BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) – An Arizona woman accused of connection to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol bragged in a Snapchat video that she was recently recruited by a Kansas City chapter of the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist organization that describes as “Western chauvinists” and has long banned female members.
Felicia Konold’s claim that the chapter recruited her and she was “with them now”, although she is not from the Kansas City area, puzzled experts who study extremist right-wing movements.
“It is ironic that a deeply misogynist organization has attracted someone who is a woman to join their organization,” said Eric Ward, senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It tells us that there are disagreements in the ranks of the Proud Boys now.”
Details of the video appeared last week in a probable cause statement against Konold, 26, from Tucson, who is accused of conspiracy, civil disorder and other federal charges arising from melee.
Konold looked almost euphoric in the Snapchat video she posted after the Capitol attack, saying she could never have imagined having such an influence on the events that happened that day. She laughing refers to “all my boys, behind me, holding me in the air, pushing back. We (expletive) got it! ”
In order to apparently prove her point that she had just been “recruited for a Kansas City chapter (expletive)”, she displayed a two-sided “challenge coin” on the video that appears to have marks that designate her as belonging to the proud boys of Kansas City.
The challenge coin denotes association, which seems to go against the rhetoric about women in the organization’s national leadership, said Ward.
“The fact that she has that coin, the challenge coin, tells me that there is something going on around the gender in the Proud Boys – and it is something worth paying attention to,” said Ward, who is also executive director of Western States Center, a civil rights advocacy group that works to promote gender equality.
Experts who monitor extremist right-wing groups point to the controversy that arose when former mixed martial arts fighter Tara LaRosa attempted in December to establish a Proud Girls branch on the Telegram social media app.
The Proud Boys’ social media channels responded quickly, calling auxiliary groups like Proud Boy’s Girls or Proud Girls “ridiculous ideas”. “Don’t be on our tail,” said a post. “Do you want to support us? Get married, have children and take care of your family. “
Alex DiBranco, executive director of the Male Supremacy Research Institute, said there are differences between the Proud Boys’ chapters on whether to embrace women as Proud Girls, even though the group as a whole has become more hostile to women helpers in last years. Proud Boys’ mothers posted about the Proud Boys meetings they organized for their children.
But DiBranco said that people in his group who worked on this topic still do not know of a situation in which a woman was actually recruited to be a member of a chapter of the Proud Boys, which is strictly against the rules of the Proud Boys.
Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that for a period of time there were auxiliary groups of Proud Boys ‘Girls formed by members’ wives and girlfriends, but they were not allowed to be part of the group. . She said that, as far as she knows, none of these auxiliary groups are currently active.
“The group has been very clear from the outset that it is a male-only organization and they have misogynistic beliefs and believe that women are better suited to domestic work and should act as mothers and housewives,” said Miller.
Prosecutors allege in a lawsuit that William Chrestman, whom they described as the leader of the Kansas City Proud Boys cell, “promptly recruited” Felicia Konold and his brother, Cory Konold, of Arizona to join the Kansas City Proud group Boys.
Neither his defense lawyer nor his father responded immediately to messages Tuesday for comments.
The Proud Boys are known for inciting street violence with counter-protesters. The group gained widespread attention during a presidential debate in September, when then-President Donald Trump told them to “step back and wait.”
Prosecutors allege that, as of December, the Proud Boys encouraged their members to attend the January 6 demonstration in Washington, DC. A large group of them, including Felicia Konold and other members of her cell in Kansas City, were captured on video marching together and later entering the US Capitol.
Although there were many white women in the January 6 protests, white supremacy groups generally tend to be dominated by white men, said DiBranco. Groups like QAnon tend to be popular with women, but supporters of Proud Boys and supporters of QAnon come together in these types of protests. The anti-xxxxx movement against vaccination is dominated by women.
“These blockade protests exposed their members to these elements of a far-right coalition that these women might not be part of,” said DiBranco. “Women may have switched from antivaxxer to QAnon and other types of conspiracies.”