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CECILIA DAVENPORT, an Alt-Right blogger, likes to tweet "fan-girl" photos of Richard Spencer (pictured), the movements unofficial leader. In one photo, Mr Spencer, who in November held a conference in Washington, DC to celebrate what he described as a white nationalist awakening, is shown talking on the phone: Heil girl, lets get daiquiris later and talk about making you queen of the ethnostateof my heart. The memes are an ironic take on the popular Hey girl meme in which Ryan Gosling, a Hollywood actor, is shown as a feminist boyfriend, saying things like Hey girl, sure Ill unload the dishwasher for you. Just let me finish folding and putting away the laundry first.

Ms Davenport is one of a small number of women who publicly identify themselves as members of the Alt-Right. Mr Spencer has said he believes women constitute around one-fifth of the movements followers. A video from the November conference is revealing: it shows attendees giving Nazi salutes, all of them men. Peter Brimelow, another Alt-Right leader who runs VDARE, an anti-immigration site, says this is because women are not drawn to radical politics. He points to the protesters that inevitably surround Alt-Right events: These people are obscene and violent. The police will not stop them. Very few women, and not many men, want to subject themselves to that sort of risk.

It is an odd kind of thinking that sees danger in democratic protests against fascism and white supremacism. But this is consistent with the Alt-Rights sense of being victims in a liberal society. The notion that women shy away from dangerous politics does not hold up, of course: they have led some of Americas most radical movements, including labour reform, prohibition, and abolitionnot to mention womens suffrage.

A more likely explanation is that white nationalism valorises a distinctly macho culture. I love empire, I love power, I love achievement, Mr Spencer has said. The movement is founded on white dispossessionthe idea that immigration and multiculturalism will leave white people marginalised and dispossessed. It offers men a role as heroic protectors. Followers of the movement see liberal politics and political correctness, by contrast, as a form of oversensitive, feminine hysteria: Who can respect such pathetic crybabies? Mr Spencer has tweeted. Mainstream conservatism is similarly held in contempt.

For white men who feel displaced and emasculated by a society in which women and minorities are treated as their equals, this culture can be appealing. It is less clear what it has to offer women. But Ms Davenport is not convinced that the movement fails to attract women. I dont actually think there are so few women in the Alt-Right, she says. She knows of at least 100 herself, she says, who are followers. Women tend to be more private, she reckons, and less likely to signal their support publicly.

Nevertheless, Ms Davenport and another blogger, Wolfie James, are working to pull more women into the movement, by giving advice to men. For those whose partners are resistant to Alt-Right ideology, Ms James has written an online guide. How to red pill your woman suggests tactics like triggering the fear of assault by immigrants because women are more emotional than rational.

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No women's march: Women and the Alt-Right | The Economist - The Economist (blog)