Between traditionalist influencers, viral podcasts and online magazines, the female far right has become a thriving industry supported by Silicon Valley. Interview with British journalist Lois Shearing.
British journalist Lois Shearing has been investigating the radicalization of women online for almost ten years, from the trendy femtrolls of Dimes Square (Manhattan) to the women's section of the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront, including the trad wives who stylishly demonize retrograde ideas with viral content, in segments a priori as innocuous as well-being or fitness. His book Pink Pilled: Women and the far right, will be released in February 2025. She tells us about this seesaw movement.
When did you start seeing the first signs of an alt-right targeting women?
Lois Shearing : I first became interested in the manosphere, with sites like A Voice For Men or Return Of The Kings – not by membership. The more I explored this environment, the more I noticed women taking part in it. Especially two sisters who host Girl Defined, and who released a video titled “ How to wear makeup in a god honoring way ”, which went viral in 2017. Going to their blog, I recognized the rhetoric of the manosphere sites. So I continued to explore the subject, particularly in the podcast “ The feminine art of radicalization ».
The first chapter of your book is called Girl Fascism Definedhow does this fascism differ from “classic” fascism?
L. S. : It's not different in substance, but the aesthetics are very different. In men, the imagery is very violent and aggressive, but in women, it is softer, frail, you have to be thin, etc.
What are the different categories of women linked to the alt-right?
L. S. : There are many, even among trad wives. There is the trad wife really malicious, trad wife evangelical, or the trad wife more political. There is also the femcel (female incel), or even the femtrollwhich is very linked to the blogosphere, to the entire subculture of girl bloggingwhich is not intrinsically linked to the far right, but overlaps with it. At the girl bloggerthere is all this aesthetic linked to Lolita from Nabokov, to Lana Del Rey, and to images of very thin women.
What types of content are created and consumed by alt-right women?
L. S. : It goes from there trad wife on Tik Tok at the women's section of the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront, where they openly talk about big replacement and racism. Content related to trad wives are everywhere right now, and also those related to wellness, a huge community. A lot of the alt-right comes from bodybuilding forums, and it's strange that people made the connection for men, but not for women. Wellness and fitness are also used to radicalize women online.
How to qualify femtrolls? Do they really troll like users of 4chan or 18-25 in France?
L. S. : No, it's more along the lines of what we see on Dasha Nekrasova and Anna Khachiyan's Red Scare podcast, where they're going to be very ironic and against the grain. They themselves use the term femtroll, but in an ironic and slightly edgy way. Few women are on 4chan, it is rather the sociolect of 4chan which has become omnipresent on the internet.
What role does irony play? Does it help to demonize far-right ideas?
L. S. : It's a way of spreading a message by denying you believe in it. We also see this in women's communities now, where they say very anti-feminist things while saying it's ironic. And even if they are, they still move the Overton window on what is acceptable to say online about women's rights, and their bodies. And these young women who have been told that they should be thin and submissive, decide to do so in a maximized way, to the point of grotesqueness, like some trad wives.
Is there an attempt to coolification of the alt-right among women, notably by people like Dasha Nekrasova, who is very linked to the “trendy” district of Dimes Square in New York?
L. S. : Dimes Square is just a corner of Chinatown where a lot of these young people who are against the grain and linked to the alt-right hang out. Many are artists or creators, therefore very effective propagandists. More particularly for women, whose role in the alt-right movement is to whitewash the image, to make the extreme right more acceptable, gentler, more safe. The girls of Dimes Square play a big role in this.
We also know that certain figures in Dimes Square are linked to billionaire Peter Thiel, friend of Elon Musk and big financier of the American alt-right… Are these people financed by the tech bros of Silicon Valley?
L. S. : Absolutely. I did a lot of research on Evie magazinewhich is a Cosmopolitan far right. I worked extra for Cosmopolitan during my investigation, and by going to Evie Magazine I found this world in mirror, this Cosmopolitan diabolical. And Evie Magazine is financed by Peter Thiel… These tech bros of Silicon Valley are putting a lot of money into the infrastructure of the alt-right online. There are also rumors that the daughters of Red Scare allegedly received money from Peter Thiel.
What role do the aestheticlike the formidably effective and viral style of the trad wife ?
L. S. : Aesthetics have always played a role in fascism in general, just look at the futuristic aesthetic of traditional Italian fascism. But young girls fall on this because they are looking for a trend to follow. Some just want to play dress up and be feminine, but don't realize what's behind it.
Do the trad wives influential people hide part of their ideas?
L. S. : Yes, like with Girl Defined. At the beginning, their content was very controlled: how to put on makeup as a Christian, or how to meet a Christian. And it's only by going to their site that we start to see Islamophobic or transphobic things, where they talk about reversing the right to abortion. The trad wives do the same, their TikTok content is very smooth, but by going to their site there is much more political content.
This also involves seemingly harmless Tik Tok trends, such as trend of demure who created a buzz this summer?
L. S. : What's interesting about this case is that the person who started this trend of ” very mindful, very cutesie, very demure “, is a black trans woman, so she was really saying it ironically, because that kind of femininity is often denied to trans or black women. It's interesting to see how quickly the trend took off and spread, but because it was taken up by much less ironic women. There was fertile ground. It ties in with these trends about girl dinners, girl math, girl this or that… As if young women were self-infantilizing themselves online.
This radicalization therefore also involves archetypes, kinds of skins of personality to take on according to one's state of mind?
L. S. : Many people today feel a lack of real identity, and therefore what we consume becomes our identity, which we see a lot on TikTok, where we talk about clean girl aestheticof dark feminine energyetc. And these categorizations are often taken up by the press, like everything that goes viral on Tik Tok, like being a friend who is more of a black cat or a golden retriever (laughs). It's a bit silly, but people love to put themselves in boxes, and the digital far right is very good at doing that.
Is it almost cosplay with a half-hearted ideology?
L. S. : It's an identity that we can take on as our own, and try. Many people who end up in extremist tendencies or sects do not have an entourage or a strong community around them, they are looking for something, an identity.
Who are the new faces of this extreme female internet right?
L. S. : It’s changing a lot, and quickly. When I first started learning about this stuff, it was people like Lauren Southern, Laura Loomer, Mrs. Midswest, and Candace Owens. But today, they are more trad wives from TikTok, like Nara Smith, Ballerina Farm, Podcast Girls Red Scare.
We also saw singer Charli XCX refer to the femtroll Dasha Nekrasova in the song “Mean Girls” from her latest album Bratwhich went viral this summer, Doja Cat wearing a t-shirt with far-right troll Sam Hyde, or Grimes saying what good things she thinks of 4chan… Are these ideas also spreading in pop culture mainstream Today ?
L. S. : Grimes is a very interesting case, she's a big celebrity, she was married to Elon Musk, and she posts to say that after getting pregnant she felt less gay, and that because of her hormones she doesn't was more able to concentrate on math… And she is followed by hundreds of thousands of young girls. This type of edgy content is booming. During my investigation, many friends sent me this kind of content, which shows that you no longer need to search to find it, it's on your feed Insta or TikTok. It became mainstreamand I think that this aesthetic cool girl Charli XCX style is one of them.
How have the female alt-right and its offshoots evolved since you began your investigation?
L. S. : Four years ago, these women would have been considered very far right, not acceptable. Today they're referenced in Charli XCX's album, and people are OK with that. It has also changed in relation to the themes, which are very oriented towards the biological. They talk a lot about hormones, and try to turn that into some kind of pro-women speech. They talk about their ovulation periods, how they can't carry heavy things, how they can't work like men. Girl Defined or Mrs Midwest were more direct about the fact that women's role is to serve men. Today, they are trying to wrap it in a pro-feminine narrative, which also helps a lot in gaining media attention.
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