Ethical Matters:
Women and the Far Right

We are in a new age of terror, with self-radicalising, hard-to-categorise individuals planning violence. Each one caught by the British state tells us something about British society.

Security services are striving to contain a staggering 3,000 far-right extremists, Islamists, and other potential threats. From dating websites and prison cells to Telegram networks and Tesco knives, Lizzie Dearden’s deep dive, Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed, offers one disturbing certainty: the plotters will keep coming.

To confront them, we need to understand them. And as the far right has gained popularity and acceptance around the world, its ranks have swelled with an unlikely category of members: women. Understanding how and why women join movements that explicitly aim to restrict their autonomy is essential if we want to fight back.

In their book Pink-pilled, journalist Lois Shearing interviews leading experts and infiltrates communities of tradwives and femtrolls to provide a cutting-edge account of how the far right uses the internet to recruit women. Shining a light on women’s experiences within these movements, Shearing offers key insights for countering women’s radicalisation and building communities resistant to far-right thought.

Lois is a freelance journalist and author. They are the author of Bi the Way: The Bisexual Guide to Life (2021) and the co-editor of It Ain’t Over Til the Bisexual Speaks: An Anthology of Bisexual Voices (2024). Their writing on sex, sexuality, gender, relationships, digital culture, and politics has appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Independent, Mashable, The Metro, and Gay Times, among others.

Lizzie is The Independent’s Home Affairs Editor. She has been covering terror attacks, prosecutions, and extremism of all kinds in the UK in depth since 2017. Lizzie is also a long-term observer of global terrorism trends and has previously reported on Isis-inspired attacks in Europe and elsewhere. Lizzie is the author of Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed.

Lizzie’s book, Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed, and Lois’s book, Pink-pilled, will be available to buy in person from Newham Bookshop on the night.

Age Recommendation:

16+

Price: *All ticket prices below include a £1 booking fee*

In person: Standard £10 • Living Support £7 • Students £7 • Members FREE
Online: Standard £7 • Members FREE

Access Information

Due to the age and Grade II listing of the building, there is no lift access to rooms above the ground floor.

All the ground-floor rooms are fully accessible by wheelchair. Main Hall (street access, step-free), Brockway Room (street access, step-free), Bertrand Russell Room (street access, shallow ramp), Hive Cafe (street access, step-free). There is also an accessible toilet on the ground floor opposite the Brockway Room.

Other events that may interest you:

The Empathy Fix

Mavericks: Lessons from History’s Most Extraordinary Misfits