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Questions of gender have increasingly moved to the center of extremist ideology, as well as scholarly and political debates on violent extremism. While terrorism and extremist violence are often viewed through the lenses of ideology, geopolitics, or security, the role of gender runs deep, shaping how groups recruit, justify violence, and construct visions of social order. Looking closely at these dynamics reveals not only how men and women experience radicalization differently, but also how prevention strategies must adapt if they are to be effective.
Masculinity and Extremist Violence
Statistics show that roughly 90% of terrorist attacks in recent decades have been perpetrated by male actors, but how violent extremist acts are linked to men and masculinity is not sufficiently explored. While biology and neuropsychology are sometimes invoked as explanations, these factors do not help us see the full picture. Violent extremism is not just another form of violence; it is a political act, laden with symbolism and meaning. The violence can therefore also serve as a performance of masculinity in contexts where young men experience marginalization, humiliation, or a sense of lost status (review here).
Far-right groups and jihadist movements alike play on masculine insecurities. They craft narratives that promise young men restored power, significance, and respect. In the case of jihadist groups such as ISIS, this is framed as an opportunity to join a brotherhood of warriors, gain access to women, and achieve transcendence through martyrdom. On the far right, the discourse often revolves around protecting women of the in-group, particularly as members of the traditional and heteronormative family, while vilifying women seen as betraying traditional roles. In both cases, violence is packaged as a pathway to manhood.
The emergence of the online ecosystem known as the “manosphere” adds another layer of complexity to these explanations. Communities of involuntary celibates (incels), men’s rights activists, and other antifeminist subcultures channel male frustration into misogyny, sometimes spilling into acts of deadly violence. These online communities blur the line between personal grievance and ideological extremism, and although misogyny plays an important role in most political violence, movements primarily defined by misogyny are fairly novel. Within the manosphere, pseudo-science, ideas cherry-picked from evolutionary psychology and misrepresentations of legitimate science are combined to present women as subhuman oppressors, deflecting responsibility for men’s grievances and providing alternative justifications for hostility and violence towards women.
Misogyny, Homophobia, and Targets of Violence
Because extremist ideologies rely on gendered ideals, violent extremists direct aggression toward those who transgress them. Women, queer people, and especially trans individuals have become frequent targets of violent attacks. Incel-inspired shootings and jihadist executions of sexual minorities illustrate how gender and sexuality can be weaponized as fault lines in broader ideological struggles.
For many groups, the defense of the heterosexual family structure is central to their worldview and couched in a rhetoric of a binary patriarchal natural order. Violent attacks on women’s autonomy or LGBTQ+ communities are thus not incidental but integral to their political projects. A key reason for the emphasis on family within the far-right is that women, often designated the role as pawns in extremist movements, are perceived as key to the reproduction of the white culture and race. Particularly in the context of fertility decline in the western world, women are commonly vilified in extremist milieus if they forego childrearing or engage in interracial sexual relations. Understanding this dynamic helps explain why gender equality often appears as an existential threat in extremist rhetoric and positions groups that are at risk for targeted violence.
Women in Extremist Movements
Women are often imagined solely as victims of extremist violence, or pawns in extremist movements, yet history shows they also play active roles within extremist organizations. From the Red Army Faction in 1970s Germany to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, women have served as fighters, recruiters, propagandists, and even suicide bombers. More recently, groups such as Boko Haram and ISIS have deployed women tactically, capitalizing on gendered assumptions that cast them as non-threatening.
Motivations for women’s involvement are varied. Some seek empowerment or escape from restrictive social roles. Others are motivated by revenge, ideology, or the promise of belonging. In the case of ISIS, the creation of all-female brigades and the recruitment of women from Europe illustrated how traditional roles such as mother and wife could be reimagined as politically charged and central to the group’s project.
Still, female militants often face ambivalence within their organizations. Many are denied leadership roles, and those who break gender expectations sometimes find themselves ostracized. This tension underscores how deeply patriarchal norms structure extremist milieus, even as women play indispensable roles.
Prevention and the Gender Lens
Recognizing the gendered nature of extremism is not only an academic exercise—it has profound implications for prevention and counter-radicalization efforts. Yet too often, policies focus narrowly on women, casting them as either potential victims or as untapped resources to deter men from radicalization. One example is rhetoric proposing that changing women’s dating practices to be less hypergamous could solve the problem of incel violence. While mothers and wives are indeed influential, reducing them to tools of prevention risks reinforcing the very gender hierarchies which extremists exploit.
More promising approaches address masculinity directly. Many young men drawn to extremist groups are searching for belonging, purpose, and recognition. Interventions that provide healthier avenues for these needs—whether through mentorship, sports, or creative outlets—can undercut extremist appeals. Importantly, prevention work must engage with the online spaces where gendered resentment flourishes, equipping young people with media literacy and critical tools to resist misogynistic and extremist narratives.
Prevention cannot succeed without addressing gendered dimensions of broader structural inequalities. Gendered pathways into extremism are shaped by social exclusion, economic marginalization, and cultural alienation. Policies must therefore move beyond security measures to tackle the roots of these grievances. At the same time, we must also recognize ideology as a motivating force. Male supremacism and misogyny is an ideological problem, not only one of marginalization and poor mental health.
Finally, and relatedly, prevention work should entail challenging the rhetoric and misinformation used to spread extremist ideas. The link between extremist ideologies and misinformation is long-standing, but the post-truth era has seen that misinformation about gender in particular is circulated to a point where it acquires legitimacy within the mainstream, effectively increasing the potential of spreading dangerous ideas.
Conclusion: Rethinking Extremism Through Gender
Violent extremism is not gender-neutral. Its ideologies, recruitment strategies, and targets of violence are saturated with assumptions about masculinity, femininity, and sexuality. Understanding this is crucial for both scholarship and policy. Moving forward, practitioners and policymakers must resist simplistic binaries—seeing women only as victims, or men only as perpetrators—and instead recognize how gender operates within extremist dynamics.
At its core, prevention must be about offering alternative visions of belonging, respect, and meaning that do not depend on domination or exclusion. That means cultivating healthier masculinities, empowering women without instrumentalizing them, and protecting LGBTQ+ communities from targeted violence. Only by acknowledging the gendered dimensions of extremism can we begin to craft responses equal to the challenge.
This blog post is based on chapter 6, 'The Role of Gender in Violent Extremism' in the Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Violent Extremism (Edited by Milan Obaidi and Jonas Kunst, and published by Cambridge University Press, 2025).
