Case Study

“​Gender, Nationalism and the

Alt-Right Movement​”
The role of women at the Charlottesville
‘Unite the Right’ rally

Laura Bartley - 2017

1421 words
Introduction

Source: (NY Daily News 2017)

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally in
August 2017 by exploring the event using a feminist curiosity approach, and also drawing on
previous feminist insights relating to the relationship between gender and nationalism. The
reason for choosing this event as the focus of analysis is due to the striking absence of
women in the media coverage of the march. In my opinion, the overwhelming presence of
men (and the significantly fewer women attendees) prompts the need for a deeper reflection
on the gendered roles in the alt-right movement1. For instance it necessitates a questioning of
where are the women in the alt-right movement, or more specifically where were the women
at the Unite the Right rally?
The current gender blind approach of journalists results in the creation of a single
masculine narrative but as highlighted by Enloe (2004, p.6) gendered hierarchies rely on
masculinities and femininities coexisting and thus warns against imagining any brand of
nationalism uninformed by feminist understandings. Therefore this paper seeks to use the

1
Please note this paper focuses primarily on the ‘alt-right movement’ which refers to the white nationalist,
internet-oriented political movement which has risen particularly in the US and across Europe in recent years.
Due to word count limits, the distinctions between white nationalism, white supremacy and the alt-right
movements (not to mention its subgroups e.g. the KKK etc) are not able to be fully explored and thus may seem
to be used interchangeably.
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Charlottesville rally as a point of entry to gain a better understanding of the relationship
between masculinity and nationalism and the tensions between feminism and nationalism.
The examination of these gendered dynamics is important because if we continue to take
seriously only the male alt-right members of the international movement promoting white
supremacy, then we are bound to miss the gendered consequences of white nationalism. This
echoes the argument of Puri (2004, p. 110) who states that “understanding nationalism as
gendered means recognising its varied impact on women and men of different social
groupings.”

Charlottesville and an Absence of Women in the Alt-Right?

“You have some pretty​ bad dudes​ on the other side also”
- President Trump2

On 12 August 2017, the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville brought together a
collection of white nationalists (including traditional white supremacists Neo-Nazis and the
KKK, but also other newer racist groups usually found on the internet) (BBC 2017). As
images flooded across the world, from the media coverage it was evident that the majority of
white extremists at the Charlottesville march were men. Furthermore the rally made headlines
for its particular violence and brutality, with one white supremacists arrested for driving his
car into a crowd of counter-protestors resulting in the death of Heather Heyer and causing the
injuries of dozens more (Kitchener 2017). However despite the images of men marching and
shouting in the torchlight rally in Charlottesville, there were also a few women present
amongst them. Nonetheless any female presence was largely invisible in media accounts of
the rally, but this lack of mediatised presence should not be read as a lack of women in the
white nationalist movement overall - with women reportedly making up 20 percent of those
who claim the alt-right label (Hemmer 2017). Even President Trump’s choice of words in the
aftermath of the violent protests “bad ​dudes​” highlights how even the language of the event
became masculinised. Therefore the (in)visibility of women represented at the march by the

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/350727-trump-on-white-supremacists-we-have-some-pretty-bad-du
des-on-the
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media is political and raises the necessary questions of where are the women in this
movement and why are they there (or not)?
Indeed, the issue of women and their role in the alt-right has become more prevalent
in recent months but still remains largely unexamined in mainstream media or academia
(besides several articles in which journalists grapple with how women could possibly exist in
the alt-right). This may arise from the preconceived idea that ‘feminity’ is incompatible with
violent protest and racism as women are traditionally represented in Western culture as
‘nurturers’ or ‘carers’, whereas men are viewed as more ‘political’ and ‘violent.’ It seems that
the repeated central conundrum in discussions of women’s participation in white nationalist
protest is the paradoxical presence of such outspoken women in an anti-feminist movement
which appears to advocate for the disempowerment of ‘their own gender’.
In many ways this outraged fixation misses some of the more important questions that
looking at gender and nationalism provide insight on. For instance the question of female
agency in the white nationalist movement, specifically in this case whether women are
victims or actors in relation to the alt-right’s white nationalist agenda. Firstly, interviews with
women members of the movement indicate a belief in active agency as according to Claudia
Davenport, an alt-right activist, regarding female empowerment “there’s nothing that has
made me feel more empowered in my life than supporting and being supported by a strong
man,” (The Economist 2017). But women outside of the movement believe that the
organisation seeks to remove agency of women generally as the alt-right openly supports
misogynistic ideas such as women’s primary role being a domestic one (i.e. as mothers and
wives). In relation to the wider issue of gendering white nationalism, this further raises the
question of whether white nationalism domesticates women by valorising their roles as
mothers or alternatively actually ‘liberates’ them by offering opportunities to participate
publicly in political struggles. In my opinion, women’s involvement in the alt-right highlights
the often neglected point that women can seek power without necessarily seeking equality.
Significantly there is a particular demonisation of and fascination with women’s
participation in the rally and the alt-right (even more so than the men). For instance many of
the articles investigating the prominent women (e.g. Lana Lokteff and Ayla Stewart) in the
alt-right show a greater level of incredulity than towards their male counterparts. This may be
predicated on the belief that women should naturally be an ally for other women - that gender
is a women’s foremost identity (as opposed to race/ethnicity). However this is part of one of

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the several problematic elements of the current narrative as identity (and concepts such as
intersectionality) show how the cross-cutting nature of different identity markers can affect
how different power relations interact. Another problematic element is that women
participants at the march or in the alt-right are rarely depicted as highly rational actors
making a political statement, but rather as being driven by misinformed thinking or emotion.
This emotionally driven myth provides easier motive for participation than having a rational
set of political beliefs. This is a phenomenon that was identified by Gardner (2007, p.912)
who argues:
“journalists thus frame female inclusion in political violence as ‘unnatural’
and worthy of explanation, suggesting that women who relocate from the
private sphere to the public sphere of political violence necessitate
contextual explanations for their actions.”

Therefore in some ways the dominance of men in the march and in the subsequent
reporting of the event relegates the women attendees to the private sphere - with the lack of
visibility women at the march perpetuating this view of women’s participation through the
lens of traditional gender roles (i.e. the women must have been at home). It is actually the
alt-right movement who harness women’s traditional position in the private sphere, as women
in the alt-right are particularly active online (challenging the conventional private-public
division as the internet is technically a public space). For instance sites such as RedIce and
4Chan enable the wider participation of women in discussing white nationalism and their
disappointment of the feminist agenda, in particular the election of Trump has emboldened
more women such as Lokteff to then enter the public sphere.

Conclusion

In summary this paper has used a feminist curiosity approach to explore the different
roles women (and gender more generally) played in the Charlottesville rally and how these
roles are represented. The typical narrative is gender-blind and founded on the unquestioned
belief that women cannot be central to racist, nationalist movements. The assumption that
white supremacy is purely for ‘white guys’ needs to be deconstructed as cannot truly accept
that the men holding the torches at the Charlottesville rally live a single-gendered society, or
that the women in their lives have no agency or interaction in their communities (Smith
2017). By analysing the role of women in the alt-right, the understandings and assumptions of

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the male participants that we have already made are challenged - for example the belief that
white nationalism is a hyper-masculine space composed of disillusioned, racist men becomes
more nuanced when we account for the role women play. This has been the aim of this paper
as it has explored the tensions between masculinity and nationalism, and also address the
conflict between feminism and nationalism, in order to uncover these complex gendered
interactions and their political consequences.

Source: Joe Klamar/Getty Images

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