Misogyny is the lifeblood of racist movements — or that’s one takeaway from sociologist Kathleen Blee’s research into the Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK), a hate group that formed in the 1920s independent of the men’s Klan.
The WKKK formed on the heels of the women’s suffrage movement, itself rife with racism. Blee, a dean and sociology professor at the University of Pittsburgh who researches extremist right-wing and racist social movements, authored the book “Women of the Klan: Racism and Gender in the 1920s” — published in 1991 and again in 2009, with a new preface. In it, she argues that the very expansion of White women’s access to the franchise laid the foundation for a hate group that was “by women, for women and of women.” Some high-ranking WKKK leaders had also chaired local campaigns for suffrage, and as women’s political opportunities expanded, many felt their role in the Klan should too.
Continue reading here at The 19th, courtesy of Ko Bragg.