Why female alt-right advocates aren’t the voice of balanced progress, but of patriarchy in a skirt 

I’ve been dodging this topic for a while. It’s been too hard, too deeply conditioned, too close to the core of who I was and who I’m evolving out of. That, of course, is the right-wing evangelical with heavy doses of NAR and dominionism thrown in for good measure. In my walk through deconstruction, I’ve noticed that, increasingly, women are becoming the face of the alt right-wing’s attempts to block social progress. They are the Kellie-Jay Keen’s of the world: they’re Tradwife Mummy bloggers, Moms for Liberty, the Women’s Forum-type ‘think tank’ ilk, and the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world. They are inside the Republican Party in the USA, and right-wing factions of political parties here in Australia. I’m sure if I were to bother delving into the political scenes of Europe, Canada, England, New Zealand, and anywhere there’s growing right-wing visibility in politics, I’d see them there too.

They are right-wing anti-feminists: a Trojan horse that looks like women speaking, but when you listen closely, it’s patriarchy in a skirt. So I’d love for you to take a moment to read a little explainer on what it’s like to aspire to be one of these women; and why the presence of women in right-wing politics shouldn’t be assumed to be altruistic or even beneficial for women more broadly. 

In reality, it could be the exact opposite. Disclaimer: this post is my opinion. But gee I’ve got some great opinions.

The Backgrounder: women in far-right movements – programmed towards submission

While dumpster-diving through old emails last year, I found one that made me cringe hard. I was in my early twenties when I authored it, and it was a list of 100 things I wanted to do before I died – a sort of email chain thing sent around a group of my evangelical friends when Facebook was yet to take off. On that list, I’d written that I wanted to say something in the media that made feminists very angry. 

Gosh! What a thing to say. Not the cringiest thing I’ve said by a long shot. But pretty up there. I’m about to tell you why a smart, educated woman like me could possibly think opposing or even enraging feminists would be a thing worthy of a bucket list…or a life’s purpose. But first, let’s take a look at the problem. 

Earlier this year, MacKenzie Ryan (of The Guardian) wrote that “researchers who track how the far right in the US mobilises, self-promotes and recruits are reporting that women are playing a growing role in the movement.” [1] Ryan went on to aptly point out the prominent roles groups like ‘Moms for Liberty’ have taken in everything from the January 6 siege to book banning and now moves against inclusive education. In the article, Ryan quoted Dr Sandra Jeppesen, who pointed out that “Like men in the movement, women commit to far-right politics believing there is a crisis and they have to commit to extraordinary action” and went on to point out that in this movement, women make better martyrs.

Extraordinary action can mean many concerning things. But that’s a topic for another day. Right now, we need to grapple with the fact that women are excellent martyrs because they can easily be used as an attempt to soften and feminise extreme views, taking the edge off the militance or aggression of a course of action while also appealing to a white-knight fantasy where men mobilise to fight these imaginary attackers. Women often create the ideal victim in that they’re female, blameless and carrying out a noble task -at least on the surface. (See Christie’s ideal victim – 1986).

The thing is though, they’re not victims in most cases. There has been no crime. There is no crisis – only ideology. These wide-eyed ‘won’t someone think of the children’ presentations often front anti-LGBTQI+ (especially anti-trans) hate — cue the Moira Deemings of the world — and can easily dovetail in with other moral-panic topics like immigration and the Muslim faith. [2] Data be damned, the right-wing goes with emotional reasoning like “it’s just wrong” and trumps up concern over things that may not have even occurred. Its propaganda wars meets culture wars, but its not based in fact. Studies have even pointed out that the right-wing are particularly susceptible to misinformation. [3] That’s a whole topic on its own too!

As Provost and Whyte point out, using women as a softer face of extremism isn’t new. The KKK was doing it back in the 1920s.  “Women organised Klan rights of passage, baptisms, graduations, marriages and funerals.” Some women who “may not have been vigilantes themselves, nevertheless, supported vigilantism.” [2] 

Sure, the roles may have adjusted somewhat (although I’d suggest the women are still making the sandwiches and doing the admin in many cases – because someone has to do it, and these groups often have very clear rules on what women’s work entails ), but the intent hasn’t changed. Why did the Neo-Nazi’s rally behind Moira Deeming and Kellie-Jay Keen? They believed the same thing when it came to trans people, but a female dog-whistle is a little bit more acceptable than a male call to arms. It seems softer, more likely to be a matter of genuine concern. But this is all on the surface.

I’d argue that the Australians trail the Americans in terms of the development of these female alt-right figureheads. But mark my words: there will currently be behind-the-scenes efforts to change this. Moira Deeming suing Victorian Opposition Leader John Pesutto for pointing out the obvious is step one of many. 

But back to the topic at hand: how does it happen? How does a modern woman get hoodwinked into becoming the voice of oppression and bigotry? Why would a right-wing woman think railing against feminism, especially intersectional feminism, is good and godly?  

“I’m not a feminist”: How a patriarchal faith paints a male God and his male offspring as the picture of holiness to which all Christians aspire.

“I’m not a feminist,” tweeted Posie Parker, AKA Kellie-Jay Keen. “I am grateful to feminists of the past for the many freedoms I enjoy. But feminism has been taken over…” 

Now, I’m not sure if she’s a Christian, but I think it’s fair to say she’s Christian-adjacent as her travels around the globe rally the fringe right behind her anti-trans cause. Speaking to Tucker Carlson, she referred to her “duty” to call out what she refers to as the “big lie” of transgenderism, and she went on to say that people had been brainwashed. [4] 

I’d argue that she and her ilk have been brainwashed. And it starts in church. 

God is a man. Jesus is male. And we want to be more like Jesus. 

Sitting in pews for the first 36 years of my life, I’ve often mused that the church seems to be the last bastion of patriarchy. We serve a male God. The Trinity is made up of Male Gods. Jesus is male, and female language depicting God has become increasingly cumbersome and obscure over the (hundreds of) years and translations. Add to this that the Apostle Paul, who I argue represented the very religious and political system Jesus irritated and was opposed to, wrote the playbook on church. In it, he said things that have been used to subjugate women for hundreds of years. Not only was he a lifelong bachelor, but he preceded thousands of years of men translating the Bible according to their own worldview (not a criticism! Just a point – a man cannot see the world a woman’s way. Nor have they sought to understand this until too recently. And modern evangelical women pay the price for centuries of male-centric doctrine and theology).

So what do women learn in church? We learn that we are to submit to male headship. We learn that we cannot speak in church unless under male authority. We learn that we are better in caregiver/nurturer roles, that emotions are untrustworthy, that our bodies tempt men and that men can’t be held accountable for that, so we are. These are just a few of the common points I’ve gleaned from years podcasting and connecting with women and other genders in the deconstruction space. It’s not just me. 

Complementarianism is the doctrine at play here – the idea that women and men are equal in value but different in function. This varies in its iterations from extreme, to mild but equally corrosive. In the extreme forms, we have: 

• the stay-at-home daughter movements (where girls stay home until they are passed over in ownership to their husbands where they become stay-at-home wives and mothers) 
• quiverful theology where women keep on popping out babies and homeschooling them
• use of head coverings 
• forbidding women from talking in church 
• segregation of seating plans and more. 

In softer forms, we have:

• expectations for women to dress fashionably but modestly in a manner pleasing to their husbands but not tempting to other men, 
• they’re only to speak from the pulpit if under the covering of a man (be it a pastor, husband or supervisor). 
• often they are vocally anti-feminism, spruiking ideals of Biblical womanhood, Biblical manhood or male headship.

In both extremes and everywhere in between, women’s sexuality and sensuality is policed via a variety of techniques ranging from the weaponisation of shame to outright punishment (i.e. even corporal punishment for grown women).

We are taught to bring every thought captive, to distrust emotions, to believe that if we aren’t under the covering of a man, we are opening ourselves for the enemy’s attacks. We are taught that men are fundamentally logical and women are fundamentally emotional, and the latter cannot be trusted. 

Some of this is taught overtly. Some of it is subtle. I’d argue that the subtle version is more insidious. How can you call out the harmful doctrines that subdue and subjugate women, cause us to question and distrust ourselves, define us by our marital status and childbearing success, and both elevate and shame our sexuality at the same time if this programming is all happening subtly below the level of conscious thought? 

That is where the danger lies. Here, the conditioning runs so deep that we object to anything outside of this because it feels wrong. Here, it is easy for women to be told that there is a crisis out there in the world – a crisis of fatherless children, a crisis of masculinity. And that they must put their hand to the plough to fix it – either by making sandwiches for the men, by raising good Christian patriarchists, or by stepping up and being anti-feminists who speak out against the ‘moral rot’ in society. 

They are speaking up on behalf of an inherently patriarchal system, one they hope will become a theocracy, so that others may become ‘free’ like them. But free means living in a legalistic system of “do and don’t, can and can’t’s,” and governed by a male God and his theo-bro hierarchy.

I’d argue it’s the opposite of free. 

Ahab and Jezebel – the Biblical model of what not to do.

The doctrine of feminine submission is so imbedded into modern evangelicalism that it is often paired with criticisms of masculinity too. I’ve often heard the phrase, “She’s a Jezebel. He’s an Ahab.” What does this mean? She’s too strong, too manipulative, too opinionated, and the only reason ‘she’ can be so out of line is because her husband or father allows her to be. 

Allows. 

The inference is that he needs to man up so that she can ‘girl down.’ As I look to America on this, the level of toxic masculinity disgusts me. The manliness conferences with all their testosterone and war-metaphor-fuelled hype. It might seem innocuous until you see things like the capital siege on January 6^th. 

Or, you know, anything to do with Trump. 

But this is the right-wing ideal over here at least it is in many evangelical, dominionist or overtly politicised fringe groups. If you need evidence, just head to Senator Ralph Babet’s twitter feed for a seemingly endless stream of toxic masculinity spruiking, fear mongering, not-based-in-evidence trash.

Still, it hails to a narrative deeply imbedded in evangelicalism and hence the right wing.“Let men be men, and then women will be women.  This is God’s pattern. And we must conform.” But sadly, critical thinking isn’t a core aspect of the right-wing over there. Or here. They don’t realise that conforming to this ideal means abuse levels in the church are equal to those outside the church, but Christian women stay for longer. They don’t realise that as they rail against ‘woke’ culture, they are actually railing against the compassion Jesus showed to those around him. And they certainly don’t make space for the fact that the queer history of the Bible is pretty darn obvious once you read it with open eyes. 

They also don’t appear to be ready or willing to accept that when women step up to take the microphone, or the oath of office, they aren’t representing women. They are representing “God.” Or rather, the evangelical, NAR, dominionist God. The capitalist God shown to us through years of theology emerging from capitalist, American Exceptionalism. It’s a deeply ingrained, anti-woman, anti-feminist, anti-social-progress, anti-LGTBIQIA+ system that wants to control women’s bodies and minds. 

You aren’t seeing a woman when you see a right-wing-woman speak. You are seeing a system that has brainwashed her to say exactly what it wants her to say.

You are seeing a carefully cultivated martyr — a lamb to the slaughter. And while it might be easier to view her with compassion and pity, there is the danger. Because she wants to fight for the patriarchy’s right to make women submit, to police their bodies, to roll back their reproductive rights, to ensure they stay the gender they were assigned at birth (because after all, penises are so important to the good Christian patriarchy that they simply can’t imagine someone being born with one and not loving it), and they want to make sure that men can treat their wives however they want without fear of that woman standing up and saying “I won’t be abused. I’m out of here.”

I do not believe female alt-right figureheads are acting in their own empowerment. They’re stepping up to the plate on behalf of the system that birthed them. Although birthed may be entirely too feminine a term.

Lessons from inside evangelicalism: 

This feels like an impossible blog entry to write because there is so much data, so many angles and so many problems that need to be called out. It feels immense — and it is. Maybe I’ll have to take a few hits at this piñata. But during my time raised in evangelicalism, homeschooled, and serving the church, here are some tropes I lived under, things I struggled with, and things I was told or heard. Now, keep in mind that I am by nature a smart, strong, educated, grounded but sometimes fiery, flamboyant, feminine woman who has a tendency to lead with her chin and, very descriptively, call a spade a spade. 

• It’s fine to have a career now. But you’ll have to be prepared to give it all up for your husband. 
• You don’t want to be more than him or it will destroy your marriage.
• If you and your husband disagree, defer to him. He’s got godly insight and is the head of the house
• God uses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. God can’t use you if you are too thinky-thinky.
• You’re being too thinky-thinky now. Thats the only reason you see problems where there are none.
• You’re operating out of the spirit of Jezebel 
• Your skirt is too far above the knee. 
• I saw that strip of skin between the top of your jeans and your top. You need to consider how your appearance might cause your brother in Christ to fall. 
• You need to submit every thought and emotion to God. 
• If you cry, your emotions have taken over and you are no longer rational. Pull yourself together and we will talk then. 
• Women are inherently more emotional than men. That’s one reason God has them submit to men 
• The problem with that teenager acting out is that his dad hasn’t stepped up. This is what fatherlessness does. This is the Jezebel spirit.
• They’re not gay. They’re just confused. 
• Prayer and submission to God is the answer
• You flirted with that guy. That is dishonouring to your future husband. 
• I can see why he was angry with her. She was being unsubmitted. 
• God disciplines those he loves. 
• Don’t wear spaghetti strap camis. They’re dishonouring to your brothers in Christ. 
• Dance in worship. But don’t let your boobs move, and don’t move your hips too much. You don’t want to tempt men. 

When these throwaway lines are used on women without so much as a second thought, how can we not see why women accept abuse as the norm, why they think that they cannot ask questions, embody confidence, dress the way they like, raise their kids as single mums, express emotions, be LGBTQIA+, embody intelligence, or defend the rights of those who seek to do any of this? After all, according to the doctrines these people have been conditioned and indoctrinated in, its wrong. Just wrong.  

This list should be triggering as hell. But I could keep on typing for hours. 

So I’m going to end it here, and write more another day. 

But if I had to wrap this with a tidy little bow it’s this: women in alt-right politics, media and advocacy are mouthpieces for a patriarchal system that seeks to subjugate the rights of women and place traditional and toxic masculinity as the apex expression of humanity. Don’t be fooled. It’s patriarchy in a pantsuit. It’s a Trojan horse that gets in the door only to open up and pour out the dangerous ideologies ingrained from cradle to microphone (or oath of office). 

Women in the alt-right do not represent themselves. They represent a male God created by centuries of homophobic, transphobic patriarchy. And they’re here to be a cork in the arse of progress. 

REFERENCES: 

1. MacKenzie Ryan, 2023. The Far Right: Better Martyrs: the growing role of women in the far right movement. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/12/conservative-women-tradwife-republican 

2. Claire Provost and Lara Whyte. 2018. Why are women joining far-right movements and why are we so surprised? https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/women-far-right-movements-why-are-we-surprised/ 

3. R. Kelly Garret and Robert M. Bond, 2021. Conservatives susceptibility to political misperceptions. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1234

4. New Zealand Herald. 2023. Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull: who is campaigner Posie Parker and why is she so controversial?  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kellie-jay-keen-minshull-who-is-anti-transgender-activist-posie-parker-and-why-is-she-so-controversial/GKB2MF4J65D33MBKZM3YF4G5JM/