Synopses & Reviews
Journalist Seyward
Darby's "masterfully reported and incisive" (Nell Irvin Painter) exposé
pulls back the curtain on modern racial and political extremism in
America telling the "eye-opening and unforgettable" (Ibram X. Kendi)
account of three women immersed in the white nationalist movement.
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 her marriage.
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.
Sisters in Hate shows how the work women do to normalize and propagate racist extremism has consequences well beyond the hate movement.
Review
"Darby writes with a clear
sense of purpose and makes a concerted effort to understand why women
would "fight against their own interests." The result is a disturbing
and informative must-read." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Engaging, horrifying, and informative — Darby offers an important, fresh angle on the problems tearing our country apart." Kirkus Review
Review
"This book is eye-opening and incredibly timely." Booklist
Review
"Seyward Darby's eye-opening
and unforgettable book sheds light on the often-hidden movers of
America's growing white nationalist movement: women. By telling the
riveting story of the lives of three women advancing their agendas of
bigotry, Darby exposes the ways in which white nationalism hinges on the
contributions of women." Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning and #1 New York Times
bestselling author of How to Be an Anti-Racist and Stamped from the
Beginning
Review
"Trump 2016. Charlottesville
2017. How to understand the unavoidable fact of masses of white women
at the core of white nationalism, a movement marked by misogyny? With
enormous care, Seyward Darby discovers the hungers within white women's
attraction to hateful conspiracy theories of anti-Semitism and racism.
Hers is a riveting account that I could not put down." Nell Irvin Painter, author of the bestseller The History of White People
About the Author
Seyward Darby is the editor in chief of
The Atavist Magazine. She previously served as the deputy editor of
Foreign Policy and the online editor and assistant managing editor of
The New Republic. As a writer, she has contributed to
The Atlantic,
The Washington Post,
Elle, and
Vanity Fair, among other publications.