Extreme Britain: Gender, Masculinity and Radicalisation

EXTREME BRITAIN

ELIZABETH PEARSON

Extreme Britain

Gender, Masculinity and Radicalisation

HURST & COMPANY, LONDON

First published in the United Kingdom in 2023 by

C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.,

New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA

Copyright © Elizabeth Pearson, 2023

Printed in the United Kingdom

All rights reserved.

The right of Elizabeth Pearson to be identified as the author of this publication is asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 9781787389465

www.hurstpublishers.com

1. EDL demonstration, Telford, 5 November 2016.

2. ‘Working Class Hero’ sign at a ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ protest, London, 9 June 2018.

3. Protestor in a homemade Robinson T-shirt, Britain First demonstration, Rochdale, 22 July 2017.

4. Flags, branded T-shirts and drums: White Lives Matter demonstration, Margate, 22 October 2016.

5. Britain First demonstration, Telford, 25 February 2017.

6. Women leading a Britain First demonstration, Rochdale, 22 July 2017.

7. Anne Marie Waters leading an Islam Kills Women event, London, 20 August 2016.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

List of Illustrations

Introduction

1. Theory: Masculinities and Extremism

2. Methodology: Is it OK to Talk to Extremists?

3. The Radical Right: Situating Masculinities

4. The Radical Right: Mobilising Masculinities

5. The Radical Right: Misogyny, Masculinities and Women’s Leadership

6. ALM: Situating Masculinities

7. ALM: Mobilising Masculinities

8. Conclusions

Appendix

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not exist without those ‘extremists’ who gave their time to talk to me, some briefly, some at length. I am grateful to everyone who shared their story with me. We are never likely to agree, but I hope you find yourselves fairly represented within these pages. I have been incredibly lucky since I started out in academia, first with a Master’s, then with the PhD from which this book grew. Special thanks are due to Katherine Brown, Jelke Boesten, John Bew and War Studies and Defence Studies at King’s College London; and to the ESRC, without which this research would not have been possible. Also, to Michael Dwyer and Lara Weisweiller-Wu at Hurst for being patient while life took unexpected turns. And to Laura Sjoberg and the anonymous reviewers–David Duriesmith and Leonie Jackson–whose comments helped improve earlier drafts of this work. Nonetheless, all errors remain my own.

Many people have supported me in the research and writing stages of this book and I will always try to pay that forward. This list is not exhaustive but includes: teams at RUSI, IISS and RAN and Hurst; Christine Cheng, Doug Weeks, Brooke Rogers, Wyn Bowen, Susanne Krieg, Jackie Gower, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Maura Conway, Lisa McInerney, Marysia Zalewski, Laura Shepherd, Marsha Henry, Paul Higate, Paul Gill, Hilary Pilkington, Gavin Bailey, Jacob Zenn, Atta Barkindo, Adebiyi Kayode, Raff Pantucci, Emily Winterbotham, Andrew Glazzard, Saqeb Mueen, Sabrina Downey, Michael Clarke, Michael Kenney, Brett Kubicek, Sara Zeiger, Naureen Chowdhury Fink, Bruce Hoffman, Andrew Silke, Jonathan Bright, Jennifer Eggert, Virginia Comolli, Nelly Lahoud, Jayne Huckerby, Stuart Macdonald, Alastair Reed, J. M. Berger, Joe Whittaker, Victoria Williams, Alison Perry, Rebecca Lewis, the SALT team, Annie Mullins, Richard Graham, Suraj Lakhani, Will Baldett, Shereen Williams, Aleksander Dier, Alex Phelan, Michael Nwankpa, Chitra Nagarajan, Joana Cook, James Forest, Thomas Renard, Devorah Margolin, Rachel Bryson, Gina Vale, Innes Bowen, John Morrison, Emily Glorney, Nick Hardwick, Rosie Meeks, Akil Awan, Rob Jago, Ravinder Barn, Matthew Humphreys, Anthony Richards, Kaat Smets, Katy Vaughan, Ashley Mattheis, Joel Busher, Shiraz Maher, Vivienne Jabri, Jamie Bartlett, Carl Miller and Zeynep Sütalan, Daisy Leitch, and the copy-editing team at Hurst involved in creating this text. Also, Elizabeth Hurren, who knew I was bored.

There are many friends to thank too, including some of those listed above. You came with me to meet Anjem, listened to me talk endlessly about extremism, which probably wasn’t fun, distracted and entertained me, got me extra work when I was broke, and kept me going when I was giving up. Thank you.

Finally, my family, who always made sure we had books: hand-me-down, bought and borrowed. You are no longer all with me to see this book in print. I hope you would have been proud.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Author note: This book covers both the radical right and Islamists networked to al-Muhajiroun. However, only the radical right are featured in the illustrations; Al-Muhajiroun–linked events are not represented for legal reasons and the preservation of participant anonymity.

1. EDL demonstration, Telford, 5 November 2016. Courtesy of Express & Star newspaper.

2. ‘Working Class Hero’ sign at a ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ protest, London, 9 June 2018. Photo by Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images.

3. Protestor in a homemade Robinson T-shirt, Britain First demonstration, Rochdale, 22 July 2017. Photo by Elizabeth Pearson.

4. White Lives Matter demonstration, Margate, 22 October 2016. Penelope Barritt/Alamy Stock Photo.

5. Britain First demonstration, Telford, 25 February 2017. Photo by Elizabeth Pearson.

6. Women leading a Britain First demonstration, Rochdale, 22 July 2017. Photo by Elizabeth Pearson.

7. Anne Marie Waters leading an Islam Kills Women event, London, 20 August 2016. Vickie Flores/Shutterstock.

INTRODUCTION

Robert is maybe 60, in a blue fleece. He did six years in the air force, he says, but they don’t make the planes anymore. All the cuts, it’s totally depleted. He’s also worried about the schools—the Trojan Horse cases. The media is sweeping it all under the carpet, he says. Another guy comes over, more aggressive. Who are you, he asks, are you Antifa? He’s tall, bent over, in my face. Gavin, he’s called. Gavin from Gateshead. No, I say. So, do I agree with it all, what Britain First are doing? No, I say. By now the crowd is transformed into waving Union Jacks. The main banner is brought to the front and Jayda calls for ‘the ladies’ to come forward.¹ They start to march. A big angry guy in a Nike top is shouting at Asian families watching from their doorsteps.² They give him the finger. The marchers chant, Keep St George in my heart, keep me English…!, There’s only one Lee Rigby!, and the core anthem, Britain First! Fighting Back!.

Notes from my field diary, Rochdale, 22 July 2017

What masculinities are evident here, on the streets of Rochdale, England, in July 2017? And what does gender have to tell us about extremism in Britain today? A recent report on extremism in the UK suggests far-right street protest is on the rise again.³ However, initial research on this book began in markedly different times. Leaders of the key groups considered, including Tommy Robinson, Anjem Choudary and Jayda Fransen, have now all served time in prison; indeed Choudary faces possible further prison time after being charged with three terror offences in July 2023. Fransen has left Britain First and spoken publicly of the domestic violence she alleges she suffered from Leader Paul Golding during her time there. Social media platforms removed some of these figures, then allowed them back, then removed some of them again. Since 2014 and the outset of the study, Islamic State has been defeated in Syria and Iraq. The so-called hijrah of British, or any other, jihadis to these countries has ended, and there is little political interest in and much public hostility towards bringing them back.

Additionally, both Brexit and COVID-19 have arguably disrupted the UK’s political landscape with a shift to the populist right, mirroring similar shifts across Europe and beyond.⁴ Lockdown legislation produced more distrust in, and contestation of, the state. Mistrust of statistics combined with deliberate disinformation by bad-faith actors has amplified conspiracy theorists. Lines between extreme or not, threat or not, are blurred. In July 2023, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter—now rebranded ‘X’—caused consternation when he ‘liked’ tweets on immigration by Golding.⁵ It was reminiscent of 2017, when then President Trump retweeted Fransen, then Deputy Leader of Britain First, leading her to gain 45,000 new followers. Twitter expelled her some weeks later, while the President, whose views on Islam appeared not dissimilar, remained.⁶ Whether American voters re-elect Trump, whose activities are followed with avid interest by the British radical right, remains to be seen at the time of writing in 2023. Given hostile British Government policies towards immigration, interviews cited in this book reveal a radical right whose views increasingly resemble dominant discourse; and, furthermore, a movement that frequently rejects its characterisation in political terms of left- or right-wing at all. The situation is not better than it was when I ended the research, and dealing with it is ever more urgent.

What is extremism? The term is no easier to define at the time of writing than when I began research for the book in 2014. And yet this book is all about extremists. It is not easy to interview them—they are not keen on academics—but protests are a good place to start. I attended sixteen events—radical-right and Islamist—and interviewed some thirty-one extreme activists in depth during my research for this book, some of whom I got to know well. If people talked to me, it was because we had a rapport, or they were bored, or curious, or perhaps saw me as a useful mouthpiece. We engaged with each other as people. I disagreed with them on everything, but there were people whom I liked. When police raided one Islamist participant and ultimately charged him with terrorism offences, it was me he turned to for help. Nobody I interviewed expected I would understand them, and I make no claims here that I do.

This book is based on those interviews. I use analysis of them to make an argument: that radicalisation, the process towards extremism, is a project of masculinity. As I write, there is a great deal of popular as well as academic interest in how misogyny and masculinities factor into extremism. This is progress. For too long, both have been ignored. However, while it is often argued that the same misogyny and toxic masculinity are at the heart of the far right and jihadism alike, here I explore the complexities of gender and masculinities (plural) in forging different types of extreme activism. Yes, there is extreme misogyny—understood as the policing and punishment of women who fail to conform to norms supporting patriarchy⁷—and it is important to recognise and combat this; extreme women are often subordinate within their own groups. However, there is also room for extreme women to set the agenda, to lead and mobilise other women, albeit with pushback from patriarchy. Women are also often the victims of extremist groups.

In this world of culture wars, some people are gender sceptics. They think gender studies is harmful, perhaps. Or they wonder, what can thinking about masculinities tell us about extremism that we don’t already know? Can gender really matter that much in understanding Britain’s radicalisation? The answer is an emphatic yes. This book argues for the importance of gender in understanding the masculinity project that is radicalisation. Additionally, it argues that misogyny matters in radicalisation to both movements discussed, the radical right and ALM. However, the misogyny evident in both movements is not easily distinguishable from misogynies in wider society, or the social norms and backgrounds from which the extreme actors emerge. Extreme identities are not distinct. Extremists have more in common with us than we would like to think.

What this book is about

It goes without saying that this book is about extremists. My focus was also on masculinities, and what they would tell me about misogyny in the groups studied. However, the central research question asked was, how does gender matter in extremism? This led me to a more fundamental question: how would I know what extremism is, and therefore who extremists are? The 2015 UK government’s Prevent duty guidance refers back to the 2011 Prevent Strategy for a definition of extremism, which is the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. The government also regard calls for the death of members of our armed forces as extremist.⁸ It is jihadist terrorism that successive CONTEST counter-terrorism strategies have identified as the principal threat to the UK, with the far right secondary.⁹ The extremism definition was crafted explicitly to reference actors across Britain’s radical-right and Islamist movements. In turn, radicalisation is understood by the UK government as the process by which people become involved in terrorism or extremism leading to terrorism.¹⁰ It is widely acknowledged in the academic literature, however, that there is no one radicalisation process; radicalisation is not scientific, and can hardly even be labelled a ‘process’ at all.¹¹ Furthermore, the terms ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’ themselves are contentious and politicised, as will be explored in Chapter One.

Understanding extremism matters, given that counter-terrorism discourse increasingly relies on the above definition. Anthony Richards, a key scholar of definitions of terrorism, has identified a vogue for discourses of extremism over radicalisation and a concomitant muddying of the waters.¹² What is more there is no consensus over extremism as a relative or objectively measurable state. The 2009 UK counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST equates extremism with the undermining of shared values.¹³ In his 2013 review of the literature, Alex P. Schmid concurs, regarding extremism as inherently relational, defined relative to mainstream societal views as well as the rule of law.¹⁴ He suggests that extremism concerns ideology, behaviours and connectedness. However, since Schmid’s work was published, the key contribution to defining extremism has come from American academic J. M. Berger in his book Extremism.¹⁵ He disagrees with Schmid on the relational definition. Berger addresses a clear problem: if society’s core values undergo an apparent shift—as arguably has been witnessed in both Europe and the United States since the election of several right-wing populist leaders—this impacts the continued framing of only minority groups as extreme. Berger borrows from Henri Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory, which posits the idea of the in-group (our own) and the out-group (the other, irredeemably different from ourselves).¹⁶ Berger’s definition is focused on the denigration of out-groups. He defines extremism as:

the belief that an in-group’s success or survival can never be separated from the need for hostile action against an out-group. The hostile action must be part of the in-group’s definition of success. Hostile acts can range from verbal attacks and diminishment to discriminatory behavior, violence, and even genocide.¹⁷

This definition has become a new benchmark for policymakers and academics in understanding extremism. Perhaps it is not a surprise that it does not reference gender. Gender theorists have persistently highlighted the security studies landscape’s historic neglect of gender.¹⁸ This has been particularly true in the subfields of terrorism, extremism and radicalisation.¹⁹ The situation is, however, changing. One might even say that the field has become obsessed with the function of gender, particularly anti-feminist movements and misogyny, in terrorism since the identification of the incel movement as a contemporary threat. Greater focus on misogyny is urgently needed; we know that jihadist groups such as Islamic State, or Jamaat Ahlus Sunna Lidawati Wal Jihad (Boko Haram), specifically target women in their hostile actions against out-groups, and in certain ways, because they are women.²⁰ Think of Islamic State’s bartering and rape of Yezidi women, or of jihadist abductions of young women students in Nigeria. Yet despite mention of genocide, Berger's definition does not highlight sexual and gender-based violence as a ‘hostile act’.

A further important definition therefore comes from the Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE) in a 2019 report under lead Commissioner Sara Khan, which prefaces the term ‘extremism’ with the word ‘hateful’. It defines hateful extremism as:²¹

Activity or materials directed at an out-group who are perceived as a threat to an in-group, who are motivated by or intending to advance a political, religious or racial supremacist ideology: a. To create a climate conducive to hate crime, terrorism or other violence; or b. Attempt to erode or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of our democratic society as protected under Article 17 of Schedule 1 to the Human Rights Act 1998.²²

Gender is still not explicit in this definition. However, Khan’s foreword to the report notes of her research into extremism, Some of the stories have left me heartbroken. People, young and old, have cried as they described how extremists targeted them because of their sexuality, their gender, their race or religious identity.²³ Both Khan’s response and her new suggested definition remind us of the affective outcomes of extremism: pain, hate, suffering.

Who this book is about

This book is a study of gender in two of the most significant extremist movements in the United Kingdom in recent times: the radical right, an umbrella term for activists opposed to the perceived ‘Islamisation’ of Britain and Europe, and therefore Islam; and the Islamist movement linked to the now-proscribed group al-Muhajiroun (ALM) (meaning ‘the emigrants’ and referring to those who originally followed the Prophet to Mecca). Both movements have links to the current extremist scene. ALM is a Salafist–Islamist organisation, and the UK Government has long considered it and its Leader Anjem Choudary a key threat. Although officially the group named al-Muhajiroun no longer exists, I interviewed Choudary and actors following him, some since ALM days, and therefore refer to this network in the book as ALM. This reflects ALM’s understanding that names do not matter; the call (to the group) matters.²⁴ Much of the terminology in discussion of al-Muhajiroun and the actors connected to it is contested. Salafi–jihadi extremism and Islamism have been complex and controversial terms for some years.²⁵ Scholars using the term ‘Islamism’ generally define this as political Islamic activism, distinguishing it from Islam as a faith. Salafi jihadism is the violent struggle to establish an Islamic Caliphate,²⁶ and can be differentiated from other non-violent strands of Salafism.²⁷ I use the term ‘jihad’ in this book in place of the phrase ‘violent jihad’, and for clarity, because that is how the participants used it. In Islam, the ‘greater jihad’ represents the personal spiritual struggle to live as a good Muslim. The ‘lesser jihad’ refers to the violent struggle for the faith. Some do not like the term ‘Islamism’. Islamism is a diverse ideology, frequently divided into those groups who reject participation in democratic systems and those who do not.²⁸ Rejectionists include Anjem Choudary and his followers, who advocate violence to achieve the establishment of Shariah law, with the caveat that this must take place only outside of the country of residence—their so-called ‘Covenant of Security’. Other groups, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), support democratic participation. While a number of authors make the distinction between political Islamism and purely religious Islam, this distinction is not made by any of the participants in this research.

While the book focuses on the interviews given by men—women were harder to interview, as Chapter Two explores—I also consider women’s navigation of extremism’s homosociality, and how they both adopt and resist masculinist norms and misogynies, as well as being constrained by them.

The key radical-right groups studied were the English Defence League (EDL), Britain First (BF) and For Britain (FB). There have been times in the years prior to the publication of this book when Tommy Robinson, a co-founder of the EDL, was barely out of the news. Nonetheless, since I conducted my research, many of the offline activities that once made the headlines hardly appear in the news at all. Free speech protests in 2018 saw thousands march to support him when he was jailed for contempt of court. At the time of writing, banned from mainstream social media platforms, Robinson is less visible, but no less active.²⁹ Hope Not Hate’s 2022 report suggested that he had 180,000 followers on the alternative social media site GETTR and was making a return, exercising an anti-vaccine, anti-Boris agenda.³⁰ By mid-2023 Robinson’s GETTR followership had increased to almost 235,000, and he was speaking out in support of online influencer and misogynist Andrew Tate and seemingly teaming up with Britain First’s Paul Golding, who remains on Twitter while Robinson does not. While anti-far right extremism charity Hope Not Hate notes an increase in far-right street activism, the EDL has all but disappeared.³¹ From 2016 to 2018, when I attended demonstrations, pressure on activists was intense. The police filmed events; meanwhile far-left and Antifa activists used social media to shame and ‘out’ those at protests, hoping to see them lose their jobs.³² During my field research, perhaps only those with little to lose remained committed to street protest.

At the time of writing in mid-2023, Anjem Choudary has been rearrested and charged with three terrorism offences related to a proscribed organisation.³³ However, like the radical right, ALM has largely been quiet. Anjem Choudary (also known as ‘the Sheikh’) was at one point almost the go-to media spokesperson for fringe Islamism, to the anger of most British Muslims. He was jailed in September 2016 alongside his younger colleague Mizanur Rahman (also known as Abu Baraa) for support of Islamic State (IS), the violent Islamist group that between 2014 and 2017 claimed and held territories in Syria and Iraq. Choudary has hardly been heard from publicly since, even though stringent release restrictions ended in July 2021.³⁴ Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs), Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) and post-conviction Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPAs) have been employed in the past to prevent activities such as Islamist congregation in public space and to restrict the employment, living arrangements, activities and associates of activists.³⁵ In fact, writing in 2018, Michael Kenney suggested that measures against ALM meant the network was just barely surviving.³⁶

There is no room for complacency. Islamic State may be militarily defeated, but its jihadist ideology remains a key security concern. And while we might not see activists on mainstream social media or in public spaces as much as in the past, it does not mean that they are no longer committed. Indeed, for jihadist groups a period of preparation and inactivity in violence is an important part of the fight. Both ALM and the radical right have proved resilient despite past external pressures. In fact, I chose these movements for this book not simply because they are resilient, or because their homosocial nature lends them to a gender analysis, but because they were for a long time understood to be linked through the phenomenon of Cumulative Extremism (CE), otherwise known as reciprocal radicalisation.³⁷ However, while gendered constructions of Islam emerged in the study as a key motivator to radical-right activists, to Islamists the radical right or wider far right was largely irrelevant, except as a vehicle for publicity via, for instance, public confrontations. Essentially I was not able to evidence reciprocity in radicalisation between the two movements discursively, or in terms of violence.³⁸

Why gender, why masculinities?

The starting point of masculinities theory is an epistemological position that understands gender as socially constructed and is reliant on Judith Butler’s concept of performativity. Building on Simone de Beauvoir’s assertion that one becomes a woman, Butler asserts that gender is a verb: gender proves to be performative—that is, constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing.³⁹ Gender is a normative concept, and can be read in different ways. The most basic reading—typically seen in security studies and policy—is a simple consideration of gender as pertaining to women.⁴⁰ However, ‘women’ and ‘gender’ are not synonyms. As Laura Sjoberg, Grace D. Cooke and Stacy Reiter Neal note, gender describes the socially constituted behavioural expectations, stereotypes and rules that construct masculinity and femininity.⁴¹ Gender is malleable, socially constructed and context-dependent.⁴² Raewyn Connell, the most influential scholar of masculinities, considered in more detail in the next chapter, first defined masculinity as a place in gender relations.⁴³ Kimberly Hutchings notes that this relationality comprises two logics: contrast (with other masculinities) and contradiction (between masculinities and femininities).⁴⁴ Historian Joan W. Scott suggests that gender organises relationships in both symbolic and concrete ways.⁴⁵ Gender is also about power, because it is a means of creating hierarchies between people. In patriarchal societies, even within groups seeking to control power, masculinities matter.

Building on this, there are four core theoretical reasons why gender and in particular masculinities are crucial tools for understanding contemporary British extremism:

Contemporary British extreme groups are homosocial

The first reason for a gendered approach to Britain’s extremism lies in the demographics of contemporary extremists: far-right extremists and violent and non-violent jihadists are mostly men, although by no means exclusively.⁴⁶ Sex is one of the only predictive variables in understanding terrorist violence. Edwin Bakker, for example, conducted a study of twenty-eight European jihadi networks from 2001 to 2006 and recorded 237 male convictions, while only five were of women.⁴⁷ Studies by terrorism experts Marc Sageman, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Laura Grossman made similar findings.⁴⁸ The same is true of the far right and the anti-Muslim radical right. Matthew J. Goodwin and Robert Ford, for example, suggest that in its early days the EDL attracted members who were mainly young, working-class and poorly educated men.⁴⁹ The group has always been predominantly male, although women have attended street demonstrations, albeit in smaller numbers.⁵⁰ The male dominance in EDL activism mirrors that of previous nationalist groups in the UK, such as the BNP.⁵¹ It also mirrors political parties on the extreme right, as well as non-extreme conservative parties more broadly.⁵²

ALM, too, is led by and largely composed of men involved in several formal activities to spread their message. They carry out street Dawah, manning stalls, engaging passers-by and giving out leaflets, and created a publishing house (al-Khilfa) with the same purpose. Both Choudary and ALM founder Omar Bakri Mohammed led regular classroom sessions for UK members. These were attended by a variety of people, including some later convicted of terrorism. Such activities had multiple aims and multiple audiences: provocation (for moderate Muslims, non-Muslims and the ‘right’), publicity (for the media) and differentiation from other creeds in Islam (for non-Islamist Muslims as well as ‘like-minds’). ALM is not just composed of men, however. In his 2005 study of the group, Quintan Wiktorowicz noted that a distinguishing feature of ALM was its inclusive attitude towards women, who were welcome at classes and on Dawah—if on separate stalls—and encouraged to participate actively in the group, although not in leadership roles.⁵³ Ethnographers Doug Weeks and Michael Kenney, despite spending extensive time with ALM, do not reference women in the group in their work beyond noting that they have taken part in protest, and women are not amongst their interviewees.⁵⁴ Indeed, in a British context as elsewhere, the majority of violent jihadist incidents have overwhelmingly involved men.⁵⁵

Gender is a fundamental organising principle of contemporary violent groups

Consideration of extreme ideologies further emphasises the significance of gender. Gendered oppositions and binaries constitute the organising principle of the contemporary terrorism and extremism prioritised by Western states—jihadist and far-right—as the backbone of both their beliefs and their actions. Both jihadist and far-right organisations, particularly those advocating violence, tend to position men’s and women’s roles as complementary and oppositional.⁵⁶ Masculinities are an important feature of their narratives. Jihadist groups such as Islamic State present themselves as the only place for real men, who demonstrate a rightful masculinity when contrasted with supposedly emasculated Westerners.⁵⁷ Feminist scholars have long emphasised the importance of states in the production of masculinities, and the enabling of war.⁵⁸ For nationalist and far-right movements, particular forms of manhood—often violent or hypermasculine—are associated with nationhood and the protection of the white race, particularly women.⁵⁹ Motherhood is exalted and symbolic, with mothers crucial as the biological reproducers of ‘the nation’.⁶⁰ The radical right does not wholly cohere to this ideology, as will be evident in the findings of this book. However, its proximity to far-right groups that do means a gendered analysis is important.

Misogyny and masculinities are poorly understood

As journalism and academia increasingly recognise misogyny and gender-based violence as central to extreme groups, it has become more difficult to ignore gender. Some authors have framed contemporary extremism as being about male supremacy and misogyny; it is.⁶¹ However, current understandings remain simplistic, and lacking in empirical evidence. Kathleen M. Blee, who has spent a lifetime talking to America’s far right in order to understand them, has suggested that researchers of far-right extremism know that gender matters but are less clear on the detail of how.⁶² This book addresses a gap in existing knowledge of the precise mechanisms of gender in extremism, considering masculinities and anti-feminism. In doing so it answers a call by masculinities scholar Michael Kimmel, who emphasises that gender should be understood as a means of mediating between structures and extreme individuals, and exploring masculinities and femininities.⁶³ He echoes Jean Bethke Elshtain’s demand for work on masculinities to focus beyond men and on gender.⁶⁴ This means that misogyny and masculinities are simply aspects of gender’s function in the organisation of contemporary extreme groups. Incel men (‘incel’ is a shorthand for ‘involuntary celibate’), for instance, understand themselves as subordinate to men who have women sexual partners.⁶⁵ Incel men embody male entitlement and objectify women as rewards which they are angry they have not received.⁶⁶ Incels do not, however, just express misogyny; their animus is also directed towards men they see as (more) sexually successful, who are held to be exemplars of hegemonic masculinity and therefore ‘other’. Sexuality is also important in extremism, although a detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this book. Far-right and jihadist groups have frequently stigmatised homosexuality and trans identities as deviant forms of masculinity or femininity outside of the established gender binary and the reproductive purpose of the group or race. One result has been the persecution and execution by Islamic State of homosexual individuals;⁶⁷ another the pursual of an anti trans agenda by far-right groups.

International norms entail the consideration of gender

Another good reason to consider gender in extremism is that international security norms and legal statutes point to the importance of gendered approaches in understanding and countering terrorism. The United Nations Security Council has by now produced ten resolutions to address the global problem of terrorist violence and extremism, and in 2015 UNSCR 2242 identified the importance of a gender perspective in dealing with terrorism. Part of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, it recommended the inclusion of gender as a cross-cutting issue in CT activities.⁶⁸ Despite this, gender is still often absent in analysis of terrorism and extremism. If thinking about countering terrorism and radicalisation entails a consideration of gender, thinking about terrorism and radicalisation themselves must also. Gender organises the expression of societal power, producing hierarchies through masculinities and femininities.⁶⁹ Terrorism and radicalisation also concern power and violence; one definition of terrorism is the use of violence against symbolic targets in order to send a message and achieve an ideological goal.⁷⁰ Terrorism aims at change to the status quo, whether by states to further cement power or by non-state actors who perceive themselves as disenfranchised. Gender analysis is therefore relevant to understanding how power operates within radicalisation to masculinist groups practising terrorism. Indeed, recent feminist critiques have outlined how radicalisation is itself gendered.⁷¹

Methodology: why use interviews?

This book is theoretical, in grappling with how to understand and ‘see’ gender and masculinities; for terrorism and security studies scholars this gender analysis might be new, and I hope that they see its importance. The book is also empirical. For gender scholars, the empirical chapters will provide an important source of analysis and information. Contemporary gender scholars are trying to understand the apparent global shift towards right-wing populist and far-right politics. For those working on backlash politics and the far right, these chapters will make an important empirical contribution. Here the comparative focus is of particular significance, given that this adds depth to the analysis of each group, which encompasses leadership and grassroots figures alike.

Talking to people engaged in extreme behaviours and groups enables us to use gender to better understand their actions, motivations and interiorities. It also permits space for participants themselves to contest state labels applied to them, challenging security discourses. The analysis emphasises primary source material, and the voices and experiences of participants as those with a privileged window into their motivations;⁷² as Kenney writes, activists understand better than most … why they do what they do.⁷³ The centrality of the participants does not, however, obviate the need for a critical analysis. The research does not take participant narratives at face value. There is further detailed discussion of the ethics of this research in Chapter Two.

Radicalisation as masculinity project: findings and core argument

This book explores the making of extreme men and women, and the centrality of gender to radicalisation. It uncovers how both men and women ‘do’ masculinities, and the different masculinities evident in contemporary British extremism. It contains a comparative analysis of two extreme movements, and I suggest important differences between them in gendered terms. Indeed, one of my main conclusions is that much separates these ideologies, despite current scholarship’s attention to supposed similarities in their gendered practices, particularly misogyny. I emphasise that while gender recurs, genderings differ.

There are five key findings:

Radicalisation

The book argues that radicalisation is a project of masculinity. Gender is fundamental to defining the extremism of the radical right and ALM. Both radicalisation and extremism are produced through masculinities and around gender binaries.

Misogyny

Misogyny is apparent in both movements, yet its expressions are not straightforward or evenly distributed, given that anti-misogynistic ideology is also incorporated into the radical right.

Women

Women are enthusiastic participants in these masculinity projects, yet frequently find themselves navigating the exclusion and misogyny that masculinist groups entail. Even when they employ agency and actively choose to accept the gender inequalities within activism, they find those used against them.

Systems

Masculinities function in systems, and are lived as chords, not notes. They are heterarchical, with different masculinities often simultaneously experienced.

Difference

The gender dynamics and masculinities of the radical right and ALM differ. Additionally, different groups within the radical right embody different masculine cultures to distinguish identities and invoke distinct cultural practices, and gender is a point of fragmentation.

If radicalisation is a masculinity project, as the first finding contends, then the aim of this book is to elucidate the specific ways different masculinities are produced in support of that project. The book uses gender analysis to show the ‘messy’ and complex nature of radicalisation: from exposure to extreme ideology, to mobilisation to the extreme movement and in some cases to violence; also, with respect to the daily maintenance of extreme identities. The gendered analysis additionally problematises current understandings of radicalisation as a primarily transformative process, both in terms of thought (cognitive) and of action (behavioural).⁷⁴ The book instead emphasises the ways in which masculinities and misogyny within extreme groups remain to a large degree consistent with masculinities and misogyny before and outside of them, and are contiguous with masculinity norms in wider society.

Core argument

Significantly, the comparative empirical analysis supports the core argument and theoretical analysis of Chapter One: that despite increasing emphasis in contemporary discourse, misogyny and toxic masculinity are not differentiating attributes or even always appropriate descriptors for the movements studied.

Men and women interviewees from both movements reveal a continuity of gendered behaviour into the group. This certainly includes misogyny, but misogyny is rarely the reason for mobilisation towards the group. This misogyny is often part of the wider culture from which the radical right and ALM emerge. The misogyny apparent in the EDL, for instance, is the same misogyny directed towards Muslim women and towards white working-class women that is evident elsewhere in society. It relies on shared tropes: that white working-class women are promiscuous or ‘disgusting’, for instance, or that Muslim women are meek, submissive and oppressed. Similarly, empirical analysis of ALM participants reveals a continuity of gendered beliefs and misogyny from before the group into the group. Differences in misogynies are evident, however. ALM had more control over women’s activism within the group. Also, the possibilities for women’s leadership across the movements were not the same. Neither movement had a straightforward relationship with misogyny, given that both made space for women’s rights and inclusion within their activism, yet this occurred in different ways and to different degrees.

Regarding toxic masculinity, what the movements share is that the men within them are reviled as toxic by wider society. Men’s behaviours in the movements studied are harmful; yet, again, many of these behaviours, particularly within the radical right, are consistent with life before the group. Extreme masculinities are forged in the intersections of place, sex, race and faith, and in wider discourses. However, gender and masculinities function in different ways in the two movements. The masculinity project of each movement is not the same, in that different masculinities are at the fore. The findings chapters support the argument that each movement functions around a different system of numerous hegemonic masculinities. These systems are not the same, in terms of either moral value to participants—for example, Islamist participants regard their Islamo-cultural masculinity system to embody values superior to those of secular society; symbolic value to participants—for example, radical-right participants believe that a masculinity system in which men and women have distinct roles has longstanding links to both Britishness and Christianity; or authenticity, with both sets of participants seeking gendered roles and values that have affective worth, producing a feeling of fit. There is no one system of masculinities I could describe as toxic, given that all incorporate masculinities with positive as well as negative outcomes (and intentions).

Considering the book’s finding about systems, that masculinities can be simultaneously experienced, ALM interviewees describe a constant reflexive engagement with what they suggest is the gendered compromise of assimilation. It is this that they locate at the heart of their definition of in-group and out-group, and the move to ALM and Choudary’s network. This problematises understandings of masculinities as hierarchical, suggesting they function as heterarchies. Masculinities are not just multiple; they are, as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick has suggested, n-dimensional and can be multiply held.⁷⁵

The central findings suggest a gendered definition of extremism as an alternative to the one we are used to, as formulated by Schmid or Berger, for example, or the British government. These findings show that it is the perception of gendered difference that enables the in- and out-group formation that is central to Berger’s definition of extremism: gendered difference forms the backbone of group ideologies, separating male and female roles; it dictates male and female identity and agency within groups; and it underpins the different cultures of group activism, at times causing fractures between them. A feminist engagement with radicalisation must define it not simply as a process towards an end point of support for violent extremism, but also as a project of masculinity, in support of patriarchal domination. This is as true for radical women in Britain’s extreme groups as it is for radical men.

How this book is structured

This Introduction has set out the