The Women of the Far Right

I've been sitting with this one for a few days. I enjoyed my time with this book well enough, I thought that Leidig's writing style was pretty engaging and honest but ultimately, I was left wondering who is this book trying to speak to? The main reason I felt this way is that there really isn't a deep cut about any of the women presented or their methods. It's really a primer on the topic of the tradcon women influencers and their impact in mainstreaming extremist views but a lot of it was just confirmation of things people who have the vocabulary to look for such a book would have most likely already observed with just a quick scroll through a few of these women's IG feeds. Long story short it was good but I wish it went deeper.

While we get to “meet” a small selection of the women of the far right, it was shocking how interchangeable they came across as compared to the men who occupy similar spaces of the “manoshpere”.

Some of the criticism was a little far-fetched too, like at one point there's a tangent about how most of them felt the need to use screen names when creating their accounts as if it isn't the norm to use a screen name when creating a social media account that isn't a Facebook account no matter where on the political spectrum you fall.

There is also an undercurrent of presumption that platforms/authorities have a desire to curtail these people's influence at all that I found rather questionable. I enjoyed that Leidig really pointed out that social isolation seems to be one of the biggest factor leading a lot of women down that particular rabbit hole but that this premade community will spit them out just as easily as it took them in. I feel like there was something to lean in there in how we can counter that particular brand of extremism, but that Leidig didn't do much with it.

More of a 3.25/3.5 than an actual 3.

I received an eARC of this book from Columbia University Press through Netgalley for review consideration.