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BWhile the footage shows that men play the main role in the right-wing extremist unrest in England and Northern Ireland, women are also involved in the unrest.

More than 400 people have been arrested since the violence began, 100 have been charged and the suspects are currently facing trial.

Rioters have attacked mosques, assaulted riot police, set fire to a hotel housing migrants, and torched a public library and a Citizens Advice Bureau building. There have been numerous incidents in which members of ethnic minorities have been attacked in the streets.

An expert on gender and radicalization said The Independent Social media has sometimes led to women playing a more visible role in far-right movements.

Leanne Hodgson pleaded guilty to violent disorder after a video widely shared online showed her attempting to ram a large rubbish bin into a police cordon in Sunderland over the weekend.

Appearing at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court, the 43-year-old denied taking part in the original demonstration but said she had been out drinking and became involved in the unrest when the pub closed.

The court was told that she had a long-standing alcohol problem and she was remanded in custody to be sentenced on 2 September.

In a clip from Middlesborough, 34-year-old Stacy Vint was filmed pushing a burning wheelie bin into a police line with a man before falling to the ground at the feet of riot officers. She pleaded guilty to violent disorder and was remanded in custody to be sentenced on August 28.

Sammy Woodhouse, a survivor of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, attended the protests and made a video for a website that raises funds for far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

Other women sharing posts about the demonstrations include influencers Yorkshire Rose and Laura Towler, who have tens of thousands of followers.

The unrest began after the fatal knife attack on three young girls at a holiday club in Southport, which was modelled on Taylor Swift. False reports quickly spread that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived in Britain on a small boat.

Then last Tuesday saw the arrival of far-right thugs into the already grieving community of Southport and engaging in violent unrest.

Axel Rudakubana, an 18-year-old from Wales who was living in Banks, Lancashire, at the time of the attack, was charged with three counts of murder and ten counts of attempted murder.

One person who later apologised and deleted a social media post was childminder and wife of Conservative councillor Lucy Connolly.

The 41-year-old was arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after posting on X: “Mass deportations now, as far as I’m concerned, set fire to all the shitty hotels full of s***… If that makes me a racist, then so be it.”

She has since apologized and said she acted on the basis of “false and malicious” information.

Anne Craanen, senior research and policy manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said: “We can already see that women are involved in the unrest offline, and also through social media content and the live streams that have been circulating for some time about these unrests. To put it bluntly, you see more men.”

She warned that women – both those with and without large online followings – are spreading misinformation online.

Ms Craaenen argued that the rise of social media had changed the role of women in the far right and brought to light activities that would previously have remained hidden.

“The men in these movements are often incredibly misogynistic and the women in these movements often face this misogyny as well,” she said.

“Women on the far right like to return to their traditional gender roles, but on the other hand, this contradicts what we are seeing: women actually becoming violent on the streets.”

She called for more attention to be paid to gender dynamics within the extreme right and the role of masculinity in extremism.