Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism

by Seyward Darby

Since the demise of the ERA, white women have often challenged egalitarianism or opposed its champions. A majority of white women haven’t voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1996—and before that, the last time they had done so was 1964.20 The most high-profile legal cases against affirmative action have been headlined by white women, and a 2014 Harvard study found that nearly 70 percent of white female respondents somewhat or strongly opposed the policy.21 In the South, research shows that white women have played a critical role in moving politics to the right. They’ve been instrumental, for example, in getting states to restrict reproductive rights, which disproportionately affects poor women of color.22 In 2017, more than 60 percent of white women in Alabama voted for Roy Moore for the U.S. Senate, despite the Republican candidate being accused of sexual assault and misconduct with teenage girls.23 And that was just one year after exit polls showed that Trump won roughly 53 percent of votes cast by white women.