Supreme Men, Subjected Women: Gender Inequality and Violence in Jihadist, Far Right and Male Supremacist Ideologies

Abstract

Recent cases of terrorist violence by jihadist, far right, and male supremacist actors share a common, yet underexplored feature – the aim to impose extreme patriarchal political and social orders which are anti-feminist and even misogynistic. This exploratory article draws on several cases across these three groups to highlight two findings. First, we demonstrate that these narratives are increasingly utilized in justifications for violence, and women, and those promoting gender equality, are targeted. Second, that male supremacy is itself is increasingly a distinct anti-feminist ideological motivation for violence. We argue that this topic should be considered and assessed to a greater extent in terrorism scholarship, and in practical efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contribution of Bec Devitt made possible through Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP200101998 and Sara Kropf who contributed to preparation of the manuscript for submission. They would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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3 Debbie Ging, "Alphas, Betas, and Incels: Theorizing the Masculinities of the Manosphere." Men and Masculinities 22, no. 4 (2019): 652.

4 Ibid. 653.

5 Kimmel, Angry White Men, 13.

6 Malcom B. Hamilton, “The Elements of the Concept of Ideology,” Political Studies 35, no. 1 (1987): 28.

7 Arie W. Kruglanksi et al. "The Psychology of Radicalization and Deradicalization: How Significance Quest Impacts Violent Extremism," Political Psychology 35, no. 1 (2014):76.

8 Ibid. 77.

9 Caron E. Gentry, Disordered Violence: How Gender, Race and Heteronormativity Structure Terrorism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 124.

10 C. J. M. Drake cited in Ibid. 56.

11 Oxford English Dictionary online “Patriarchy”. Accessed 11 October 2021.

12 Gentry, Disordered Violence, 179.

13 Oxford English Dictionary online “Misogyny” Accessed 11 October 2021.

14 Kate Manne, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2018), 13 as cited in Gentry, Disordered Violence, 173.

15 Ibid.174.

16 Ibid.177.

17 Joshua M. Roose, et al., Masculinity and Violent Extremism (London: Palgrave, 2022).

18 Manoel Horta Ribeiro et al., “From Pick-Up Artists to Incels: A Data-Driven Sketch of the Manosphere,” arXiv January 21, 2020, accessed June 28, 2021, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.07600v1.pdf.

19 Anti-Defamation League, When Women are the Enemy: The Intersection of Misogyny and White Supremacy (New York: Anti-Defamation League, 2018) 5; Jessica Valenti, “When Misogynists become Terrorists,” The New York Times, April 26, 2018.

20 Joshua M. Roose, The New Demagogues: Religion, Masculinity and the Populist Epoch (London: Routledge, 2020), 80-109.

21 Kayla Preston, Michael Halpin, and Finlay Maguire, "The Black Pill: New Technology and the Male Supremacy of Involuntarily Celibate Men," Men and Masculinities 24, no. 5 (2021): 823–841; Julia R. DeCook and Megan Kelly, "Interrogating the “Incel Menace”: Assessing the Threat of Male Supremacy in Terrorism Studies," Critical Studies on Terrorism (2021): 1–21.

22 Debbie Ging, Theodore Lynn and Pierangelo Rosati, “Neologising Misogyny: Urban Dictionary’s Folksonomies of Sexual Abuse,” New Media & Society 22, no. 5 (2020): 838–856; Debbie Ging, Eugenia Siaper eds., Gender Hate Online: Understanding the New Anti-Feminism (Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019); Meredeith L. Pruden et al. “Birds of a Feather: A Comparative Analysis of White Supremacist and Violent Male Supremacist Discourses” in Right Wing Extremism in Canada and the United States, ed. Barbara Perry, Jeff Gruenewald and Ryan Scrivens (New York: Palgrave, 2022), 215–254.

23 Ging, “Alphas, betas, and incels”, 644.

24 Ben Collins and Brandy Zadronzy, “After Toronto Attack, Online Misogynists Praise a “new saint”, NBC News, April 25, 2018, accessed 05 January 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-toronto-attack-online-misogynists-praise-suspect-new-saint-n868821.

25 Bruce Hoffman, Jacob Ware, and Ezra Shapiro, “Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 43, no. 7, (2020): 569.

26 Jessica Valenti, “When Misogynists become Terrorists,” The New York Times, April 26, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/opinion/when-misogynists-become-terrorists.html.

27 For more reading on ‘patriarchal terrorism’ see: Caron E. Gentry Disordered Violence; Pablo Castillo Diaz and Nahla Valji. "Symbiosis of Misogyny and Violent Extremism." Journal of International Affairs 72, no. 2 (2019): 37–56; Rachel Pain "Everyday Terrorism: Connecting Domestic Violence and Global Terrorism," Progress in Human Geography 38, no. 4 (2014): 531–550.

28 Elizabeth Pearson, "Gendered Reflections? Extremism in the UK’s Radical Right and al-Muhajiroun Networks," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2020): 1–24.

29 Mattheis, Ashley, and Charlie Winter, The Greatness of Her Position: Comparing Identitarian and jihadi dis‐courses on Women (London: International Centre for the Study on Radicalisation, 2019), 1–32.

30 Tahir Abbas, "Ethnicity and Politics in Contextualising Far Right and Islamist Extremism," Perspectives on Terrorism 11, no. 3 (2017): 57.

31 Hoffman et al. “Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence” 575.

32 Pablo Castillo Diaz and Nahla Valji, "Symbiosis of Misogyny and Violent Extremism”.

33 Ibid.

34 Christine Agius et al., "Anti-Feminism, Gender and the Far-Right Gap in C/PVE Measures," Critical Studies on Terrorism (2021): 1–25.

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38 Díaz and Valj, "Symbiosis of Misogyny and Violent Extremism," 46.

39 Michael S. Kimmel, “Globalization and its Mal(e)Contents: The Gendered Moral and Political Economy of Terrorism,” International Sociology 18, no. 3 (2003): 615.

40 Ibid.

41 Al Qaeda Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), “The Tsunami of change,” Inspire Issue 5, Spring 1431, (March 2011).

42 AQAP, “May our souls be sacrificed for you! Shaykh Anwar al-’Awlaki,” Inspire, Issue 1, Summer 1431 (2010).

43 Michael Page, Lara Challita, and Alistair Harris, "Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing narratives and Prescriptions," Terrorism and Political Violence 23, no. 2 (2011): 161.

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45 AQAP, “The Top 20 Lies of Feminism (and the truths that replace them),” Ibnat al-Islam (2021) 67.

46 Ibid.

47 Joana Cook, “Their Fate Is Tied to Ours: Assessing AQAP Governance and Implications for Security in Yemen,” in Building a New Yemen: Recovery, Transition and the International Community, ed. Amat Al Alim Alsoswa and Noel Brehony (London: Bloomsbury, 2021).

48 Joana Cook, A Woman’s Place: US Counterterrorism since 9/11 (Oxford University Press, 2020), 348. Also, see Joana Cook “Women in Jihadist Discourses and Practices of Governance,” in The Rule is for none but Allah: Islamist Approaches to Governance, ed. Joana Cook and Shiraz Maher (London: Hurst Publishers, 2022).

49 See Díaz and Valji, "Symbiosis of Misogyny and Violent Extremism" for further discussion.

50 Jacob Zenn and Elizabeth Pearson, "Women, Gender and the Evolving Tactics of Boko Haram," Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations 5, no. 1 (2014): 51.

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53 See Hilary Matfess, Women and the War on Boko Haram: Wives, Weapons, Witnesses (London: Zed Books Ltd., 2017).

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55 ISIS, “For women: The Fitrah of Mankind and the Near-Extinction of the Western Woman,” Dabiq 15 (2016).

56 Ibid 15, (2016).

57 Charlie Winter, “Women of the Islamist State: A manifesto on women by the al-Khanssaa Brigade,” Quillium Foundation 18 (2015): 41. https://www.quilliaminternational.com/shop/e-publications/women-of-the-islamic-state-a-manifesto-on-women-by-the-al-khanssaa-brigade-2/, (accessed January 16, 2022).

58 ISIS: Dabiq Issue 11 (September 2015): 41.

59 Nadia Al-Dayel and Andrew Mumford, “ISIS and their Use of Slavery,” (The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2020) https://icct.nl/publication/isis-and-their-use-of-slavery/.

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61 Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020), as cited in Christine Agius et al. "Anti-Feminism, Gender and the far-right gap in C/PVE measures.": 4.

62 Christine Agius et al. "Anti-Feminism, Gender and the Far-Right Gap in C/PVE Measures.": 5.

63 Cas Mudde, "The Populist Zeitgeist." Government and Opposition 39, no. 4 (2004): 541–563; Katja Freistein and Frank Gadinger “Populist Stories of Honest Men and Proud Mothers: A Visual Narrative Analysis,” Review of International Studies 46,no. 2 (2020): 217–316, as cited in Agius et al, “Anti-Feminism, gender and the far-right gap in C/PVE measures,”: 5.

64 Anti-Defamation League When Women are the Enemy: 5.

65 Berlet, Chip, and Stanislav Vysotsky. "Overview of US white supremacist groups." Journal of Political & Military Sociology 34, no. 1 (2006): 11–48.

66 Miller-Idriss, Hate in the Homeland, 25.

67 Agius et al, “Anti-Feminism, gender and the far-right gap in C/PVE measures,” 7.

68 Gentry 2022, 210.

69 Stinton, Catherine, "Combining the Aberrant with the Ordinary: The Role of White Supremacy in the Far-Right Radicalisation of Women," Journal of Applied Psychology and Social Science 5.1 (2019): 86–115; Moon, Dreama G., and Michelle A. Holling. "“White Supremacy in Heels” (white) Feminism, White Supremacy, and Discursive Violence," Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 17, no. 2 (2020): 253–260.

70 Agius, Edney-Browne, Nicholas and Cook, “Anti-Feminism, gender and the far-right gap in C/PVE measures,” Critical Studies on Terrorism (2021): 2.

71 Ibid: 2.

72 Anders Breivik, Manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, July 22, 2011 (July 7, 2021): 35.

73 Ibid: 35.

74 Ibid: 38.

75 Ibid: 941.

76 Stephen J. Walton, "Anti-Feminism and Misogyny in Breivik’s “Manifesto”,” NORA-Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 20, no. 1 (2012): 5.

77 Ibid: 7.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid: 83.

80 Mattias Gardell, “Crusader Dreams: Oslo 22/7, Islamophobia, and the Quest for a Monocultural Europe,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26 (2014): 129–155.

81 Jones, 2011 as cited in Gentry, Disordered Violence, 167.

82 See especially Chapter 5 of Government of New Zealand, “Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch mosques on 15 March 2019,” New Zealand Royal Commission, 2021, https://christchurchattack.royalcommission.nz/the-report/firearms-licensing/preparation-for-the-terrorist-attack/.

83 Brenton Tarrant, The Great Replacement (2019).

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94 Sian Tomkinson, Tauel Harper and Katie Attwell, “Confronting Incel: Exploring Possible Policy Responses to Misogynistic Violent Extremism,” Australian Journal of Political Science 55, no. 2 (2020): 152–169.

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96 Hoffman et al. “Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence,”: 568.

97 Ibid.

98 Ibid.

99 Shannon Zimmerman, Luis Ryan, and David Duriesmith, “Recognizing the Violent Extremist Ideology of ‘Incels’,” Women in International Security Policy Brief 9 (2018) accessed 27 January 2022. https://www.wiisglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Policybrief-Violent-Extremists-Incels.pdf.

100 Roose et al. Masculinity and Violent Extremism.

101 Elliot Rodger, My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger 2014 accessed January 27, 2022.

102 Ibid.

103 Lisa Gotell and Emily Dutton, “Sexual violence in the Manosphere: Antifeminist Men’s rights Discourses on Rape,” International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 5, no. 2 (2016): 65–80; Molly Dragiewicz, Equality with a Vengeance: Men’s Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2011).

104 Roose, The New Demagogues: 80–109.

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106 Roy Den Hollander, “Evolutionary Correct Cyclopedia”, accessed January 24, 2022 http://www.roydenhollander.com/main/Writings/CyclopediaUpdate2.20.19.pdf.

107 Ibid.

108 Roy Den Hollander, ‘World without Men’ accessed January 24, 2022, http://www.roydenhollander.com/main/articles.htm#tobe_wife.

109 Chip Berlet “Mapping the Political Right: Gender and Race Oppression in right Wing Movements” in Home-Grown hate: Gender and Organized Racism, ed. Abby L Ferber (London: Routledge, 2003), 18–46.

110 Andi Zeisler, “Opinion” The Washington Post, 24 July 2020, accessed 10 November 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/24/years-roy-den-hollander-was-joke-now-hes-accused-misogynist-murder/.

111 Kimmel, “Globalization and its Mal(e)Contents”, 605.

112 Joshua Roose, Political Islam and Masculinity: Muslim Men in Australia (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016).

113 Hamilton, “The Elements of the Concept of Ideology”, 38.

114 Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks, “Revenge of the Patriarchs: Why Autocrats fear women,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2022. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2022-02-08/women-rights-revenge-patriarchs.