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ABSTRACT
Due to an overwhelming focus on Islamist extremism, western strategies to Counter or Prevent Violent Extremism (C/PVE) have largely neglected the growing far-right threat. In this article, we draw attention to the gender blind spot in C/PVE strategies by arguing that misogyny and masculinism go beyond ‘anti-women’ sentiment and align with the far-right’s valorisation of order, hierarchy and traditional values. This blind spot in C/PVE measures has significance for understanding the current limitations of tackling violent extremism and the disconnection between misogyny, masculinism and how we apprehend violent extremism. Therefore, a gender lens must be adopted to understand the nature of far-right extremism and such views within wider societal contexts. We examine the recent C/PVE strategies of select western states to show that they rarely connect far-right ideology and gender, and that gender is mostly represented in terms of women and role type. Australia serves as a case study based on its overt masculinism, where attitudes towards women and misogynistic violence underscore broader political and societal debates which can feed the growth of the far-right, especially when focused on the aspects of masculinism that the far-right shares with mainstream politics.
KEYWORDS:
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the Victorian Government, Department of Justice and Community Safety: Countering Violent Extremism Unit. We are grateful to the editors and the two anonymous reviewers who provided constructive and supportive feedback on this article. Any omissions or errors remain our own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. There are distinctions between Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) and Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) in approaches to combatting terrorism and radicalisation. The former tends to adopt a “hard” security approach and the latter a preventative angle or “soft” approach of working with communities to mitigate violence (see Stephens, Sieckelinck, and Boutellier Citation2019). They are increasingly used interchangeably. In this article we will refer to C/PVE to capture a range of measures and directives that aim to address violent extremism.
2. The term “anti-gender” is useful because it goes beyond anti-feminism to cover a range of political mobilisations based around opposition to “gender ideology”, which serves as an “empty concept, adapting to contextual conditions” (Sosa Citation2021, 8; cf. Butler Citation2019). This strategy aims to challenge any claims to question the biological foundations of (binary) gender and (hetero)sexuality, and is opposed to abortion, and gender and sex education in schools, and sees LGBT rights and gender-based violence as unscientific or not based on evidence (Sosa Citation2021, 8). We refer to it in quotation marks to note its complex uses.
3. Until recently, the typology of “lone wolf” was used somewhat unproblematically, but it can misdiagnose motivation and capability, thereby impacting policy approaches to address this form of violence (Schuurman et al. (Citation2019) or valorise violence (Berntzen and Bjørgo Citation2021). We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this distinction.
4. This includes those countries that experienced far-right misogynistic attacks and those where the perpetrator’s motivation was white supremacy/racism and driven by ideas of “protecting” or defending the nation, which we read in gendered terms. The former includes the USA, Canada, and the UK. The latter include states such as Norway, Sweden, Germany, and New Zealand. Finland experienced its first Islamist terror attack in 2017 which reportedly targeted women bystanders.
5. Primary prevention programs focus on community resilience via education about the risk of violent extremism. Secondary interventions target individuals in danger of becoming a member of a violent extremist group or potential promoters and supporters of a violent extremist cause (Harris-Hogan, Barrelle, and Zammit Citation2016, 11-12). Tomkinson, Harper, and Attwell (Citation2020) see primary level programmes as a way to manage the incel threat.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Christine Agius
Dr Christine Agius is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Swinburne University of Technology. Her research centres on security, gender and bordering practices. Her publications include journal articles in Political Geography, Postcolonial Studies, Security Dialogue, Cooperation and Conflict and the Australian Journal of International Affairs.
Alexandra Edney-Browne
Dr Alexandra Edney-Browne was awarded her PhD in International Relations at The University of Melbourne in 2020, which examined the use of drone technology in war and the effects of U.S. drone surveillance and attacks on people's physical, emotional and psychosocial wellbeing in rural Afghanistan and among U.S. Air Force veterans. She is the investigations officer at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, researching environmental politics in the Australia Pacific region.
Lucy Nicholas
Dr Lucy Nicholas is Associate Professor and Director of Sexualities and Genders Research at Western Sydney University. Their research focuses on gender and sexual diversity; social, gender, feminist and political theory; antifeminism and backlash. Their sole-authored book Queer Post-Gender Ethics (Palgrave, 2014) was awarded a special commendation for the Raewyn Connell prize for best first book in Australian Sociology, and they are the co-author of The Persistence of Global Masculinism (Palgrave 2018).
Kay Cook
Dr Kay Cook is the Associate Dean of Research for the School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. Her research explores how governance practices, such as welfare-to-work, child support and family law transform gender relations and relationships between individuals, families and the state. She was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Family Studies from 2012 to 2018, an Australian Research Council Future Fellow from 2017 to 2020 and is a current co-director of the International Network of Child Support Scholars.