Recommendations

The first step in addressing misogynist incel violence and terrorism is recognizing the problem for what it is, a form of male supremacism. Since 2018, law enforcement in the United States and Canada have taken steps to include misogynist incels in their threat assessments. Some commenters have opposed Canada’s recent categorization of incel ideological violence as terrorism, arguing it gave too much attention and significance to a fringe movement—yet two out of three of the largest acts of mass violence in Canada’s history were motivated primarily by misogynist ideology. Yet, significant issues exist with how misogynist incel ideology is currently approached in CVE, that may make interventions targeted at the misogynist incel community not only ineffective but also risk further endangering women. We advance alternate understandings and responses for addressing misogynist incel violence more effectively and without doing harm.¹ (For suggestions specific to the media, see the one-pager published by the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.)

1. Support improved mental health services and access as a social good—but do not mistake this for a solution to ideological violence.

Suicide rates in the world and in the United States in particular have increased in the past 20 years, and loneliness has been declared a public health issue.² Adequate universal mental health care access falls far short, and increased access to therapy and other services is a social good, including for self-identified incels—men, women, and non-binary people—and any people dealing with depression, loneliness, or other mental health issues.

However, we caution against approaching mental health issues as the main driver of misogynist violence, or therapeutic treatment as a solution. A 2020 counterterrorism journal article exemplifies the approach of recommending mental health services to prevent incel violence, stating, “Arguably, the most effective way to prevent an incel from ‘going ER’ is by proactively addressing his suicidal impulses.”³ This is a misplaced focus.

While many mass violence perpetrators intend to kill themselves or commit “suicide by cop” at the end of their attack, potentially to avoid imprisonment (the Santa Barbara and Toronto van attack perpetrators cited this as their reason), this is not always the case. In the misogynist incel-connected attacks in 2020, the perpetrators did not attempt to kill themselves. Ideologically motivated violence, thus, can occur without perpetrators committing self-harm. There are decades of examples of white supremacist, anti-abortion, and other ideological violence unconnected to suicide attempts.

Second, the focus on mental health treats loneliness and depression as the root cause of incel violence, rather than misogyny and male entitlement. Yet for most populations, impulses toward self-harm do not manifest in a decision to kill others. Avoid reinforcing misogynist incel men’s sense of being the only people who truly experience suffering. Vulnerable populations at the highest risk for attempted suicide and depression, for instance, queer young people, do not perpetrate mass violence. Entitlement, superiority, and a feeling of moral justification animate perpetrators of mass violence, who are most often cisgender, heterosexual, white men.

Avoid reinforcing misogynist incel men’s sense of being the only people who truly experience suffering.

Last, mental health services are not designed to treat ideology, because misogyny, supremacism, and other harmful ideologies are not mental health issues. So, while many misogynist incel men refuse therapy as an ineffective solution to what they view as systemic problems, others tried therapy but retained their misogynist ideology and returned to the online communities. The Santa Barbara perpetrator received extensive mental health support and therapy due to his parents, including meeting a weekly counselor in an informal social setting to address his “loneliness.” He responded dismissively, maintaining his worldview: “I don’t know why my parents wasted money on therapy, as it will never help me in my struggle against such a cruel and unjust world.”⁴

A misplaced focus on mental health issues as leading to violence can also harm how people with depression or other psychological conditions are perceived; for instance, autistic advocacy groups have spoken out against claims blaming autism for attacks.⁵ We recommend funders support policies to increase the quality of and access to mental health services—including improvements in training regarding recognizing and addressing misogynist, dehumanizing, and abusive belief systems—with input from mental health advocacy groups, especially those led by the communities they serve, without pushing this as a solution to misogynist violence.

2. Instead, interventions should draw on examples of programs designed to deal with domestic abuse perpetrators and counter racist violence for specialized counseling.

Acts of misogynist mass violence exist on a continuum alongside other gender-based harassment and violence, including intimate partner abuse, stalking, rape, and murder. Perpetrators of mass violence (virtually always men) acting from any ideological motivation usually have in common histories of abuse or harassment of women. The Santa Barbara perpetrator began by harassing women on the street, including throwing drinks from his car.

Recommendations for dealing with potential incel violence have suggested helping these men form intimate relationships with women, with the expectation that this will mitigate their “desire for dominance.”⁶ But without addressing the underlying misogynist beliefs, this endangers potential women partners. In online posts, misogynist incels have expressed that violence against women partners would be justified for failing to meet their sexual or other expectations. While they voice anger at lacking sexual relationships with women, their worldview demonstrates similarities with that of intimate partner abuse perpetrators. Domestic abuse perpetrators feel entitled, wronged when they do not get what they want, and justified in violence in response, seeing themselves as victims when women do not conform to their expectations. They hold hostile sexist beliefs and endorse traditional gender roles. Threats to commit suicide are used as part of an abusive toolkit for manipulating and controlling victims. Shifting the sphere of potential violence from the public sphere to private is not a successful intervention.

We recommend funding programming to address misogynist incel men that learns not only from existing deradicalization programs aimed at extremist ideologies, which have benefits and flaws, but also from domestic abuse perpetrator intervention programs. These programs confront beliefs such as male entitlement, strict gender roles, and ownership of women; they recognize that mental health issues can exist concurrently with but are separate from abusive behavior, and require appropriate approaches to address each issue without conflating them.

3. Avoid interventions that reinforce boys’ and men’s entitlement—collaborations with gender justice organizations can strengthen program design.

Suggested interventions that encourage misogynist incel men to learn better social skills and take care of their appearance lean in the direction of PUA arguments that incel violence could be avoided if only the perpetrator learned “game.” In both cases, the intended outcome, explicit or not, is to prevent violence by helping misogynist incel men to form sexual relationships and leave inceldom behind. Blackpilled incels refuse such personal solutions as ineffective. Those open to “maxxing” (self-improvement) end up in another culture based on objectification and misogyny toward women. Not receiving the expected outcome (sexual access to women) from utilizing these techniques in the past has further reinforced and radicalized misogynist incel beliefs.

In 2020, a competition held at Arizona State University encouraged student-designed projects to combat hate speech and related violence. The winner was a proposed youth intervention program; a video created to advertise the program shows how well-meaning approaches can reinforce boys’ and men’s entitlement. The video depicts a scenario in which a boy texts a girl asking her out, is declined, and then insults her directly and to a friend. The second scenario shows what the program teaches should be done, using “emotional intelligence, self-concept and healthy coping skills”: The boy wishes the girl well, asks out someone else, and she accepts.⁷ This reinforces an unhealthy narrative of an expected reward structure, that the reason for basic decency is not based on empathy or humanization but to gain girls’/women’s attention and availability. When that does not happen—when the next girl also says no—boys and men feel unjustly deprived of a reward to which they felt entitled by following the script.

Funders should support organizations embedded in feminist and gender justice frameworks to collaborate on programming that can avoid inadvertently supporting boys’ and men’s entitlement and other such unintentional errors. Countering violent extremism organizations often lack a deep gender justice praxis, so encouraging and supporting collaborations bringing together these areas of expertise can lead to stronger program designs. CVE itself has been a field dominated by men, and funding should support women’s voices, experiences, and expertise as an integral part of shaping programs directed at dealing with the misogyny that impact them.

4. Intervene early and through routine systems to prevent movement along a spectrum of dehumanization and misogyny toward violent extremes.

Misogynist incel ideology and other extreme male supremacist ideologies exist on a continuum, developing from mainstream structures of male supremacy, entitlement, and objectification of women. Given that boys often begin participating in misogynist forums in their teens, effective prevention necessitates interventions starting in childhood that address the roots of misogyny. Tomkinson et al (2020) emphasize routine systems of intervention and suggest that “further education of community workers, police, politicians and teachers to engage with misogyny’s threat to public security would simultaneously solve some of the pitfalls of contemporary responses to gender-based violence more broadly.”⁸

Education initiatives starting in childhood that focus on consent, healthy boundaries, and mutual respect are a significant starting point. Comprehensive sexual education offers a valuable means for delivering such content—and, in the United States, has been targeted by Christian conservatives and replaced in many locales with abstinence-only education that teaches gender stereotypes and victim-blaming. Other subjects also play a role in dehumanizing or humanizing women. The standard English literary canon taught in U.S. schools is dominated by works considered classics written by white men that center only boys/men as protagonists.⁹ Many of these classics perpetuate male entitlement and sympathize with male sexual frustration, ignore consent, and present women as props or fantasies for men, with little contestation from instructors. Updating curricula drawing on a feminist and antiracist perspective to reflect a diversity of characters and authors—expressing the experiences of and humanizing women, along with other excluded populations—can work against sliding into misogynist beliefs.

Much of the funding for CVE goes to deradicalization programs or short-term interventions geared toward preventing at-risk individuals at the eleventh hour from violence. Deplatforming is another popular method that can be effective, but is limited in its ability to prevent the spread of supremacist ideology, and must be combined with offline strategies. We recommend that funders practice longer-term creative thinking and fund diverse social justice organizations working on issues such as comprehensive sexuality education and education justice to shape prevention of ideological violence through structural change.

5. Fund more research and collaborations into male supremacism broadly and protect researchers’ ability to work in the face of threats and doxing.

One of the most-needed resources for combating misogynist violence is dedicated funding to conducting research in this area.¹⁰ More detailed policy proposals, educational curricula, program designs, and other initiatives would follow from greater access to funding. We also recommend that specific funding to support collaborations between organizations and researchers bringing different areas of expertise is necessary for a robust strategy to challenge these ideologies and mobilizations. Given that misogynist violence has only recently been recognized in the CVE and counterterrorism fields, organizations often lack experts who are well versed in issues like violence against women, male supremacy, and misogyny.

While most recent misogynist mass violence has been connected to incel ideology, in 2020 a men’s rights lawyer who also frequented MGTOW forums targeted a federal judge, a Latina woman, killing her adult son, and had a list of other women judges on his intended hitlist.¹¹ Additionally, the fathers’ rights movement has a long history of global violence, including hoax bombings and kidnapping attempts.¹² For funders, offering grants for researching and understanding male supremacism broadly, not just incels, is crucial to addressing gaps that could pose future threats.

In addition, while most tech solutions to misogyny, racism, and other forms of hateful or dehumanization speech have focused on deplatforming perpetrators, we suggest a greater emphasis on preserving the ability of researchers and organizers to share their work in public. Individuals doing research in this area, particularly women, require protections against harassment and doxing (revealing of personal information such as home address and phone number to facilitate threats and in-person harassment) that often accompany this work. Threats to personal security—and the safety of family—act as a deterrent to work in this area, as the harassers intend. We recommend funders set up a pool where any researcher working on misogynist mobilizations and other subjects with a high risk of doxing can apply to receive a grant for digital security services, expanding the work that the Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Rights¹³ already does to support the safety of researchers and activists. Funding should support trainings on digital security for researchers that look at supremacist and violent actors. Tech companies whose platforms facilitate harassment and doxing should contribute to this funding as part of their commitment to protecting free speech.

Even with increased security protections, both the risks of work on male supremacism and the strain of the dehumanizing subject matter itself strain the ability of researchers to do this work. Many researchers, journalists, and activists lack access to therapy and mental health services to help them process the psychological impact of studying misogynist content and violence. Many therapists may not be well equipped themselves to support clients doing this kind of work. We recommend an investment in designing and creating services to support researchers working on these topics, and funding communities and conferences where researchers can support one another.