ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the role of women in the skinhead movement. Masculine women tend to find greater acceptance within the skinhead movement, especially in the neo-Nazi skinhead movement. T. A. Travis and P. Hardy suggest that women have always been a part of the skinhead movement, drawn into it either because they found the culture, its music, style and violence, appealing or because they started dating a skinhead. The role of women in the skinhead movement is limited by the skinhead culture of violence, beliefs about women's ability to be violent, and for some of the women, their own unwillingness or inability to be violent. The chapter discusses skinhead music, for many individuals music is an avenue into the skinhead movement. Racist/nationalist skinheads use music and concerts as a way to draw youth into the movement and to encourage and promote their ideology.