This paper examines how the US-based white nationalist movement defines itself as a defender of patriarchal masculinity, articulating a version of what I am calling white sexual politics. This helps to explain the ways opposition to feminism, queer politics, immigrants, and Islam are melded together in far-right movements. Informed by black feminist theories, the concept of white sexual politics reveals how whiteness has historically been articulated through a set of language and practices around gender, sexuality, and the family.

Based in over a decade of research on the online white nationalist movement, this analysis shows how contemporary right wing, authoritarian movements rally around the modern, classed and raced, and patriarchal family as an anchor of stability in a time of increasing economic and social change. In so doing these movements build their racist agendas on a patriarchal foundation.

Sophie Bjork-James is an Assistant Professor of the Practice in Anthropology at Vanderbilt University. She has over ten years experience researching both the US based Religious Right and the white nationalist movements. She is working on a book manuscript on race and evangelical politics in the US. Her work has appeared on the NBC Nightly News, NPR’s All Things Considered and BBC Radio 4’s Today.

This is single-authored