Sisters in Hate

American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism

By: Seyward Darby

Narrated by: Susan Bennett

Journalist Seyward Darby's "masterfully reported and incisive" (Nell Irvin Painter) exposé pulls back the curtain on modern racial and political extremism in America telling the "eye-opening and unforgettable" (Ibram X. Kendi) account of three women immersed in the white nationalist movement.

After the election of Donald J. Trump, journalist Seyward Darby went looking for the women of the so-called "alt-right" -- really just white nationalism with a new label. The mainstream media depicted the alt-right as a bastion of angry white men, but was it? As women headlined resistance to the Trump administration's bigotry and sexism, most notably at the Women's Marches, Darby wanted to know why others were joining a movement espousing racism and anti-feminism. Who were these women, and what did their activism reveal about America's past, present, and future?

Darby researched dozens of women across the country before settling on three -- Corinna Olsen, Ayla Stewart, and Lana Lokteff. Each was born in 1979, and became a white nationalist in the post-9/11 era. Their respective stories of radicalization upend much of what we assume about women, politics, and political extremism.

Corinna, a professional embalmer who was once a body builder, found community in white nationalism before it was the alt-right, while she was grieving the death of her brother and the end of hermarriage. For Corinna, hate was more than just personal animus -- it could also bring people together. Eventually, she decided to leave the movement and served as an informant for the FBI.
Ayla, a devoutly Christian mother of six, underwent a personal transformation from self-professed feminist to far-right online personality. Her identification with the burgeoning "tradwife" movement reveals how white nationalism traffics in society's preferred, retrograde ways of seeing women.

Lana, who runs a right-wing media company with her husband, enjoys greater fame and notoriety than many of her sisters in hate. Her work disseminating and monetizing far-right dogma is a testament to the power of disinformation.

With acute psychological insight and eye-opening reporting, Darby steps inside the contemporary hate movement and draws connections to precursors like the Ku Klux Klan. Far more than mere helpmeets, women like Corinna, Ayla, and Lana have been sustaining features of white nationalism. Sisters in Hate shows how the work women do to normalize and propagate racist extremism has consequences well beyond the hate movement.

Critic reviews

"No, I don't want to hang out in the minds of white nationalists, either, but Darby does that on the reader's behalf, promising a book that probes the architecture of "the war embedded in the landscape" of the US. American identity, and the oft-overlooked role of women therein."—Lauren Markham, Lit Hub

"Seyward Darby's eye-opening and unforgettable book sheds light on the often-hidden movers of America's growing white nationalist movement: women. By telling the riveting story of the lives of three women advancing their agendas of bigotry, Darby exposes the ways in which white nationalism hinges on the contributions of women."—Ibram X. Kendi, National BookAward-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Howto Be an Anti-Racist and Stamped from the Beginning

“‘Women are the hate movement’s dulcet voices and its standard bearers,’ Seyward Darby observes in Sisters in Hate—a timely, deeply reported, and chilling exploration of the role that women play in promoting white nationalism. By exploring the lives of three different women who have embraced white supremacy, Darby holds a mirror up to American society, illuminating the forces at work within our culture that continue, to this day, to lead to radicalization and violence. Sisters in Hate is a warning cry for the future while also suggesting the possibility of a another, better path forward.”—Pamela Colloff, senior reporter at ProPublica and staff writer at The New York Times Magazine

"A brave, detailed and insightful portrait of three women who came to advocate the alt-Right's bigotry, but a portrait that is not simplistic. Especially valuable is its examination of the women's complex and contradictory ideas about gender and the appropriate place for women."—Linda Gordon, author of The Second Coming of the KKK

“A gripping, terrifying look at the white women who are pumping racist hate into the heart of their communities. Darby’s clear-eyed and nuanced insights are essential for ending the racial hate movement in America.”—Kathleen M. Blee, author of Women of the Klan

"Trump 2016. Charlottesville 2017. How to understand the unavoidable fact of masses of white women at the core of white nationalism, a movement marked by misogyny? With enormous care, Seyward Darby discovers the hungers within white women's attraction to hateful conspiracy theories of anti-Semitism and racism. Hers is a riveting account that I could not put down."—Nell Irvin Painter,author of the bestseller The History of White People

Enlightening

Darby made this an easy listen by writing in such a way as to slowly (never tediously) unfold these character portraits. This is hard material for me personally, but I gleaned more than I expected. Going in, you can put your mind at ease. This is a fair and insightful accounting, laid out with care. Truly, I can’t think of a reason to detract a star from my rating.

Loved it.

This is an Insightful and factual book on white supremacy in the United States. Darby doesn't disappoint.

Storytelling effective

Learned a great deal. Excellently narrated, clear, powerful insights, scary as hell. Good list of what to do.

Extremely potent

This is a really powerful book about how we are all complicit and how hate in America happens to normal people with trauma and normal ideologies due to our past. It lets you know what to look out for if you want to be an antiracist and how to confront hatred when you see it. It also reminds us that white women are often just as harmful as white men. It also provides a narrative of healing for one of the women. I highly recommend it for anyone who is disgusted by America’s reaction to Kyle Rittenhouse’s verdict.

Fantastically researched and thought-provoking

This is a must-read in the Trump white nationalist era. Extremely thought-provoking, thoughtful, and well-researched.

A Complex yet Interesting Read

I struggled with a lot of the content but listened to all of it so I could understand why folks choose the path of hate. The book shed a lot of light on the subject and we have to draw our own conclusions about it all. It left me feeling sad yet hopeful for our humanity. Hate is not the answer.

Fascinating and terrifying at once

It was particularly interesting to hear the type of terminology used by the alt right. Their recruiting strategies and propoganda machine. I can see how some find fake legitimacy under the guise of preserving their culture... A red light should light up when it's coupled with xenophobia and blatant racism.

More narrative than analysis

Good narrator, easy to follow.

The content differed slightly from what I expected, profiling three modern women in white nationalism, rather than focusing just on women’s involvement overall. It personalizes their stories at the expense of more meticulous research, which I think is a fair approach to this work.

The book heavily references social media activities and points out a number of alt-right code phrases and behaviors which I feel are already fairly obvious to most people. While there’s not a lot of new insight, it’s useful in constructing the narrative of these women during the last few years; perhaps I’m just sick of seeing Tweets and posts in the news.

It’s not perfect, but the book is well-documented and provides a useful summary of the feminine aspects of hate movements, bundled in a thoughtful narrative.

Excellent book & excellent reader

Harsh, chilling material. Need to know stuff. Darby’s writing is elegant, colorful ad deeply researched, tho you don’t realize how much you’re learning at first. The 3 womens’ stories are so compelling and enlightening you just get caught up, can’t wait to find out what happens to them. Well. Only one subject got out of “Big Hate, Inc.” and there are more, so many more, women, men, kids and prolly dogs getting on the Hate train every day. It’s being promoted and laser targeted at vulnerable and ordinary people via multiple vectors, from “motherhood” to apple pies and of course our parents’ & grandparents’ favorite tee vee network. This book is a great way to quickly gain a lot of knowledge & insight about a topic every American needs to understand, ASAP. Hate is destroying families, souls and directly threatens our democracy, which means all of us are threatened. Thank you, Seyward Darby. And great choice of Susan Bennett as the voice artist.

Great research, bad theory

Realistically a three and a half. Well narrated and well written, and a very interesting dive into the lives of women in the movement, past and present. However, I think her premise is incorrect and disproven by her own research.