Gender Issues in White Nationalist Novels

One of the most fascinating developments within the last several years has been the development of a branch of TEOTWAKI novels written by women. While these novels are not necessarily white nationalist, the TEOTWAKI novels do share certain elements that are also present in white nationalist novels such as: a strict adherence to the pre-1861 Constitution, a particular aversion to any form of gun control, a demonization of the federal government, in particular ‘nonelected’ bureaucrats and appointed federal judges, a suspicion as to the intentions

of multinational corporations and NGOs, and a belief in the resurgence, albeit rebirth of the

“true” spirit of American freedom.

Whereas Hicks asserted that the novel written by Ellen Williams entitled Bedford: A World Vision is Confederate, nothing in the novel approaches the idea of the neo-Confederacy, except for advocating a fairly conservative view of Christianity and society in general. While the novel is set in Alabama, and there is a description of minority students who take out their vehemence on ‘Euro-students’ because their ‘ancestors were oppressors,’ nothing else in the novel could be construed as neo-Confederate, unless one would stretch the definition of ‘neo-Confederate’ and ‘white nationalist’ to the point where those terms would encompass any novel that is anti-political correctness. Just because a novel is anti-political correctness does not make it neo-Confederate nor white nationalist. The novel is not racially inclined in anyway whatsoever, which eliminates this novel from the white nationalist genre and the sub-genre of neo-Confederacy novels in particular because it does not paint white Southerners as a ‘distinct’

race of people with a distinct culture. This novel would be better placed in the ‘evangelical’

Christian genre, along with the novels by Larry Burkett The Illuminati and The Thor Conspiracy.

This genre would also encompass the massive Political left Behind saga, of which the popularity was only rivalled by the Bible within certain circles.¹⁵³

The gender relationships within American white nationalist novels have been briefly mentioned in this project, however, it would be of interest if they were explored more fully in the future. In particular, the newer novels that have been published since 2000 show a specific form of genderized relationship in which women, as well as men, find their “natural’ status,” without the interference of the “alien” and “artificial” influence of feminism and political correctness. In Lane’s KD Rebel, an eighteen-year old girl, Dory is kidnapped by one of the Kindred, Eric. As she struggles in her new life, she is introduced to the 88 Precepts, by which the Kindred live.

While the Kindred live according to Nordic pagan law, they also instill a sense of independent thinking in their captives, as Dory finds when she reads:

[S]he was struck by the absolute logic in the teachings that all living things are subject to natural laws. It seemed impossible to deny. After a lifetime of propaganda about "equality,” she found the 29th Precept to be devastatingly iconoclastic. It read, "The concept of equality is declared a lie by every evidence of nature.

It is a search for the lowest common denominator, and its pursuit will destroy every superior race, nation of culture. In order for a plow horse to run as fast as a race horse, you would first have to cripple the race

153 For more information on the Left Behind series, see Skipping Towards Armageddon: The Politics and

Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire by Michael Standaert (Boston, MA: Soft Skull Press, 2006).

horse; conversely, in order for a race horse to pull as much as a plow horse, you would first have to cripple the plow horse. In either case, the pursuit of equality is the destruction of excellence” (Lane 2004, 69).

In that sense, the novels mirror, the aforementioned Gor novels. This series, while advocating a

‘master/slave’ male/female relationship as the natural state of both men and women, in which modern sensibilities have forced an unnatural situation where men are not truly men and women are not truly women. While this idea seems antithetical to modern Western ideas regarding gender, it could and has been argued that there seems to be something missing from Western society, as evidenced by the popularity of the ‘bodice-ripper’ type of romance novels and men’s adventure novels, which reinforce certain stereotypes of traditional aspects of gender.¹⁵⁴

In the above sense, many white nationalist novels reinforce the ideas presented in Gor series, because of its insistence on the natural state of men and women is the master/slave relationship. As mentioned by a female character in Kur of Gor, number 27 of the series, “We do not dream of weaklings. We dream of masters” (Norman 2009, 687). While white nationalism views male/female relationships as partnerships based on traditional roles, it does not go as far as to call for the female to be a slave to her husband, either in the bedroom or outside of it. Indeed, they appear to be promoting a very traditional form of gender relationship, as seen by the below conversation between Cody Brock and Emily Pastras. Moreover, it would appear that some of the more radical white ‘revolutionary’ novels are more akin to the post-World War One Freikorps novels, or the “New War” novels examined by James Gibson in Warrior Dreams, where men only find their true nature only in combat or physical struggle. Furthermore, the fascination with combat, guns, and revolution exemplify some of the more radical undercurrents of the genre.

Besides the blatant racism present in white nationalist novels, many, if not the overwhelming majority of them, would fit quite easily into the men’s adventure genre of novels that sit at the edges of mainstream American literature. While James Gibson in his Warrior Dreams examines

154 The surprising fascination with John Norman’s Gor novels by a sizeable portion of women within the fantasy community is evidence that, indeed, something is ‘missing’ within the gender relationships in American society. For more information on the ‘bodice rippers’ and their appeal to women, see Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), particularly Chapter Codpiece: ‘The Romance Hero’ and Chapter Bad Sex: ‘Rape in Romance,’ also Kay Mussell, Fantasy and Reconciliation: Contemporary Formulas of Women’s Romance Fiction (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984), particularly Chapter 5: ‘Authority, Patriarchy, and Sexuality.’ While a bit dated, Mussell provides an excellent introduction to the fantasies that are most often portrayed in women’s romance fiction. If used in conjunction with Wendell and Tan’s book mentioned above, the interested reader should have a solid foundation for further research.

For the popularity of the Gor series, see James E Combs, Polpop 2: Politics and Popular Culture in America Today (New York: Popular Press, 1991) and www.gorchronicles.com, specifically the essay “Misconceptions of Gor” by Lemuel of the Builders (a pseudonym/member name used on the site).

this genre in depth, the study is dated and no scholar, at present, has revisited the genre to see what changes, if any, have occurred since Gibson’s study was published in the late 1990s.

Combat, at its most elemental form, is the struggle for physical survival and it is in that milieu that these novels seem to appeal to most readers. In fact, some of the novels mirror the Freikorps novels written by the Freikorps-Kämper and other German authors in the post-World War One period, in particular the writings of Ernst Jünger and Ernst von Salomon, both combat veterans.

The meaning behind many white nationalist novels is that ‘traditional’ gender relationships are the best for white societies. In this sense, an overriding sense of traditional masculinity and femininity, along with a traditional family structure, where the man serves as the main breadwinner, with the woman as the heart of the home serve as the basis for any ‘sane’

society. While many white nationalist novels bemoan the fact that most white working-class families, even with two breadwinners, teeter on the edge of poverty, they also advocate a return to a ‘simpler’ time. In particular, the novels of H.A. Covington and D. A. Hanks seem to build upon the notion that ‘something just isn’t right’ with contemporary American society and the gender relationships promoted by current culture, where men live in their parents’ basement until their thirties and women are taught to hate men because feminism has imbued women with a debased sense of femininity and sexuality. Again, H. A. Covington is quoted here, mainly because he is the most prolific of white nationalist authors. In the aforementioned A Mighty Fortress, just before the Longview Conference, Cody Brock and Emily Pastras have volunteered to infiltrate an evangelical church that appears to be gearing up to attack the white nationalist revolutionaries and the white separatist government that is starting to form in the Pacific Northwest. The night before going into the church and trying to get the minister and his aides into revealing their plans, Cody and Emily are sleeping in separate beds and begin discussing the female/male situation in the United States in which they are living and fighting against:

“Emily, for Christ’s sake don’t think I’m dissing you in any way. I’m not, I swear. But I shouldn’t be fighting with you at my side. I should be fighting for you or-well, for some woman, back in a home some place with a family and children that I am trying to protect from these horrible tyrants. That’s the way it’s been down through history. And you, I mean women, you’ve always been a civilizing and moderating influence on men and their urge to fight one another. Kind of a brake that periodically gets called into play to stop us boys from burning down the whole house with our horseplay, so to speak […]

[Emily responds] “Look Cody, you’re spot on. It doesn’t feel right to me either, because it isn’t right. It’s completely against nature for me to be doing what I’m doing, and I despise the Jewish feminists like Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer and Shulamith Firestone and Andrea Dworkin and the whole plug-ugly nickel-nosed crew. They started all this nutty man- hating crap, this idea that men are enemies and competitors, so that now two generations later I have to live like this. I should be wearing dresses every day, and really baking cookies for a decent and honorable man who loves me and protects me and supports

me, so I can get on with my job in life of raising as many children as I can bear, beg, borrow, or steal. I need a man to the head of the family while I am the heart. That’s what every female chromosome in my being demands that I do, but these damned Jews and the lunatic world of toxic waste they’ve made won’t let me do it (Covington 2005, 200).

In a short conversation, the natural side of male/female relationships within white nationalist novels is revealed. In essence, there are several threads that are bound together in Emily’s response to Cody’s comment, namely that (a) feminism is against a woman’s nature because it proposes that men are the enemy, (b) Jews, like the ones mentioned above, push all women but especially white women to embrace feminism because it advances the Jewish goal of destroying the white race, and (c) women would be much happier raising children and looking after the home, which in reality, has been their primary role historically. Again, white nationalist fiction reinforces certain traditional gender norms because they are considered to be natural, meaning within the natures of both men and women.

Finally, there seems to be an American fascination with white women being ‘amazons’

and helpless ‘damsels in distress.’ While one might argue that this attitude plays on the

‘Madonna/whore’ complex and other male fantasies, there appears to be a deeper psycho/cultural phenomenon at play in the American cultural psyche. While Tom Engelhardt mentioned the Captivity Narratives in his The End of Victory Culture, there were other cycles of novels that concentrated on the capture or temptation of white women. The aforementioned Convent Exposés of the 1830s -1850s concentrated on the debauched proceedings in Catholic convents where white women would be brutalized, raped and traumatized; these were followed by the White Slave narratives of the 1880s to 1920, which fed into and reflected the Yellow Peril novels of the same time period, whereas these novels mostly concentrated on fears of an Asian invasion, they also included elements of temptation of white women as an underlying issue. Furthermore, the rise of the Lost World novels during the first decade of 1900, along with the growth of film saw new horizons for white female captives. D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation in 1915, the screenplay of which was written by Thomas Dixon Jr., celebrated the white female captive and elevated the Reconstruction Ku Klux Klan to the role of the guardian of white womanhood from the trepidations of the black ‘monster’ rapist.

After World War Two, the mystery novels of the Mickey Spillane, along with the pulp men’s magazines elevated the white female captive to national prominence, although there had been the ‘white slave narratives’ earlier in the century. While Mickey Spillane described himself