Far-right violence as backlash against gender equality: A county-level analysis of structural and ideological gender inequality and homicides committed by far-right extremists

ABSTRACT

In the aftermath of the far-right rally in Charlottesville that led to the murder of counter-protester Heather Heyer in August 2017, attention turned to the reaction by extremists on far-right websites and their vitriolic language against Heyer. Such rhetoric evidenced the intertwined nature of white supremacy and misogyny. The modern far-right movement grew in reaction to social changes such as greater equality across gender and racial lines. Feminist perspectives on male violence offer competing hypotheses where greater gender inequality may lead to less (backlash) or greater (ameliorative) violence. The current study uses data on homicides committed by far-right extremists from the United States Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) to assess far-right violence as an outcome of gender inequality. Results show that counties with greater gender inequality, in favor of men, in occupation and income, experience a decrease in the odds of a far-right homicide occurring. Once a far-right homicide occurs, gender inequality in occupation has a further pacifying effect as greater inequality is associated with a decline in far-right violence. Taken together, these findings provide support for the backlash hypothesis as they demonstrate that greater gender equality is associated with far-right violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Far-right violence
• gender inequality
• feminist perspectives on violence

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Colleen E. Mills

Colleen E. Mills is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Pennsylvania State University, Abington and she is a Project Manager for the U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB). Her research focuses on hate crime, far-right extremism and terrorism, racism, and group conflict. Some of her work has appeared in Justice Quarterly, Journal of Research in Crime & Delinquency, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Crime & Delinquency, and Race & Class.

Margaret Schmuhl

Margaret Schmuhl is an assistant professor of public justice at the State University of New York—Oswego. Her research interests include critical perspectives on crime and institutional response to crime, violence against women, and punishment.

Joel A. Capellan

Joel A. Capellan is an assistant professor in the Law and Justice Studies department at Rowan University. Capellan specializes in statistics and spatial analysis. He has conducted and published research on state-sponsored repression, segregation, lone wolf terrorism, policing bias, and criminological theories. Currently, he is devoting most of his attention to the study of mass public shootings.