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The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization by Eviane Leidig
alexture's review
I feel like I've exhausted my patience for alt-right related stuff
bound4travel's review
informative
slow-paced
3.0
The Women of the Far Right coves a very important topic - the place of female influencers in the white supremacist movement and the impact that has. However, I felt the depth of the topic wasn't there. I was hoping for a bit of a deeper dive into each of the personalities Leidig was tracking and maybe more useful tips on how to support those we love and care about from falling down these far right rabbit holes. I do credit Leidig for doing a fairly deep dive on the methods these women use in social media - that was much more the focus of this book. While a bit dry in writing style, I still learned quite a bit and found this to be an interesting and worthwhile read.
stitching_ghost's review against another edition
3.0
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.
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.
dessi_bocheva's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Happy to finally be able to add some of my academic reading to my good reads. I did genuinely enjoy this book and I'm so glad Leidig went through the effort of conducting and pulling together research in this area as its quite underresearched due to the overwhelming focus/dominance of men in the far right movement.
The only thing I think was missing/could have been elaborated on (and this was briefly discussed in the conclusion) was why women seem to be joining a movement which aims to limit their rights. I think there needs to be a greater discussion of how women fall complicit to patriarchy and the ways in which this provides legitimacy to the far right movement.
Nevertheless, this was a great read which paints an detailed and accurate picture of women's role in the far right movement and I can't wait to see the future research in this area.
The only thing I think was missing/could have been elaborated on (and this was briefly discussed in the conclusion) was why women seem to be joining a movement which aims to limit their rights. I think there needs to be a greater discussion of how women fall complicit to patriarchy and the ways in which this provides legitimacy to the far right movement.
Nevertheless, this was a great read which paints an detailed and accurate picture of women's role in the far right movement and I can't wait to see the future research in this area.
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