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A daring investigation into how women are recruited by the far right online.
As the far right has gained popularity and acceptance around the world, its ranks have swelled with an unlikely category of members: women.
Women play significant roles in far-right movements, acting as propagandists, prizes to be won and mother-warriors of the nation. But up to now their activities have been largely overlooked. In Pink-pilled, journalist Lois Shearing interviews leading experts and infiltrates communities of tradwives and femtrolls to provide a cutting-edge account of how the far right uses the internet to recruit women. Shining a light on women’s experiences within these movements, Shearing reveals horrifying examples of misogyny and violence.
Understanding how and why women join movements that explicitly aim to restrict their autonomy is essential if we want to fight back. Pink-pilled offers key insights for countering women’s radicalisation and building communities resistant to far-right thought.
'Lois Shearing is unflinching about the role of women – and even of certain feminisms – in contemporary Anglo-American alt-right and neo-Nazi radicalisation. A gruesomely engaging study, Pink-pilled urges us to pay better heed to the white-supremacist work that fascism is doing today with cissexual femininity, in order to strengthen our ability as feminists to assert liberatory alternatives.'
Sophie Lewis, author of Enemy Feminisms
'Sharp, nuanced and thoughtful, Shearing’s analysis disentangles complex and contradictory trends in women’s willing participation in hateful movements, including misogynistic ones. Should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the contemporary far right and its gendered dimensions.'
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, American University
'A riveting deep dive into women’s involvement in the far right and anti-LGBTQ+ rights. Pink-pilled gives an eye-opening account of the pervasive online ecosystem driven by hate and misogyny.'
Eviane Leidig, author of The Women of the Far Right
'Thoroughly researched, concise and oh so intelligent, Lois Shearing you are a genius.'
Catriona Innes, author of The Matchmaker
'A captivating book that shows how and why women, too, can be fascists. Lois Shearing´s Pink-pilled should be mandatory reading for scholars and journalists working on gender and the far right today.'
Inés Bolaños Somoano, IBEI Fellow in International Security at Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals
CHOICE Recommended: General readers and lower-division undergraduates.
Introduction
1 Girl-fascism defined: understanding the alt-right and far right
2 Forward to the past: the history of women in far-right movements
3 This is what they took from you: the far right’s vision for women
4 Feminism is cancer: how women are radicalised online
5 What is a woman? Mapping women’s radicalising content
6 WHITE SHARIA NOW: women’s experiences in far-right communities
7 Which way western woman? Addressing the future of women in the far right
Notes
Index