The Women of the Far Right: Female Influencers, Tradwives, and Online Radicalization w/ Ivana Leidig
This week on the Straight White American Jesus Sunday Interview, host Annika Brockschmidt sits down with extremism researcher Ivana Leidig, author of The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization, for an in-depth conversation about the women reshaping today's far-right movement. Together they explore how female influencers have become some of the movement's most effective communicators, using lifestyle content, tradwife aesthetics, motherhood, religion, and social media to normalize extremist ideas for mainstream audiences. From Lauren Southern and Lana Lokteff to the emerging "womanosphere," Leidig explains how these figures bridge fringe ideologies and conservative politics while building powerful online communities that extend far beyond national borders.
Annika and Ivana also examine the relationship between gender, Christianity, anti-feminism, transnational organizing, and white nationalism, unpacking the contradictions that allow women to thrive within deeply patriarchal movements. The conversation closes with a look at the international networks connecting the American and European far right, including the role of influencers, social media platforms, and digital propaganda in shaping contemporary extremist politics.
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Ivana Leidig: The Women of the Far Right: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-women-of-the-far-right/9780231210171/
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