The Women of the Far Right are Extremely Bad
Sarah Clendaniel, Trad Wives, and Skull Mask E-Girls
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On February 6th, 2023 the FBI arrested Brandon Russell in Florida on conspiracy charges involving a terrorist plot to attack multiple power substations outside of Baltimore. Russell was the founder of Atomwaffen Division and had been convicted in 2017 for possession of an unregistered destructive device and unlawful storage of explosive material. He was released in August of 2021 and the FBI learned of the latest plot in June of 2022. Russell wasted no time launching a new plot after being released from Prison. Only this time he enlisted the help of someone close to him: his girlfriend Sarah Clendaniel.
Clendaniel had struggled with addiction for most of her life, and was told in late 2022 that she likely only had about six months to live as her kidneys would fail from the prolonged drug abuse. As a result of this she felt compelled to carry out an attack so that her life would have at least had an impact, and some form of meaning. Clendaniel lived in Maryland, and Russell lived in Florida. While they were separated by distance, Russell offered support by planning out the logistics of the attack and encouraging her.
Clendaniel is not the first woman to be associated with the far right, or to carry out acts of violence. While right wing extremism openly embraces misogyny, there is still a persistent group of women that are drawn to the ideology and fulfill a variety of roles that advance the overall goals of the violent far right.
Anti-Feminists
One of the main things that distinguishes the women of the far right from women on the left, center, or even many run of the mill conservative women is a distinction that they are not feminists. This is an essential part of their ideology and is in many ways the building block for the politics that they support. For many years far right figure Lauren Southern has made being an Anti-Feminist her brand. Southern plays coy with many of her more extreme beliefs, and cultivates plausible deniability of racism. But from YouTube videos to speaking at conferences, she has made no bones about it: she believes that Feminism is killing the United States (though for the record, she’s from Canada).
One of her allies in this stance is Lana Lokteff, who follows the same script with an explicitly Nationalist spin on things. Lokteff has stated that Feminism has “done a lot to destroy our society,” and pairs these beliefs with xenophobia, antisemitism, and support for the creation of a white ethno state. While Lokteff believes that women do not belong in leadership roles, she thinks they can inspire men to action, as outlined by VICE’s reporting in late 2022.
Trad Wives
Within this realm of anti-feminism there is the figure of the Trad Wife. A woman who is exalted for her position as a stay at home mother and homemaker, a woman who sees helping her husband as the highest calling in life. You can go on pretty much any social media platform and scroll the #TradWife tag and find countless examples of this. Frills, aprons, smiling women and men who seemingly adore them. One TradWife described the lifestyle as “submitting to and spoiling your husband like its 1959,” which makes sense because so much of the lifestyle is built around an understanding of the gender dynamics presented in 1950’s era advertisements as opposed to lived experience. This is reflected in the social media posts which look more like Coca-Cola ads from 1955 than someone’s actual life today in the 20’s. The influence of advertising is potable throughout the entire movement and one must imagine that Don Draper and his buddies would be proud to know their work was still having an impact decades later.
But at the heart of this movement of course is whiteness. A TradWife doesn’t just cook and clean and encourage her husband to do a really good job at work (where he presumably chops wood for a living, or some other traditionally masculine role). A TradWife has babies. Lots and lots of white babies. Because in the Trad World, just as men must go off and fight and die in wars, women must raise the next generation to fill their boots.
Skull Mask E-Girls
On the opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum from TradWives are the Skull Mask E-Girls. The pseudo-subculture of e-boys and e-girls has been around for a while now. Starting as an aesthetic movement in the late 2010’s typified by “being hot and being online” it has since coalesced somewhat in a blend of pastel-goth-skateboard-chic fashion, VaporWave influenced aesthetics, and sadboy music like Lil Peep, or almost any Hyperpop artist.
Within this milieu exists the skull mask e-girl, a far right influencer that recruits and encourages others through their internet presence. The use of a skull mask here is significant because it’s a major symbol used by right wing accelerationists, particularly within “Seige Culture” which glorifies Charles Manson and lone wolf terrorists. The Skull Mask E-Girl is an edgy online personality that generates content in support of neo-Nazis and uses their feminine identity as a means of drawing in likes and follows, ergo growing her reach. Unlike TradWives, the target demographic here is usually boys and men with an interest or involvement in subcultures. Riley June Williams is perhaps the most famous among this set as she was recently convicted of charges related to the January 6th insurrection. As reported by Bellingcat, Williams frequently made Fashwave content online and sported the Skull Mask as part of her persona.
It was within this particular strand of Nationalism that Sarah Clendaniel found herself. While perhaps not a skull mask e-girl, she existed within the toxic milieu of accelerationism and neo-Nazism and sought to leave her mark on the movement before her life ended.
In this case, the rest of us got lucky. Instead of going out in a blaze of “glory,” she will most likely die behind bars now, alone and abandoned by her movement.