Gender and Disillusionment from Violent Radical Racism

There is considerable research on how individuals enter violent radical right groups.  Less is known about how they leave such groups or abandon radical right ideologies.  This paper reports on a study that addresses this gap through a study of exit and deradicalization mechanisms among former violent white supremacist extremists in the United States. By partnering with major human rights organizations and Life After Hate, a group that assists white supremacist activists to disengage from extremist movements and deradicalize, we identified and conducted lengthy face-to-face interviews with 47 former members of Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, white power, and white supremacist groups across the United States.  Fifteen of those were women, producing a sample that has an unusually strong representation of women in white supremacism.  The interviews provide extensive detail on the onset, persistence, and desistance from violent extremism.

Our paper draws from these data to examine the gendered dimension of disillusionment with violent extremism that precipitates (or occasionally follows) exit from racist groups.  We first identify dimensions of disillusionment that emerge from inductive coding of our interviews.  These include assessments of political inefficacy and hypocrisy in white supremacism, as well as concerns about the movement’s ideology, violent practices, and goals. The paper then examines gender differences in the salience of dimensions of disillusionment.  We conclude with a discussion of implications for broader understanding of the gendered nature of violent racist radicalism, as well as for public policy and programs aimed at increasing disaffiliation from white supremacist groups.