Critical Studies on Terrorism

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Anti-feminism, gender and the far-right gap in C/

PVE measures

Christine Agius, Alexandra Edney-Browne, Lucy Nicholas & Kay Cook

To cite this article: Christine Agius, Alexandra Edney-Browne, Lucy Nicholas & Kay Cook (2022)
Anti-feminism, gender and the far-right gap in C/PVE measures, Critical Studies on Terrorism,
15:3, 681-705, DOI: 10.1080/17539153.2021.1967299

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CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM
2022, VOL. 15, NO. 3, 681–705
https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2021.1967299

Anti-feminism, gender and the far-right gap in C/PVE

measures
Christine Agiusa, Alexandra Edney-Brownea, Lucy Nicholasb and Kay Cooka
a
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia;
b
School of Social Science, Sexualities and Genders Research Network, Western Sydney University, Sydney,
Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Due to an overwhelming focus on Islamist extremism, western Gender; C/PVE; far-right;
strategies to Counter or Prevent Violent Extremism (C/PVE) have masculinism; Australia
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, hier­
archy 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, mas­
culinism 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 exam­
ine 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 mascu­
linism that the far-right shares with mainstream politics.

Introduction
While far-right violent extremism and attacks in Western states have increased
significantly in the past five years (Institute for Economics and Peace 2020, 62),
there has been a lack of structural analysis of the gendered ideas and discourses
that underpin the ideology of the far-right in approaches to Countering or
Preventing Violent Extremism (C/PVE1). Since 9/11, C/PVE measures have overwhel­
mingly been directed towards Islamist extremism, where there has been some
recognition of how masculinity drives violence (Messerschmidt and Rohde 2018;
Pearson 2016, 2019; True and Eddyono 2017). Nonetheless, gender is usually treated
as synonymous with women in this context, and women themselves are largely
discussed in terms of role type, with a focus on “where” women are present, with

CONTACT Christine Agius cagius@swin.edu.au

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
682 C. AGIUS ET AL.

their roles often restricted to victims, perpetrators of violence or mitigators of

radicalisation (Rothermel 2020; Gentry 2020; Shepherd 2017; Asante and Shepherd
2020).
This focus has produced two specific problems in dealing with the far-right threat. First,
few C/PVE measures explicitly identify or target far-right extremism and violence. Far-right
extremism often appears in C/PVE measures and strategies, where it is featured at all,
alongside other forms of extremism. Second, cursory mention of the far-right threat
obscures a significant driver or motivator of the gendered basis of this extremism:
misogyny tends to be the “connective tissue” between disparate far-right groups (Anti-
Defamation League 2018, 5; Gentry 2020), but this is rarely noted in C/PVE strategies and
measures. While there is scholarly acknowledgement that right-wing extremists tend to
have misogynist and white supremacist views (Duriesmith, Ryan, and Zimmerman 2018;
Gentry 2020; Wilson 2020; Tomkinson, Harper, and Attwell 2020; Träbert 2017; Blee 2020)
and appeal to a particular type of masculinity (Roose, Flood, and Alfano 2020), these
insights have not been extended to approaches to C/PVE, nor are they sufficiently
included in C/PVE measures. Thus, simply including mention of the far-right in C/PVE
measures is insufficient unless those measures address what drives or motivates far-right
extremism and violence. We argue that the growing threat of the far-right presents
a compelling need to understand how masculinism (that is, an implicit gendered ethos
or ideology that values masculinised attributes), and so-called ‘anti-gender’2 sentiment (or
opposition to feminism and gendered analyses), fuels and informs far-right extremism.
Apprehending the dynamics of this connection between masculinism and the far-right
allows us to consider the role of subtle and overt anti-feminist and misogynistic senti­
ment, but further, to consider questions beyond role type, applying gendered analyses to
wider phenomena and sentiment that are not explicitly about man/womanhood.
Understanding this connection can tell us more about the wider ways in which “anti-
gender” sentiment is pervasive across societies, rather than simply examine C/PVE mea­
sures as separate to the broader societal context. If we are to understand why far-right
violent extremism is only just gaining attention now in counter-terrorism and C/PVE
efforts, it is worth exploring how masculinist views also underscore mainstream political
discourse. Australia is selected as a focal point for analysis because the far-right is an
emerging and increasing threat, yet the response has been slow and driven by political
ideologies or “culture wars” (Busbridge et al. 2020; McSwiney 2020) against a background
of intense societal debates surrounding misogyny and gender. Australia represents a case
study of what we call overt masculinism, where anti-feminist activism has featured
historically (Arrow 2021), and attitudes towards women and misogynistic violence under­
score broader political and societal debates (Johnson 2015) 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.
The article begins by first outlining how gender is restricted to role type conception in
counter-terrorism studies and C/PVE measures broadly, before moving on to existing
work on the explicit relationship between far-right ideology and anti-feminism, illustrat­
ing the linkages between right-wing extremism and misogyny. We then advance an
analytical framework of masculinism that allows for gendered analysis beyond role type
and outline our methods. This framework is then applied to an analysis of recent C/PVE
strategies and action plans of select western states that have experienced far-right violent
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 683

extremism over the last decade, and those of international organisations, to assess the
extent to which they mention far-right extremism, how gender is invoked, and the extent
to which gender is invoked beyond role type or connected to the far-right. Against the
broader context of these C/PVE measures, we then focus on Australia as a specific case
study, to examine how a masculinist ethos valorises attributes such as dominance, order,
hierarchy and tradition across numerous sectors of society and politics in discourses
surrounding child support and men’s rights in their role as a translation point between
“mainstream” political discourse and far-right misogynistic sentiment. In doing so, this
article contributes to a wider understanding of the societal context as well as the
masculinist form of extremism in the far-right and argues that acknowledging this context
is important for adopting holistic responses to violent extremism.

On role types and stereotypes: Gender in the literature on C/PVE

The relationship between women, gender and violent extremism has been an ever-
present but still somewhat neglected phenomenon, in scholarly and policy terms. As
Sjoberg has outlined, terrorism studies has a legacy of neglecting feminist international
relations scholarship across all its variants, and subsequently, the question of gender
has been largely missing in mainstream analyses (2009; cf. Sjoberg and Gentry 2011;
Phelan 2020; Pearson, Winterbotham, and Brown 2020). Conceptualisations of terrorist
agents are primarily located in the body of the male, and subsequently C/PVE
approaches tend to be inattentive to gender, with PVE in particular “broadly considered
to be a male domain” (Gordon and True 2019, 74 and 77) due to its “hard” security
approach. This has implications for understanding and shaping responses to terrorist
violence, or even recognising the wider connections between gender and violent
extremism. An example of these neglected connections includes the documented
evidence that many perpetrators of terrorist violence have a history of family violence
(Smith 2019; McCulloch et al. 2019). Terrorist violence is still largely conceptualised in an
international/domestic binary, not simply in terms of external threats to the state, but in
terms of seeing this type of violence as different to other forms of violence in the
international sphere (Dexter 2011).
Gender, if present in C/PVE measures and strategies, appears in terms of role type
conception, with associated assumptions about women’s agency. Overwhelmingly in the
context of Islamist extremism and counter-radicalisation efforts, women appear as agents
of prevention and deradicalisation efforts, or victims of extremist violence (Auchter 2012;
Asante and Shepherd 2020; Gentry 2020; Ní Aoláin and Huckerby 2018). These role
descriptions or types are often articulated in images of maternalism, reducing women
to “the traditional stay-at-home mother, providing moral guidance to and remaining
vigilant over the activities of her children” (Gordon and True 2019, 74). This has been
particularly prevalent when addressing Islamic extremism, with the view that women can
play a role in mitigating radicalisation within their families and communities. The effect of
this has been to place the onus of deradicalisation efforts on Muslim communities, and
women shoulder a particular responsibility due to assumed intrinsic attributes such as
“resilience”, often through a gendered public/private framing (Skjelsbæk, Hansen, and
684 C. AGIUS ET AL.

Lorentzen 2020). C/PVE measures that engage women can therefore be part of “women
washing”, where state policies and community surveillance is accepted because women
carry out the work of deradicalisation (Brown 2019, 6).
Other role types of victim or perpetrator dominate. Here, women are seen as vulner­
able targets or victims of terrorist recruitment strategies or violence (Matfess 2020;
Shepherd 2017; Sjoberg and Gentry 2016) or “bad” women who recruit or participate in
acts of violence (Pearson 2016). In constructions of victimhood, women are often the
justification for combating terrorist violence with violence, as the “war on terror” has
demonstrated with the discourse of “saving women” (Shepherd 2006; Hunt 2002). The
depiction of women as agents of terrorism is no less complex, particularly due to issues of
grooming and coercion. There is a keen focus on the portrayal of female terrorists in the
media (Nacos 2005) and the extent to which they either conform to or disrupt gender
expectations in these roles (Gentry and Sjoberg 2016). The growing attention to women
as terrorists or agents of extremist violence has more recently been covered in case
studies on “jihadi brides” in the context of Islamic State or Islamist extremism (Martini
2018), nationalist militancy, or the complex ways in which women become agents of
terrorism (Ortbals and Poloni-Staudinger 2014), notwithstanding the problems of apply­
ing a white western feminist lens to cases in the global south (Parashar 2011; Gowrinathan
2021).
The above framings of gender and terrorism have limited the available responses to
confronting violent extremism, particularly the far-right threat that has now emerged,
which requires a broader consideration of how gender functions as a logic that makes
violence permissible. Moreover, a reliance on gender in terms of role type obscures the
underlying “anti-gender” sentiment that binds various far-right groupings. Here, terrorism
studies is quite far behind other disciplines in recognising the broader social, political and
cultural context in which misogyny plays a significant role. As the following section
attests, wider scholarship exists that can draw attention to understanding how the far-
right extremist ecosystem connects with “anti-gender” sentiment, which can help under­
stand the dynamics of far-right violent extremism.

The growth of far-right extremism and its relationship with misogyny

In April 2021, Avril Haines, US director of national intelligence, issued a global threat
assessment report identifying “white racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists,
including Neo-Nazi groups, to be the fastest growing terrorist threat” facing Australia,
Germany, Norway, and the UK (Karp 2021b). Likewise, there has been a marked increase of
investigations into far-right extremism across Western states. The United States
Department of Homeland Security reported that in the first eight months of 2020, white
supremacist groups made up a majority (67%) of terrorist plots and attacks in the US
(Gross 2020). The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has raised concerns
about the growth of far-right groups since 2016, noting that they are becoming more
active and organised (ASIO 2020a, 18, 2019, 20, 2018, 19, 2017, 23, 2016, 2 and 24).
The growth of what Miller Idriss (2020) calls the “new global far-right” in recent years is
extremely broad, and includes movements, subcultures, organised and decentralised
networks, as well as political parties. While varied definitions of the far-right delineate
between old/new groups, tactics and ideologies (Peucker, Smith, and Iqbal 2019), or
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 685

distinguish “right-wing extremism” (defined as hostile to democracy) from the “radical

right” (hostile to how representative democracy functions) (Rydgren 2018, 2), the “new
global far-right” captures the far-right ecosystem of overlapping ideologies and agendas
and is a label we prefer to use to capture the breadth of its formations and reach. It
includes the different groupings across the spectrum of the right, such as white supre­
macists, anti-authoritarian/government sentiment, xenophobic and racist views, the alt-
right, variants of Nazi ideologies, ethnonationalism, and other configurations and motiva­
tions. As Miller Idriss notes: “The entire far-right spectrum does not share belief in all of
these elements equally . . . [and should be] understood as representing a spectrum of
beliefs and approaches” (2020, 35).
The connection between far-right extremist views and gender is a complex one. It
invariably involves differing degrees and subsections that cannot be adequately captured
by simple reference to “anti-women” views. For example, views on gender amongst
different far-right groups include misogyny and seeing women as inferior, sexual entitle­
ment, objectification and sanction of rape, a valorisation of traditional gender roles where
women not only occupy specific roles but are also things to be “protected”, gendered
homophobia, and views that see gender equality as “going too far.” Along with far-right
populism, this “new global far-right” has done much to amplify pre-existing “anti-gender”
narratives, with its exclusive vision of the nation and traditional values (Mudde 2007, 22;
Freistein and Gadinger 2020). This has taken different forms but can be seen to be part of
this far-right ecosystem that is connected or “cross pollinated” by misogynistic sentiment
that has translated to violence (Anti-Defamation League 2018, 5).
This can perhaps best be captured by the wider phenomenon of the “manosphere”,
which Jones et al. refer to as the “digital manifestation of the contemporary Men’s Rights
Movement” (2019, 2). It exists as a range of blogs, websites and online forums that
perpetuate misogynistic and anti-feminist ideas. The manosphere houses a range of
different groupings and subcultures that are guided by an overt desire to re-establish
or reinforce a sense of masculinity that is deemed to be under threat. At its most extreme
end is the incel (“involuntary celibacy”) movement, which fosters male resentment against
women who they feel deny men the sexual gratification that they feel entitled to. The rise
of incel violence in the USA and Canada has drawn attention to the intersection of gender
and violence (Duriesmith, Ryan, and Zimmerman 2018; Baele, Brace, and Coan 2019;
Tomkinson, Harper, and Attwell 2020; Hoffman, Ware, and Shapiro 2020), but other
groupings also foster hatred towards women. Those such as the Men’s Rights
Movement (MRM) and Pick Up Artists (PUAs) see women as the cause of perceived
disadvantaged experienced by men, or as objects to target for sexual domination,
respectively (Nicholas and Agius 2018; Ging 2019; Gotell and Dutton 2016; Dragiewicz
and Mann 2016). Dominated by ideas about traditional gender roles where gender
relations are a zero-sum game, women are seen to be the cause of diminished male
privilege and power. For Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), this diminution is such that
the group advocates separation from women.
While not all members or sympathisers of these groups identify as far-right or with
other far-right views, previous research has demonstrated a notable overlap (Agius et al.
2020). One such overlap includes homophobia and anti-feminism, which Bjork-James sees
as “two of the many pathways into the online white nationalist movement” (Bjork-James
2020, 176). Far-right conspiracy theories, such as “The Great Replacement”, and “cultural
686 C. AGIUS ET AL.

Marxism”, associate feminism with the decline of the traditional family and plummeting
(white) birth rates (Busbridge et al. 2020; Wilson 2020; Walton 2012; see also Miller-Idriss
2020, 77; Agius, Rosamond, and Kinnvall 2020, 436–438). A form of “gendered culturalism”
directed at Muslims likewise intersects with and relies on a “war narrative” that “extends to
women’s bodies who therefore must be protected” (Aharoni and Féron 2020, 98). This
idea of protecting (white) women proved to be a key feature of Norwegian right-wing
terrorist Anders Breivik’s manifesto and world view, which equated feminism with cultural
Marxism and the weakening of Christian European heterosexual men (Gentry 2020, 166–7;
Walton 2012). Breivik’s views inspired several far-right attacks that were justified along
lines of racial purity and protecting the nation, which feminist scholars would see as the
darker reaches of the “politics of protection” (Young 2003). Likewise, among incel and far-
right communities online, the valorisation of men who commit ‘lone actor’3 violence
reinforce misogynistic views and provide a form of emotional support and inspiration for
others whose grievances intersect with multiple “axes of difference” (Norocel et al. 2020),
such as white supremacy or homophobia.
Misogyny often unites far-right groups in their opposition to “gender ideology” and
“feminazis” (Nicholas and Agius 2018; Futrelle 2019; Ging 2019; Butler 2019). Moreover,
“gender-ideology” is being framed as a threat to state sovereignty (Agius and Edenborg
2019) and as coded language to imply a whole range of naturalised inequalities that those
who are against it seek to protect. Moreover, these ideas are co-opted in mainstream
politics where we see backlash against feminism and the idea that gender equality has
“gone too far” (Mills, Schmuhl, and Capellan 2020). In family policy in Australia, for
example, women who provide support to the “traditional male” agenda, such as
Senator Pauline Hanson – who has been openly hostile to feminism and gender equality
and has argued for a “Minister for Men” – have political influence (Cook and Natalier 2016;
Deutchman and Ellison 2004; Hanson 2020). This feminist backlash has also been seen at
the international level in the UN, led by Islamic, Catholic and post-Soviet states, the
Vatican and the US in their opposition of “gender ideology” (Cupać and Irem 2020).
Greater prominence of these groups online and in the mainstream media has also helped
normalise their sentiment and discourses to a strong degree, whereby they are now part
of the marketplace of ideas in Western liberal democracies.
While the male-centred cultures and movements of the manosphere can be inter­
preted through the frame of a role-type and in terms of the doing of masculinity, we
suggest that a masculinist ethos underpins these ideas, allowing them to connect with
a range of far-right sentiments. Seeing the connections of far-right extremist ideology
with “anti-gender” and misogynist views highlights the wider extent of the gender
blindness that exists in C/PVE measures, but also how such connections tell a broader
story that is underpinned by the idea and ethos of masculinism, which we detail in the
next section.

Masculinism as an analytical method: an underpinning ethos

Masculinism, as used by Nicholas and Agius (2018) and adapted from Iris Marion Young
and other 1980s feminist thought, can be used to describe the naturalised ethos that
underpins and unites a range of misogynist, “anti-gender” and anti-feminist views
detailed above. Masculinism differs from masculinity, which is understood as an
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 687

embodied doing of manhood, drawing attention instead to “an underlying [gendered]

ethos or totalising worldview that implicitly universalises and privileges the qualities of
masculinity, and in doing so subordinates and ‘others’ alternative ways of understanding,
knowing and being” (Nicholas and Agius 2018, 5; cf Connell 2005). Masculinism recon­
structs, naturalises and reinforces hierarchical binaries and supremacism, and can help us
to understand why white supremacists, for example, are susceptible to anti-feminism, and
vice-versa. It is the value system that underpins these sentiments and it can coalesce into
a far-right worldview and justify acts of violence (Agius et al. 2020).
Key aspects of far-right ideology centre on clear boundaries between inside/outside
and public/private realms. Far-right ideology is characterised by a preference for
“traditional values” and strong public and private leadership within states and families,
respectively. These preferences are often seen in the idea of the strong and author­
itarian state, but also individual authoritarianism separated from the state in families
and family policies. For example, alt-right strategies broadly seek to affect systemic
change by removing the “elite” or “draining the swamp”, to illustrate via the rhetoric
of Donald Trump and his supporters. Tied up in this rhetoric is a desire to reinstate
(white) “manhood” or reclaim (“natural”) hierarchy within society. The defence or
protection of an idealised or imagined society, and families therein, has featured
strongly in populist discourses globally, pushing back against progressive gains
which have “feminised” the state (Agius, Rosamond, and Kinnvall 2020; Cook and
Skinner 2020).
This desire to regain control of public and private life plays out in complex ways when
it comes to gender. Masculinism is about recognising how ideas about dominance and
privilege intersect across a range of other grievances and manifest in forms that may even
appear at first glance to be “feminist” or inclusive of women. Alliances between feminists
and the far-right are evidenced in the Nordic states where some prominent feminists have
lent their voice to far-right anti-immigration debates based on the view that (Muslim)
immigration sets back gender equality and women’s rights, or what Keskinen calls “white
border guard femininities” (2018; see also Fekete 2006). Different manifestations of far-
right ideology are inclusive towards women who are critical of feminism and gender
equality.
Women’s involvement in the far-right is often based on complex motivations (Blee
2020; Gentry 2020, 169); these can include racism, differing interpretations of empower­
ment or feminism, emotional or group expectations (Latif et al. 2020). Subcultures such as
“trad wives” (traditional wives), for example, include women who choose to adopt tradi­
tional family roles, but also includes women who actively support alt-right or far-right
groups and men, as a form of submission or empowerment (Mattheis 2018; Love 2020;
Campion 2020). Even so, this inclusivity has its limits and is still framed in masculinist
terms. An example of this can be seen in the recent Capitol Hill violence in January 2021.
Among the Trump supporters were members of the far-right Proud Boys, who had
rejected the presence of the Proud Girls at the storming of the US Capitol, stating that
the Proud Girls can help them by getting married, having children, and getting back in the
kitchen (Reid Ross 2020). Patriarchy and misogyny remain key organising principles.
Manifestations of “anti-gender” sentiment and violence “are physical representations of
an ontology and epistemology that power belongs to the dominant” (Gentry 2020, 179).
Making the connection clearer between masculinism, misogyny and violent extremism
688 C. AGIUS ET AL.

prompts questions beyond C/PVE measures and seeing women in terms of role type. In
the following section, we examine a select number of C/PVE measures with a view to
mapping where the far-right and gender is identified.

Addressing far-right logic and extremism: Gender and anti-feminism as

a blind spot in C/PVE measures
Efforts to address violent extremism in the context of global terrorism have developed
with a firm focus on Islamic extremism since 9/11. With little international agreement over
the definition of terrorism, states have been left to define and execute policies via C/PVE
measures. While national and international strategies broadly respond to major develop­
ments in violent extremism and terrorism and identifying priority areas, C/PVE are national
measures or programmes designed to support overarching strategies by addressing
radicalisation at various stages. C/PVE measures often involve a range of government
and non-government actors, regional, local and national authorities, and can adopt
a “whole-of-society” approach towards violent extremism (Rosand et al. 2018, 4).
Subsequently, national C/PVE plans can differ in objectives, actors involved, and align­
ment with national priorities and within the UN system, some arms focus solely on PVE
(UNOCT) or CVE (Security Council’s CTED) (Rosand et al. 2018, 9; 23).
We sampled the recent C/PVE strategies and action plans of a select number of
Western states where the far-right have either been rising or carried out an attack in
the last decade,4 and those of international organisations. We hypothesised that these
states – having experienced past incidents of far-right violence – would be undertaking
efforts to prevent future violent attacks with similar motivations and targets and that this
would be reflected in their C/PVE strategies. Some of these states, such as Sweden,
Canada, and the UK, also adopt a self-professed “feminist foreign policy”, which suggests
the possibility of greater mainstreaming of, and attention to, gender across national and
security policy. In our analysis, we aimed to identify: whether far-right extremism was
mentioned as a threat; whether gender was mentioned at all; and if gender was men­
tioned, how was it represented (as role type or overtly connected with the far-right)? In
the national C/PVE measures of Anglophone and European countries we examined,
gender and the far-right make only sporadic appearances and are often not linked, except
in the examples of Sweden and Finland. While far-right violence was associated with anti-
immigrant views in many of these documents, very few made overt connections to “anti-
gender” sentiment.
There is also limited connection in international measures. In 2006, the UN Global
Counter-Terrorism Strategy called for a common strategic and operational approach to
countering terrorism, noting the need to address the social, economic, and political
drivers of violent extremism, but did not specifically mention gender (UN 2006). As
Shepherd notes, gender was only integrated in 2015 with UN Security Council
Resolution 2242 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), which called for a gendered
approach to Countering Violent Extremism. While this brought “counterterrorism and
countering violent extremism (CT/CVE) into conversation with WPS initiatives”, efforts to
mainstream gender and include women and women’s organisations in counter-terrorism
responses leaned more towards countering rather than preventing violent extremism
(Shepherd 2020, 329).
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 689

Successive reviews of the UN’s Global Counter Terrorism Strategy since its incep­
tion only mention gender in relation to the WPS agenda and women are discussed in
terms of role type (Asante and Shepherd 2020). In the sixth and most recent review,
the Report of the Secretary-General on the Strategy’s implementation predominantly
discusses Islamist extremism but notes “violent extremist groups such as racial supre­
macists, far-right groups and other religiously or politically motivated groups also
pose a significant threat to the cohesion and safety of our societies and communities”
(UN General Assembly 2018, 3). References to gender are focused on sexual and
gender-based violence as a tactic of terrorism, seeing women and children as victims.
Across international strategies, there is no overt linkage between misogyny and the far-
right. The OSCE’s 2019 strategy on the role of gender in CVE and radicalisation noted the
growth of far-right ideas in mainstream politics, but only mentions women joining far-
right groups (2019, 27–28). We found an explicit link between misogyny and the far-right
in the UN’s 2020 Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) Trends Alert.
What is striking and unique about the UNCTED discourse is its clear recognition of how
misogynistic and white supremacist logics support one another in the far-right imagina­
tion, which “allow more obscure misogynist groups . . . [like incels] . . . to act as a bridge to
violent extreme-right wing groups and individuals” (2020, 5). It also notes how far-right
discourse focuses on “the gendering of spaces and hierarchical boundaries based on
assumptions about masculinity and femininity”, merging a range of anti-immigrant views
with narratives that promote traditional and subjugated views of women and biological
survival of the nation (CTED 2020, 5).
In western states that have experienced misogynistic or far-right attacks, some legal
measures have been implemented. After the Christchurch attack, New Zealand moved
quickly to ban semi-automatic weapons, initiated efforts to deal with online violent extre­
mism with the 2019 “Christchurch Call to Action”, and a new “Countering violent extremism
online” bill, which passed its first reading in New Zealand’s Parliament. Several countries
have also moved to proscribe far-right groups on their terrorism list. The UK proscribed
National Action in 2016, adding System Resistance Network, Sonnenkrieg Division and
Feuerkrieg Division in 2020. Since 2016, the UK has prosecuted 15 individuals belonging
to far-right proscribed organisations (Blackbourn 2021, 10). By comparison, Canada has
added four groups: Atomwaffen Division, the Base, the Proud Boys and Russian Imperial
Movement. The Christchurch attacker was charged as a “terrorist entity”, and a Toronto
teenager was the first in Canada to be charged with “incel terrorism” after fatally stabbing
a woman in 2020. The US federal government has no mechanism through which it can
formally designate domestic terrorist organisations; the US State Department only maintains
a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation list, but no far-right terror groups internationally
have been designated. The FBI has, however, unofficially named far-right groups such as the
Proud Boys as domestic terrorist threats. While debates over the effectiveness of proscrip­
tion exist over double standards, impact on dissent, and risk of “glorifying” individuals, it is
noted for its symbolic value (Roach 2021, 8; Zammit 2021). Naming and identifying such
groups and individuals who subscribe to “anti-gender” ideologies can be an important step
in drawing the connections between violent motivations and actions.
In the strategies and C/PVE measures examined, we found two main tendencies: first
that mention of the far-right is often subsumed alongside other threats, such as Islamic of
far-left extremism, and second, that when gender is mentioned, it is related to role type (cf
690 C. AGIUS ET AL.

Skjelsbæk, Hansen, and Lorentzen 2020). Canada’s 2013 counterterrorism strategy,

Building Resilience Against Terrorism, briefly identified white supremacy as “low-level
violence by domestic issue-based groups” (Canadian Government 2013, 9), alongside
animal rights and environmental extremism and anti-capitalism. Similarly, New
Zealand’s Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism: National Strategy Overview (2019–
2020) (NZ DPMC 2019) does not mention the far-right but uses the phrase “violent
extremism of all kinds” throughout. Neither strategies engage with gender.
Canada’s 2018 National Strategy on Countering Radicalisation to Violence recognised
that women are potential violent extremist actors, stating that “gender dynamics” are
deliberately exploited by all types of extremist groups for recruitment purposes (Canadian
Government 2018, 9). Since the publication of the 2018 Strategy, Canada has experienced
two acts of incel terrorism, and its 2019 update (Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to
Canada, third edition), promisingly makes the link between right-wing extremism and
misogyny explicit, saying it can “undermine the fabric of Canadian society”, although not
usually resulting in threats to national security (Canadian Government 2019, 8). The third
and most recent edition of the UK’s CONTEST Strategy for Countering Terrorism (Great
Britain and Home Office 2018) mentions gender in terms of the erosion of women’s rights
as an effect of “extremism in all its forms” (2018, 78), although Islamic extremism remains
the overwhelming emphasis, with a noted connection of the recruitment of women into
Islamic State.
Likewise, until 2021, US C/PVE strategies (The White House 2011; US Department of
State and USAID 2016) have been overtly focused on Islamist extremism, with only small
mention of neo-Nazis, anti-Semitic hate groups and racial supremacists in the 2011 White
House strategy. Gender is only engaged with in terms of women as “key stakeholders in
preventing and countering violent extremism in their communities” (2016, 10), primarily
in Muslim communities in America and abroad. A new National Strategy for Countering
Domestic Terrorism was released by the Biden Administration in June 2021 but only briefly
mentions incel violence, targeting of women and the need to bring in, “where appro­
priate”, expertise on gender-motivated violence in relation to domestic terrorism (which is
broadly defined as politically left, right and centre) (White House 2021, 8–9, 13–16, 30).
In Europe, Norway’s 2011 and 2016 Action Plan Against Radicalisation and Violent
Extremism (Norwegian Ministry of Justice and Public Security 2016) are both explicit
about the far-right; however, only the 2011 plan engages with gender, noting that
extremists select targets based on “race, gender or sexual orientation” and that men and
women are differently vulnerable to online radicalisation (Norwegian Ministry of Justice
and the Police 2011, 5; 10). The German federal programme Live Democracy! (Federal
Government, Germany 2015) and C/PVE strategy Federal Strategy to Prevent Extremism
and Promote Democracy (Federal Government, Germany 2016) extensively addresses the
threat of far-right terrorism, giving it equal if not greater attention than the threat of
Islamist extremism (likely reflecting the country’s history of Nazism). The 2016 strategy
notes the sharp rise in far-right violence in Germany from the previous year. Both docu­
ments recognise the connection between gender-based violence and the far-right (in
perpetrators selecting targets based on race, religion, gender and sexual orientation), but
make no mention of how misogyny and masculinism are motivating logics.
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 691

Sweden and Finland are the only states with strategies that make an overt link between
“anti-gender” sentiment and far-right extremist ideology. Sweden’s 2014/15 Counter-
Terrorism strategy states the need to “counteract stereotypical norms that link masculinity
with violence”, and “focus attention on the ways these norms are manifested in violence
that particularly targets women and girls” (Government Communication, Sweden 2014/
2015, 34). Sweden’s 2014/2015 Actions to Make Society More Resilient to Violent Extremism
Plan is explicit about the link between the far-right and misogyny, noting that far-right
extremists have traditional views of the heterosexual family unit as “the central foundation
of society. The role of ethnically Swedish women is bearing children and looking after the
home.” (Government Communication, Sweden 2014/2015, 14) Its earlier Action Plan of
2011 also identified violent extremism as a “male dominated youth movement” and relied
on schools to promote gender equality (Government Offices of Sweden 2011, 15 and 39).
Likewise, Finland’s National Action Plan for the Prevention of Violent Radicalisation and
Extremism (2019–2023) mentioned the narratives and overlap between misogyny and
white supremacy (particularly the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory), such as iden­
tifying “natural” roles for men and women, where “men should be strong heads of the
family, while women should foster their natural roles as mothers and give birth to
children” (Ministry of the Interior, Finland 2019, 51). Finland’s C/PVE policy recommenda­
tion is to “increase knowledge about the key narratives used in communications and hate
speech [. . .] strengthening the ability of people working with young people to talk about
propaganda and hate speech” (Ministry of the Interior, Finland 2019, 52). Again, schools
are seen as key agents of prevention.
While Finnish and Swedish policy recommendations to counter masculinist narratives
distinguish their approach compared to other states, this too can be problematic. The
involvement of community actors is common in C/PVE measures, which are often geared
towards primary and secondary prevention,5 but this kind of preventative work falls to
teachers, social workers, and psychologists – professions predominantly held by women.
As Ní Aoláin (2016) argues, women are expected to become the “minders and informers”
of the state with little sensitivity paid to the potential harms women may face in these
prevention roles and spaces. Lorentzen likewise asserts that women are “pushed into roles
as ‘new security actors’ in the places where they are least protected by the state” (cited in
Skjelsbæk, Hansen, and Lorentzen 2020, 482). Lorentzen continues that these spaces,
including the home, private sphere and civil society organisations, “might be targeted by
extremist groups precisely because they would promote counter-narratives to tradition­
alist and fundamentalist discourses about gender roles” (cited in Skjelsbæk, Hansen, and
Lorentzen 2020, 482).
The C/PVE national strategies and measures above show a range of limitations in
addressing the connection between masculinism, misogyny and far-right extremism
and the spectrum of attention to this issue. While some of the C/PVE measures reviewed
demonstrate initial efforts to address the far-right and/or apply a gender lens, under­
standing how masculinism and misogyny foster far-right ideology requires an even
deeper consideration of how these logics are embedded within societal norms, structures
and institutions. In the final section below, we turn our attention to the case of Australia.
Australia has not yet experienced a far-right extremist terrorist attack; however, several
far-right terror plots have been foiled and the growth of the far-right is now noted as
a serious security concern by ASIO. But what makes Australia a relevant focal point is, like
692 C. AGIUS ET AL.

the UK and USA, how masculinism and misogyny strongly underscore societal, cultural,
economic and political norms which have already demonstrated the potential to find
alignment with far-right ideology.

Mainstreaming masculinism: Australia, the far-right threat and C/PVE

As mentioned above, the rise of the far-right in Australia has become a key concern in
recent years, evidenced in the rise of ASIO counter-terrorism investigations into extreme
right-wing individuals across all Australian states and territories, with ASIO reporting in
2020 that 40% of its caseload involved monitoring far-right individuals (Karp 2020).
Australia has been slow to recognise and include the growing far-right threat in C/PVE
strategies. After the Christchurch attacks, Australia’s federal parliament enacted the
Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Act 2019 (Attorney-
General’s Department (AGD) Australia 2019), which placed the responsibility on internet
platforms to remove audiovisual material depicting “abhorrent acts and violent conduct”,
specifically terrorism, rape, torture and murder. It does not include hate speech. No
additional laws to respond to the far-right in Australia have been created, despite concern
from ASIO about far-right activities in Australian suburbs, and the disruption of two far-
right terrorist plots by police, which produced prosecutions in 2019 and 2020 (Blackbourn
2021, 3). Australia has lagged behind the USA, Canada, New Zealand and the UK in
proscribing far-right groups to its terrorist list, only adding the Sonnenkrieg Division in
March 2021. Despite Australia’s flexible proscription regime, which includes planning or
carrying out a terrorist attack, no far-right groups in Australia have been prosecuted for
terrorism, even though Australian citizens have been involved in militia groups in the
Ukraine (Blackbourn 2021, 11–13).
Australia has been known for its “hyperlegislative” response to terrorism, enacting over
80 pieces of legislation since 2001. Until “home grown” terrorism featured in Australian
counter terrorism measures in 2010, terrorism was largely seen as an exogenous threat.
Far-right extremism is mentioned alongside other extremist ideologies in Australia’s 2015
CVE programme Living Safe Together: Preventing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation in
Australia (Attorney-General’s Department (AGD) Australia 2019), the 2015 Council of
Australian Governments (COAG) Australia’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy: Strengthening our
Resilience, and the 2017 Australian New Zealand Counter Terrorism Committee National
Counter Terrorism Plan. ASIO’s annual assessments have identified the far-right as
a growing threat since 2016. In his first annual ASIO assessment, Burgess noted “[i]
ntolerance based on race, gender and identity, and the extreme political views that
intolerance inspires, is on the rise across the western world in particular” (ASIO 2020b).
At the April 2021 Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security public
hearing, Burgess also stated that misogyny goes “hand in hand” with some nationalist
and racist violent extremism (Commonwealth of Australia 2021). This has been the only
overt recognition of the link with “anti-gender” sentiment that we could detect.
Yet while this link is acknowledged, Burgess announced in March 2021 that ASIO would
no longer refer to “Islamic” or “far-right” extremism, and instead refer to “ideologically
motivated violent extremism” and “religiously motivated violent extremism”. Burgess
explained that far-right movements today are diverse and motivated by a range of
ideologies (Greene 2021). While eschewing the label “Islamic extremism” was meant to
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 693

remove stigmatisation, some questioned the timing and noted political pressure to
remove references to “right-wing” terrorism (Hurst 2021a). In February 2021, a Labour
Senate motion to condemn far-right extremism passed only after references to misinfor­
mation related to COVID-19, the US election, and the Capitol insurrection were removed
at the request of Liberal MP Craig Kelly and National MP George Christensen, and
references to far-left extremism, communism and anarchism were added (Karp 2021a),
even though these have not been identified as threats. Burgess further explained that:
“we’re staying away from assigning it as a political spectrum because we don’t want to
make this political. We want to make it about the ideologies that go to acts of violence”
(Commonwealth of Australia 2021, 10). Although he has stated that right-wing extremism
will be identified as such when appropriate (Hurst 2021b), Burgess’s explanation does
significant work to depoliticise extremist ideology as unconnected to a broader set of
ideas that are part of the political, cultural, and social context. This evacuation of politics
from naming this type of violence produces a silo effect, encouraging a sole focus on the
act of violence rather than drawing the connections to motivators or ideas the fuel such
violence. Removing overt references to the far-right also distances links to mainstream
politics and society and seeing how these ideas migrate. While recognising that misogyny
goes hand-in-hand with far-right violence (and this is also not to discount that it can
appear in the far-left, but that it is less systematic and defining), to present such motiva­
tions as apolitical is inherently political.
While the ecosystem of the global far-right contains many strands and ideological
bases (such as right-wing libertarianism, conspiracy groups, social conservatism, and
fascism), an unwillingness to name it will have consequences for understanding and
combating the threat, blinding us to the connections between different ideologies con­
verging on issues such as gender. If gender and misogyny are acknowledged as the glue
that unites these ideas and groups, we are better able to comprehend how values such as
dominance, order, othering, hierarchy, and tradition structure the attitudes of the global
far-right. The absence of this linkage between misogyny and the far-right in the Australian
context is particularly pertinent if we are to understand this link beyond role type. The
success of C/PVE measures in confronting far-right extremism requires attention to what
drives anti-feminist and “anti-gender” sentiment, and the extent to which this can be both
an indicator of and pathway to broader far-right extremism (Agius et al. 2020).
While the global far-right ecosystem is a factor, the broader social, economic, cultural
and political context where misogyny is normalised and features across public and private
spheres requires attention as a possible reason for the downplaying of this element of the
far-right and the reluctance to name it. Against a background of global far-right populism
and “anti-gender” ideology, Australia endures its own “culture wars” where gender
equality, multiculturalism and free speech are now deeply contested. Increasingly, the
normalisation of far-right ideas in public and political spheres is part of public discourse
(for example, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s motion “It’s OK to be White” and former
far-right Senator Fraser Anning’s speech of a “final solution” to Australia’s “immigration
problem”). Although Hanson’s motion – a slogan taken from the far-right – was defeated,
government Senators voted for it (Mealey 2018; Busbridge et al. 2020, 728).
In Australia, gender and sexuality also seems to be a “nodal point” around which
culture wars and the far-right coalesce, expanding beyond anti-immigrant and anti-
Islamic sentiment, as Busbridge et al. (2020) demonstrate in their study of the Safe
694 C. AGIUS ET AL.

Schools anti-homophobia programme. Support for far-right ideas is not simply important
to observe for their obvious connection to far-right movements and ideologies extending
to the mainstream. While electoral success eludes these groups, their ideas are in circula­
tion and come to be recycled by mainstream politicians. Far-right ideas are present in
mainstream politics, but as McSwiney points out, far-right groups reproduce the talking
points of the current Liberal-National coalition Morrison government and far-right ideas
are “simply a radicalisation of existing centre-right positions” (McSwiney 2020, 14).
Moreover, it is becoming harder to measure the impact of the far-right on Australian
politics, “not least because the ‘mainstream’ itself is a social and political construct” and
one that has been “hijacked and appropriated by political elites and the media”
(Busbridge et al. 2020, 734).
Against this backdrop of culture wars that blur the lines between the far-right and
mainstream politics, Australia is an important case study for understanding masculinist
violence. The fundamental logics underscoring exclusion and hierarchy suggest that
a violent ordering of society is desired. While it is often treated as a separate issue,
violence against women in Australian society is increasingly seeping into how societal
relations are shaped and is illustrative of the extent to which there is a yearning for
a bygone era of traditional gender supposedly undermined by different articulations of
a progressive left (Nicholas 2019). A focus on domestic violence and sexual assault as
a foundational expression of masculinist logic and gendered entitlement therefore needs
attention. Australia’s domestic violence problem has long been noted, with significant
rates of sexual assault. An estimated 639,000 Australian women experienced their most
recent sexual assault by a male in the last decade and between 2010–18, rates of sexual
assaults recorded by police rose by more than 30%. Furthermore, attitudes to sexual
assault remain negative towards women, with a high number (42%) seeing accusations of
sexual assault as a way to harm men (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)
2020, 1–4). Additionally, a toxic political culture has been exposed as sexist and misogy­
nistic, with recent revelations and scandals in Parliament involving sexual assault allega­
tions. Australian feminists and lawyers have argued that domestic violence should be
seen as terrorism or that violence against women should inform C/PVE measures
(Johnston and True 2019; McCulloch et al. 2019; Cartwright 2020; see also Pain 2014;
Sjoberg 2015).
Exemplary of an Australian institutional and structural intersection with misogyny and
the far-right is family law, a site not often considered as an avenue for violent extremism
or radicalisation. Yet child support and access are targets of men’s rights group activity as
sites where traditional families are undermined by the “feminist state” (Agius et al. 2020).
Child support policy is a particular flashpoint for “traditional” fathers, as it contravenes
ideas of how family life and gendered tasks of caregiving and breadwinning should be
organised. Decades of child support policy reform in Australia has pandered almost
exclusively to the needs of men as providers of child support payments (Cook 2020). At
the same time as condoning and enabling the disbandment of the nuclear family, child
support mandates men’s role in an “eternal biological family” (Sevenhuijsen 1986) that
exists across households, whereby fathers must provide ongoing payments to mothers
who fail to live up to their side of the gender contract (Cook and Skinner 2020). Multiple
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 695

parliamentary inquiries into the family law and child support systems held over the past
two decades have each commenced at the behest of aggrieved fathers and the men’s
rights movement (Fehlberg and Maclean 2009; Murphy 2019).
In the conduct and outcomes of these inquiries, mainstream Australian politics has
normalised traditional family values that would find easy conversation with far-right ideas
regarding the gender order and the corrosive influence of feminism on men’s lives.
Indeed, the Chair of the 2014–15 parliamentary inquiry into Australia’s child support
programme, MP George Christensen, was a staunch supporter of fathers’ rights groups
and issues and cited the child support system as “anti-male” (Commonwealth of Australia
2014). Several fathers’ rights groups’ websites list strategies for minimising or avoiding
child support obligations, which are listed alongside articles on women’s weaponisation
of “fake rape” claims and the broader menace of feminism (Australian Men’s Rights
Association 2021; Men’s Rights Agency 2021). A comprehensive example of how fathers
can retain their financial authority and autonomy over their ex-partners is provided by the
group ‘Child Support Australia’ (2021), which instructs parents (namely fathers) on ways to
minimise their child support obligations and normalises far-right ideology with links to
a parody video on its YouTube channel entitled “Hitler pays child support”.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise in domestic violence in Australia has been
coupled with policy solutions that are hostile to women and invoke further gender
inequality (Workplace Gender Equality Agency 2020). At this intersection, paying analy­
tical attention to masculinism highlights the structural and institutional ways that ideas of
protection, order, hierarchy and power work. For example, economic support overwhel­
mingly favoured men during the “pandemic recession” (Wood, Griffiths and Crowley
2021), and in the same period, the government also announced a $270bn defence
upgrade, which again not only benefitted men but showed investment in weaponry
that is designed to exact violence whilst “protecting” Australia.
A masculinist lens draws attention to the ways in which domination is threaded
through seemingly benign policy fields. It is also not a stretch to note that current
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s regular references to “Quiet Australians” signals
a reinforcement of the norm of the unquestioning, self-interested citizen and
a valorisation of masculinist precepts in public life that eschew close questioning of the
prevailing order. In Australian politics and society, “culture wars” are a regular feature of
important political and societal issues and debates, with an increasing view that leftist or
feminist interests or “identity politics” distorting the stakes (Nicholas 2019); moreover,
there is a longer tradition of contentious sexual and gender politics in Australia that aligns
religious conservative and far-right sentiment with anti-feminism (Arrow, Barrett
Meyering, and Robinson 2021). While this has been an observable trend worldwide,
with the populist backlash against gender and feminism entering the mainstream in the
Australian context, there has been visible and invisible hostility towards women which has
become a normalised part of political discourse. Thus, the failure to name and the attempt
to minimise the connections between far-right logic and “anti-gender” sentiment in
Australian policy is a result of the shared ethos that underpins far-right logic, and the
right-wing logics at play in the most conservative populist elements of Australian
government.
696 C. AGIUS ET AL.

Conclusion
Despite growing far-right violence explicitly motivated by “anti-gender” and misogy­
nistic sentiment, few C/PVE strategies attend to the masculinist logic that makes
violence permissible. When they do, they tend to focus on the act of violence rather
than the ideas that motivate it. Gender remains predominantly viewed through the
lens of role type, and states have been slow to proscribe far-right groups, despite
growing recognition in some states of the link between “anti-gender” sentiment and
far-right extremist ideology. In Australia, the “culture wars” and backlash around
identity politics have hindered progress in naming and addressing far-right extre­
mism, muddy the narrative around the persistence of an Australian “gender problem”,
and lend fuel to the institutionalisation of anti-feminist discourses in areas such as
child support, sexual violence and everyday sexism. The reluctance to explicate the
problem of far-right and “anti-gender” extremism is not simply a problem of focus, in
that post-9/11 C/PVE measures have mainly been concerned with Islamist extremism;
it is a problem that speaks to a broader masculinist worldview that is folded into
mainstream political discourses, whether they be a failure to recognise gender
inequality to more overt forms of politics that rely on power, subordination and
ordering. While we acknowledge the risks of “policing” beliefs and ideologies, what
drives those views can be the stepping-stone to violent acts.
A reluctance to move beyond individualised, resilience-based C/PVE strategies, and
related role type conceptions of gender, is unsurprising in a neoliberal context where
notions of structural inequalities are deemed suspect. Failure to address the connec­
tion between far-right and “anti-gender” extremism by police, policymakers, research­
ers and the public “undermines society’s ability to better understand, prevent and
effectively respond” to violent attacks and mass casualties (McCulloch and Maher
2020). Misogyny and masculinism are motivating logics for far-right violence but the
mainstreaming of the idea that feminism and ideas of gender as social and mutable
are merely “ideology” represents a threat to effective strategies that address the truly
systemic causes underpinning far-right radicalisation (Agius et al. 2020). A masculinist
analysis of what underscores and drives misogyny sheds light on the broader work
necessary to respond to a wider backlash against female empowerment (Ericsson
2019) that is present not only in Australia but globally, made especially prominent
during the Trump administration. The more violent end of this in the misogynistic
incel movement is part of a wider spectrum that has degrees of cultural acceptance
“well beyond their glorification in the incel fringes.” (DiBranco 2019, np).
While the question of how to address the growing global far-right threat will
occupy counter terrorism agendas for the foreseeable future, understanding the
masculinist logics that underpin far-right ideology is necessary for locating the sites
where we may not expect to find radicalisation. These are often in the domestic
setting and can appear benign: economic policy, approaches to sexual violence and
gender inequality, institutional sexism, and the very language used to describe rela­
tions and tensions within society all play a role in mainstreaming and normalising the
underpinning logics like power, order, protection and hierarchy that are inherently
masculinist traits. Specifically relating to C/PVE measures and countering violent
extremism, Australia’s current approach of focusing on the act of violence rather
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON TERRORISM 697

than the ideologies that drive it (Commonwealth of Australia 2021, 2–3, 16–18) risks
treating this threat only at the point of violent acts, rather than undertaking the more
difficult work of holistic approaches that challenge masculinist ethos and ideologies.
Masculinism can be an important analytical lens through which we can apprehend the
pervasiveness of dominating ideologies that provide fertile ground for far-right
extremism.

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
2019). 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 2021, 8; cf. Butler 2019). 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 2021, 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. (2019) or valorise violence (Berntzen and Bjørgo 2021). 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 2016, 11-12). Tomkinson, Harper, and
Attwell (2020) see primary level programmes as a way to manage the incel threat.

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).
698 C. AGIUS ET AL.

Notes on contributors
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.
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.
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).
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.

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