Alt-right researchers tend to play into gendered assumptions by describing women’s participation as passive. Alt-right researchers tend to portray women as inactive. However, the demographics of Capitol Riots arrestees reveal that middle-aged white men are the majority.
However, our research on the digital media and misinformation relating to the Capitol Riots has found that women played key leadership roles in the organization of and performance at the riots. Women planned events, presented a softer face of the alt-right, and nurtured social cohesion among participants. They also shaped the direction the riots took.
The intersection of race, gender and class
One thing that men and women had in common during the Capitol Riots was the overwhelming majority of them were white. White women are a hybrid of two intersecting identities: one dominant (whiteness) and the other oppressed (feminine).
They can choose how and when to act out each identity. The far-right tends to be based on traditional gender roles. This is why women are often labeled “classic woman,” “tradwife,” or other roles that reflect sex realism.
Sex realism is the notion that women are biologically different from men and thus cannot be equal; while not considered subordinate, traditional roles for women are prescribed. Included in this alt-right form of feminism are race-based pressures to reproduce white children, associated with the racist rhetoric of “Make America Great Again .”
The women who took part in the Capitol Riots performed gender roles that were influenced by racist speech and actions. In our study of the women’s involvement in the Capitol riots, we identified four key groups: “QAMoms” (female QAnon conspiracists), militias, and martyrs.
Mobilizers
Women played a key role in organizing the protest on Jan. 6, with “Woman for America First (W4AF) serving as key organizers of the march that turned into riot.
W4AF, in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riots, held a bus tour of 20 cities. Bob Cavanaugh was a North Carolina county commissioner who said, allegedly in jest: “We could solve all the problems in this country by having every conservative shoot one liberal.
She posted on Parler, a far-right social networking site, that she needed “a grassroots army” to stop the peaceful transfer of power. She said she wanted “to build a grassroots force” in a conversation promoted by the site. The conversation received 39 million views and 240,000 votes, with 12,000 comments.
Women who mobilize, such as W4AF or Greene, are usually well-known and well-funded. They operate behind the scenes but have a lot of social power.
Mothers of the Movement
The women who are referred to as QAMoms may be mothers, or they may serve as “mothers” for the movement. Through hashtags such as #SaveTheChildren, they have been exposed to conspiracy theories like QAnon. These theories exploit nostalgia for an idealized past.
This hashtag appears to be a campaign against child sex exploitation. Still, QAnon and QAMoms have repurposed it in order to spread the absurd conspiracy theory that the deep state Democrats are a cabal of sex-trafficking Satanists.
At the Capitol Riots, women who were drawn to the alt-right through disinformation and conspiracy theories led prayers, provided first aid, organized food, and assumed stereotypical mothering responsibilities. These forms of mothering, while playing into gender stereotypes, are also displays that demonstrate social agency and leadership.
Militias
Alt-right women are also involved in militias, which is surprising. Jessica Watkins, who served with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, was charged with seditious conspiracies for her alleged role as a leader in the Capitol Riots.
Watkins, a transgender man, has suffered transphobic, inhumane treatment while in prison. This includes being kept naked for days in a brightly-lit cell.
She is accused of actively recruiting members from the Ohio State Regular Militia, which she founded. She was also said to have planned a military takeover at the Capitol. Watkins, dressed in military uniform and moving in military stack formation with militia members during the riots, was seen.
Women who participated in and led militias were shaped by their military training. They performed skillful leadership activities during the riots. For example, they directed and taught others to attack the police lines or climb walls in an alleged attempt to overthrow the state.
Martyrs
Some participants in the Capitol Riots dressed up as famous patriotic women and played the role. Watkins, for example, was at the front of the Capitol Building incursion.
This woman was one of the most tragic deaths of that day. Ashli Babbitt was a self-styled QAMom who owned a small business and tried to climb a window in order to get to the House lobby.
Groups immediately claimed Babbitt as a martyr just moments after she died against her family’s wishes. POTUS Donald Trump, who is leaving office in a few days, said that she died because of a corrupt government. This was despite him being President at the moment of her death.
Working against your interests
Women may find it absurd to support Trump, who is accused of misogyny and sexual assault. , a worldview held by many QAMoms, contains an explanation. Alt-right women use sex realism to blame immigrants and people of color, those who are below them, on society’s constructed racial hierarchy.
It may be easier for tradwives to blame others than confront the fact their own families may have oppressive structures or behaviors.
We should not overlook the agency of women who are part of alt-right movements. They spread disinformation, reinforce gender stereotypes, encourage conspiracy theories, and practice racism.
The alt-right leadership paves the path for the increasing racist violence by male counterparts in the groups that they nurture, “mother” and lead.
