Sarah L. Hoiland

“Righteous Sisterhood” uncovers new working-class feminisms within a patriarchal and often misogynist biker subculture. It traces the origins of female participation in motorcycle clubs through archival research, which sets the stage for extensive fieldwork within an international women’s motorcycle club that has been accepted by its more notorious counterparts in the “outlaw” biker world. Drawing on Chicana feminist theories of borderlands and shape-shifting identities that complicate existing conceptualizations of citizenship, “Righteous Sisterhood” shows how these women negotiate between the overt masculinity of a “righteous biker” and deft constructions of strong sisterhood to assert a unique feminist identity within the subculture.