Article: Why Are There So Many Right-Wing Extremist Women?

[Nostalgic]

Bitch Magazine / By Sarah Jaffe

Why Are There So Many Right-Wing Extremist Women?
The face of the right-wing is increasingly female. Why?

October 7, 2010

It all started with Sarah Palin.

Or did it? Maybe it started a few months earlier, when Hillary Clinton downed a shot of whiskey and made some offhand, wrong-footed comments about “hardworking voters, white voters” who still supported her despite her African-American opponent’s lead in delegates.

By “it,” of course I mean the rise of the Tea Party movement and other so-called patriot groups, and with them a new group of women on the right in the United States. They’re no longer content to pay lip service to male leadership, but they’ve got an ambivalent, vexed relationship to feminism as well. But one thing is uncontestable: With mainstream media captivated by their fringe appeal, they’re having a definite moment.

There’s Debra Medina, who failed to win the Republican nomination for governor of Texas but nevertheless managed to energize both her state’s disgruntled patriots and 9/11 “truthers.” Medina made headlines when she attended a “Sovereignty or Secession” rally, where she called for the “tree of freedom” to be “watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” (According to The Nation’s Bob Moser, when asked if she carried the handgun she kept in her car into the grocery store, Medina replied, “I’d like to, but I don’t.”)

There’s Keli Carender, a 30-year-old Seattle improv performer credited in a February New York Times profile with being one of the first Tea Party leaders. The nose ring on this free market-loving Ayn Rand acolyte got almost as much play in the Times piece as her politics.

Then there’s Michele Bachmann, the prolife, pro-Creationism Minnesota congresswoman best known for her vocal opposition to the U.S. Census. Bachmann made headlines in 2008 when she told Hardball’s Chris Matthews that she believed Barack Obama held “anti-American” views and should be “investigated”; more recently, she’s been a trusty fueler of rumors that Obama’s healthcare plan would lead to state-funded euthanasia.

In Arizona, GOP governor Jan Brewer signed the country’s harshest immigration bill this past April, codifying into law a Minutemen-friendly nativism that permits law- enforcement officials to harass at any time anyone they believe might not be “American.” She then promptly took another step toward state-sanctioned racism by signing a ban on ethnic-studies courses in public schools.

The Tea Party–backed South Carolina state Rep. Nikki Haley could become the first female governor of South Carolina -- and the second Republican South Asian governor in the South, after Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faces a Republican challenger, Nevada’s Sharron Angle, who, as The Nation’s Betsy Reed notes, “makes Sarah Palin look like Eleanor Roosevelt.” Angle joined the GOP as a political stepping-stone; as part of her former affiliation with Nevada’s Independent American party, she flogged far-out views on both economic and social policy. In addition to advocating against Social Security and the IRS, the party in 1994 advocated for an amendment to the state constitution that would, according to Talking Points Memo, “explicitly permit discrimination against LGBT people by businesses and government.”

Read the rest of the article here.

[baldguy]

1. Power & influence is just as attractive to fascist female leaders as it is to fascist male leaders.

And people who are seduced by fascism really don't care, just as long as the leader reinforces their prejudices & fears, and no matter what the ideology says.

[Warpy]

2. This is the Year of the Crazy Church Lady

and, whether it's Rand or old time religion, these gals are all church ladies, sitting in the amen corner and wearing it proudly on their sleeves...chests, hats, purses, asses, whatever's big enough. It's all cult behavior and oh, boy, do they ever BELONG!

I think the Republicans are still convinced they can woo women voters by pushing forth anything with a vagina, even though those anythings are strongly against everything thinking women hold dear and would push us all (well, except themselves) back into slavery if they get into power in sufficient numbers.

I do hope this is a one election cycle phenomenon, that they're auditioning a replacement for the aging Phyllis Schlafly and will retire these ditzy dames when it's all over and the dust fallout has settled.

That I want all these broads banished back to their respective churches (along with their brethren) is a gross understatement. I will allow myself to be enormously amused only after the election and only after nearly all are defeated.

[CTyankee]

8. I don't think they're as legion as the MSM would have us believe.

They hype a few women who are RW, some of whom are disturbed individuals and others who are in it for the fame/money pure and simple. They take up all the oxygen. But in the larger population I don't think there are more than ever...just that the media is giving them way more exposure because they are sensational in what they say and the League of Women Voters members are not!

[kestrel91316]

3. Vichy-style collaborators.

[modestybl]

4. Queen Bee Syndrome..

They are special. Other women need to stay home and out of sight. The most virulent opponents of women's rights have always been other women who feel they've mastered manipulating men..

[KittyWampus]

5. Frank Rich made the point that for the wealthy elite to continue leading these people by the nose-

they NEED more "attractive" faces than the usual pasty faced, balding and pudgy white men.

[Sheepshank]

6. title of your op

immediately made me realize that so many right wing men enjoy a little domination...these women provide just enough of that tease, they feel satisfied.

I suppose I should now read the article and see what the author decided.

[devilgrrl]

7. Ladies Against Women

[lunatica]

9. They crave authoritariansim because it's simple and easy to understand

They like the top down structure of it, just like in the Church. They want to see society mimic that structure with the authority at the top and the peasants at the bottom. They picture themselves as the keepers of that structure. They believe it is the natural structure of things.

[Brother Buzz]

10. That Astroturf® movement PUMA helped jumpstart the crazies

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. A certain % of conservative women will crossover...

... to vote for a non-conservative female candidate.... just on the basis of gender alone. I suspect lib to conservative corollary to that is probably smaller. (Hope so anyway.)

That's what McCain and Co were hoping would happen with whatsername. Exploit the Hillary disaffecteds... even though politically the two had very little in common.

[begin_within]

12. Maybe right-wing men have a "women on top" fantasy

[JVS]

13. I can offer a couple reasons.

#1. Sometimes daddy's little girl has a rabid wing-nut for a father.

#2. The top echelons of the republican party's power structure has become very stagnant and these women represent "new blood", so to speak.

[ismnotwasm]

14. Because activist left wing feminists

Fought tooth and nail for equal and civil and human rights (and continue to do so) and actually made it possible for women to be seen as electable at all. Right wing women just like to stomp on rights in general with high heel boots and tired dogmatic Repuke bullshit

And anyway;
Executive Summary

Despite a rapidly diversifying country, minority, Millennial, and woman candidates remain rare: Twenty-seven percent of this year's major candidates are women, Millennials, or minorities. White, non-Millennial men make up 73 percent of this year's major candidates but only about 34 percent of the total national population.

Democrats continue to run more woman, Millennial, and minority candidates: Out of 248 woman, Millennial, or minority candidates, 169 are Democrats and 79 are Republicans. Of those, Democrats are running more incumbents than challengers, while Republicans are running more challengers.

Despite overall Democratic dominance, Republican challengers are more diverse than the current Republican caucus: The GOP has markedly increased the number of woman and Hispanic candidates it is running.

A considerable majority of Hispanic challengers are Republicans: Although Democrats outnumber Republicans among Hispanic incumbents, 75 percent of this year's Hispanic challengers are Republicans.

Democrats continue to run far more African-American candidates: Eighty-one percent of African-American candidates are Democrats, and most black Republicans are running against incumbent black Democrats.

Asian-American and Millennial candidates are few but increasing, and both groups are reliably Democratic: Unlike other groups studied, Asian-American and Millennial challengers equal or outnumber incumbents.


http://ndn.org/paper/2010/demographic-analysis-major-2010-election-candidates

[JackRiddler]

15. See the numbers in post #14 - There are not "many" right wing extremist women.

There are a group of them who are currently running for office and receiving massive promotion through the Tea Party PR campaign of the Republican right wing and the obedient corporate media.

This is the talking-point theme for the current election, like "soccer mom" and "hockey dad."

In fact, most candidates are male, and an even larger proportion of Republican and right-wing candidates are male.

The same applies among voters: if elections were up to women only, Democrats would be winning almost every office.

So this is a myth, and the right question is, why are the media participating in the creation of a myth that there a big wave of right wing extremist women is sweeping the nation?

[Bitwit1234]

16. Republican men unhooked the chains after years of brain washing

they wanted to make sure the dipsy doodles were ripe to let loose on the country.

[Lost-in-FL]

17. Simple, the GOP is faking an interest for women in politics but only as an strategy

If they win, they will be soon thrown under the bus.