Katie Gaddini and Seyward Darby at Womb House Books: Esther's Army

Join us for a conversation between Katie Gaddini, author of Esther's Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right and Seyward Darby, author of Sister's in Hate: American Women and White Extremism

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For decades, conservative Christian women have been dismissed as naive and brainwashed, victims of political coercion by the men in their lives. Yet that narrative doesn’t explain how they have also become some of the most influential political organizers of our time: the backbone of the modern conservative movement whose strategic efforts over the past six decades have culminated in the 2024 election of Donald Trump.

To understand this unique and growing political force, sociologist Katie Gaddini conducted over ten years of ethnographic research, interviewing key players in the field and joining them across the country as they organized, rallied, and celebrated. As a former evangelical, Gaddini speaks the language of the Christian Right fluently and in Esther’s Army, she profiles six distinct archetypes: college idealists, (anti)feminist powerhouses, Black conservatives, MAHA social media influencers, white suburbanites, and “Mama Bears” marching on state capitols to ban books and gender initiatives.

Observing Christian women’s activism from grassroots networks to conservative universities to public politics and jobs at the White House—as they borrow feminist rhetoric to “lean in” to their executive skills while rejecting liberal feminism—Gaddini reveals how these women have turned being underestimated into a strategic force. The result is a sweeping portrait of the women shaping the political future of the United States.

Dr. Katie Gaddini is a visiting scholar at Stanford University and associate professor of sociology at University College London. She’s written for Time, The Hill, and the San Francisco Chronicle and has appeared on BBC, NPR, and international media outlets.

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.

Seyward Darbyis the editor in chief ofThe Atavist Magazine. She previously served as the deputy editor ofForeign Policyand the online editor and assistant managing editor ofThe New Republic. As a writer, she has contributed toThe New York Times,The Atlantic,The Washington Post, andThe Guardian,among other publications.

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