This is an interesting thread, and tracks with what I've seen: Among QAnon women, lots of overlap between the stay-at-home mom / religious / MLM participant set, as well as the stay-at-home mom / New Age / wellness / MLM participant set. Isolated women seeking purpose & community https://twitter.com/laurenonthehill/status/1350886219262132227

Is that the whole of QAnon women? Of course not. Plenty have jobs (anecdotally, lots seem to be in traditionally female fields, like nursing). But they also seem to have a lot of spare time. I suspect there's a long process of getting people to suspend disbelief and judgment...

And if you can start with religion, which demands exactly that, you're one step forward. Same with MLMs, which make no financial sense and don't work, but ask women to BELIEVE they work. And many wellness communities also undermine scientific consensus and rationality.

The women I know who do MLMs are overwhelmingly stay-at-home moms who want to feel validated and a part of something, and like they're contributing to their families -- but often have conservative partners / believe in traditional gender roles / have significant at-home duties.

The draw to an MLM, I think, is something like the draw to QAnon: You convince yourself you're doing something productive and important (MLM for your family, QAnon for your country). It's inherently social and involves interacting with a lot of people, virtually or in-person.

I think people profoundly underestimate how isolating raising children can be even if you do work outside the home. The life stage of having young children is one of the loneliest, and that's magnified if you don't have a paid job.

Add in the profound sense of disappointment when your plans for a big and meaningful life don't come to fruition, and mix it with the entitlement & arrogance a lot of white people have, and of course a conspiracy theory that tells you you're smarter than everyone else makes sense

I don't say this out of pity for the women of QAnon. They're adults, they are making truly awful choices, and a lot of them (most of them?) are making those choices in part because of deep racial grievance. But I do think there's a gender difference in why people get sucked in.

The aspect that probably cuts across gender: People who are not the adults they thought they would be and are not living the lives they thought they would live, and are looking for something that feels affirming and meaningful -- and makes them feel important and uniquely smart.

This is also one reason why Trump fans and QAnoners are so white -- so much is promised to white people. So much is assumed. People of color and even women making progress feels like an affront to the old way of being born ahead. Line-cutting, not evening the playing field.

QAnon feeds that racial narcissism. The message is: "It's not YOUR fault you're where you are, it's the fault of this extremely powerful cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles, and only you can save the nation." Deeply idiotic, but here we are.