ABSTRACT
Women affiliated with right-wing political violence are few and far between. Fewer women actually participate in right-wing political violence. However, some women have been at the forefront of these organizations throughout the twentieth century. Moreover, most scholarship on women's involvement in right-wing extremist groups and political violence suggests three possible explanations for why women are involved: they are victims of brainwashing, often by boyfriends, husbands, or male acquaintances; they are crazy or ill-adjusted and they could be rational, if deplorable, political actors trying to gain advantages or stave off perceived threats to their social, political, and economic status. Right-wing women are often presented as the dupes of the male ideologues; somehow they have been castigated or repressed psychologically and/or physically into joining these organizations. Rarely have feminist scholars considered the option that some women find right-wing ideologies and political violence as confirming their place in modernizing societies.
