Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism

Product Description

Finalist for the Lukas prize

With a New Foreword

After the election of Donald J. Trump, journalist Seyward Darby went looking for the women of the so-called “alt-right” — really just white nationalism with a new label. The mainstream media depicted the alt-right as a bastion of angry white men, but was it? As women headlined resistance to the Trump administration’s bigotry and sexism, most notably at the Women’s Marches, Darby wanted to know why others were joining a movement espousing racism and anti-feminism. Who were these women, and what did their activism reveal about America’s past, present, and future?

Darby researched dozens of women across the country before settling on three — Corinna Olsen, Ayla Stewart, and Lana Lokteff. Each was born in 1979, and became a white nationalist in the post-9/11 era. Their respective stories of radicalization upend much of what we assume about women, politics, and political extremism.

Corinna, a professional embalmer who was once a body builder, found community in white nationalism before it was the alt-right, while she was grieving the death of her brother and the end of hermarriage. For Corinna, hate was more than just personal animus — it could also bring people together. Eventually, she decided to leave the movement and served as an informant for the FBI.

Ayla, a devoutly Christian mother of six, underwent a personal transformation from self-professed feminist to far-right online personality. Her identification with the burgeoning “tradwife” movement reveals how white nationalism traffics in society’s preferred, retrograde ways of seeing women.

Lana, who runs a right-wing media company with her husband, enjoys greater fame and notoriety than many of her sisters in hate. Her work disseminating and monetizing far-right dogma is a testament to the power of disinformation.

With acute psychological insight and eye-opening reporting, Darby steps inside the contemporary hate movement and draws connections to precursors like the Ku Klux Klan. Far more than mere helpmeets, women like Corinna, Ayla, and Lana have been sustaining features of white nationalism. In the wake of the Capitol Riot of January 6, questions about who makes up the increasingly-visible numbers of political extremists have become more common.
Sisters in Hate offers powerful and surprising answers.

Review

“Superbly written…Her focus on the lives of three very different women makes her book as readable as a good novel; skillfully combined with history and analysis, her subjects’ stories provide a better picture of the forces driving white backlash than several of the best sellers that attempted to do so in the wake of Trump’s election.”―
Susan Nieman, New York Times Book Review

“Seyward argues that it’s important to tell stories like these because to defeat hate you have to understand it.”―
Honor Jones, The New York Times

“It’s a hell of a story…Darby sketches her subjects finely, with a level of detail that never feels forced.”―
Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR

“In delving into the stories of each woman, one of whom has defected from the movement, Darby offers an unnerving portrait of extremism.”―
Annabelle Gutterman, TIME

“No, I don’t want to hang out in the minds of white nationalists, either, but Darby does that on the reader’s behalf, promising a book that probes the architecture of “the war embedded in the landscape” of the US. American identity, and the oft-overlooked role of women therein.”―
Lauren Markham, Lit Hub

“Darby’s key intervention is to show just how far these women go in comparison to their male peers.”―
Josephine Livingstone, The New Repubic

“[
Sisters in Hate] shows just how “permeable” the line between mainstream America and white supremacy is”―
Sam Gillette, People

“A fascinating yet highly disturbing deep dive into the toxic world of female white supremacists.”―
EJ Dickson, Rolling Stone

““This book is eye-opening and incredibly timely.”―
Booklist

“Darby cha