Meet the Feminist White Supremacists

Dec. 12 -- Hatred isn't just a man's job anymore, it seems.

Women in extremist right-wing groups have long held supportive, often subservient, roles, mostly bearing and rearing children. But in an odd extension of the women's rights and feminist movements that have propelled women into all manner of roles formerly ruled by men, more and more white supremacist women are eager to get out of the kitchen and into the firing line.

Christine Greenwood allegedly is one such woman. She has been charged with two counts of possession of bombmaking materials and "associating, promoting and assisting a criminal street gang."

Greenwood, 28, "is an active white supremacist leader who has spent most of her time with a group known as Women for Aryan Unity," Orange County, Calif., District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said last month when he announced charges had been filed against Greenwood and a man alleged to be the California state leader for Aryan Nations.

Rackauckas described Women for Aryan Unity as a "group for wives of male white supremacists [that] was formed to not only assist and to stand by their men, but to take up their weapons and battle cry if the men should fall."

The trend began a few years ago, but observers say lately it has been growing into a significant force.

"I was seeing the very beginning of that, but it does seem like it is a growing trend," said Kirsten Kaiser, who was married for nine years to Kevin Strom, the co-host of a radio program with William Pierce, the leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance and author of The Turner Diaries. Kaiser lived on the group's West Virginia compound.

The most prominent woman in the "white rights" movement may be Rachel Pendergraft of the Ku Klux Klan, which is no longer considered to be among the most active white supremacist groups.

‘Baking Cookies, Making Punch’

Women have long played prominent roles in leftist extremist and revolutionary groups, but those on the right have been traditionally led and dominated by men.