“Getting It”: The Role of Women in Male Desistance from Hate Groups

The hate movement has been described as “hypermasculine.” While Kathleen Blee, Betty Dobratz and Stephanie Shanks-Meile, and others have looked at the increasing recruitment of women into hate groups, the general hate agenda is still dominated by traditional gendered ideas about social power, sexuality, family, and war. ¹ Abby Ferber and Michael Kimmel write: “The white supremacist project is primarily concerned with reaffirming white men’s masculinity. The white supremacist movement offers itself as a solution— white men may regain their rightful position as patriarchs by joining the movement.” ² The research discussed in this chapter emerges out of ethnographic studies of male skinheads and racist groups as sexist groups. It is argued here that female intimates play a significant role in both convincing male hate-group members that hate groups do not satisfy their psychological-strain and sociological-anomie concerns and that those concerns should change, helping them to exit the group.