bodily autonomy of heterosexual women.
It’s increasingly common now to hear far-right attacks on the use of the contraceptive pill.
“Attacking autonomy over reproduction is a watershed way of attacking every other right women have. This is going to be one of the biggest battles of the next five to 10 years.”
Shearing says some women online move from becoming “gender-critical” to questioning other beliefs they had held as liberals. As research, Shearing adopted a far-right persona to monitor message boards and closed social media groups.
The far right is avowedly transphobic, Shearing explains. “It’s so easy for the far right, who don’t give a f*** about women, to swoop in and derail the narrative [around gender].
“That’s why they’re exploiting these conversations that women have for their own gain.”
A trans rights march in Scotland
Shearing says far-right activists seek to weaponise trans women in the same way they weaponise men of colour.
Claims that African America men in the segregated southern states of the USA, or migrant men in modern Europe, have sexually assaulted “white women” is a common trope used to foment racial hatred. Far-right women have pushed this narrative too, not just men.
Shearing calls this “the fascistic tendency of white womanhood”. Some women, Shearing says, “want liberation from patriarchy but aren’t willing to give up the power and privilege that their whiteness affords. They understand they’re marginalised as women, but they cannot and will not acknowledge the way in which they are marginalising others”.
“Femonationalism”, Shearing says, often presents a narrative that foreign men must be kept out of Western nations as they’re a threat to white women. “It’s similar to the rhetoric with trans women,” Shearing adds. “Beat for beat.” Drag queens have also been labelled dangerous.
In extreme far-right groups, though, men “don’t care about violence against women. Many think women deserve to be raped, many want to rape and harm women”. They talk of protecting white women as, for them, it’s about “infringement of their property rights”.
Shearing says that when far-right men talk of immigrants “coming over here and raping our women”, the key word isn’t “raping” but “our”, adding: “It’s ‘these women belong to us, we should be able to do what we want to them’.”
She calls this “a protectionist racket, adding: “It’s ‘we’ll protect you but the price you pay is we get to do what we want to you’.”
Breeding
The far right often pushes ideology which reduces women to breeding machines – such as “natalism”, the idea that women must have more babies to grow the population. This has been promoted by the likes of Elon Musk.
On the neo-Nazi fringes, natalism morphs into the need to grow the white race. The far right has also adopted the tactic of attacking sex education policies. Shearing met women who were part of Tommy Robinson’s circle. Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – is a convicted criminal who played a central role is ramping up this summer’s far-right riots.
One asked Shearing: “Aren’t you worried that Britain will have more brown babies than white babies? Fundamentally, many of these women think it’s their duty to repopulate the white race as they believe it’s under threat from immigrants and we’re going to get overtaken by brown people.”
They see “motherhood as a woman’s ultimate goal”. Many women – and men – end up down far-right rabbit holes through the so-called “wellness industry”. Again, there are links to Covid. Some who began seeking out alternative remedies online eventually found themselves drawn to “anti-medical and anti-vaccine” sites. From there, it is often just a few steps to far-right platforms and “anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that Jewish elites are funding vaccine programmes”.
Shearing adds: “The woo-ee wellness industry is a real radicaliser.” There is sometimes a crossover with the trad wives movement, and mothers who “feed their kids raw milk”.
Far-right women leaders like Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni evidently aren’t being dominated by men in their movements. Rather, when it comes to far-right women in power, “they soften the image of their party”. Le Pen’s National Front, now called National Rally, was seen as virulently anti-Semitic. Today, says Shearing, it promotes itself as the “party of families”.
The narrative which is pushed, says Shearing, is that far-right “women can’t be evil as they’re talking about motherhood, but actually behind the veneer of respectable femininity is racism, anti-immigration [sentiment] and Islamophobia. They’re femme-washing these views”.
Marine Le Pen
Auschwitz
WESTERN societies have failed to grapple with the rise of far-right women as women, generally, aren’t “seen as capable of harm, having regressive views or being violent”. That, Shearing adds, is simply “benevolent sexism”.
“We’ve erased women’s contribution from history – the good stuff and bad stuff. Women were guards at Auschwitz. The same sexism that erased Marie Curie’s contribution to society also erased Eva Braun’s contribution to society. That benefits many evil women in the same way it negatively impacts women who have made positive contributions to society. We don’t talk or care about women’s work whether that work is positive or horrible.”
Although not all women come out worse from their flirtation with extremism, many do. Remember Lauren Southern – the “pretty poster girl” for far-right femininity? In the end, matters went rather badly for her.
She began, says Shearing, “as the sexy mouthpiece” of the far right. Then she married, adopted a trad lifestyle and had children. This year, she featured in an article headlined “How my trad life turned toxic”. The article discusses the “breakdown of her abusive marriage” which turned into a “nightmare”.
Shearing says it’s an old story. “It’s what we see over and over again for women in these movements.”
Is there an antidote or vaccine for women, to prevent “pink-pilling”? Yes, according to Shearing. Sex education for girls, such as teaching them about “consent and bodily autonomy”, can be a vaccine which makes sure young women fully understand their rights and are less easy to exploit. As for the antidote, well that’s harder, because if we really want to neutralise the power the far right can hold over some women, it means we need to “address the roots of sexism in our societies”.
With sexism still very much alive and well, Shearing believes that we’re about to “live through a period of fascism or at least hard-right politics” in the West, and that means “the rights of marginalised people, trans people, disabled people, and women are going to be very at risk over the next few years”.
