Want to stop political violence? Start by addressing hostile sexism

When Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were assassinated in their home in June, the media widely reported it as an attack on progressive politicians. And it was, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, one of the nation’s leading experts in violence and extremism, said to a D.C. crowd last weekend. But much of the coverage left out a crucial aspect. 

“They were progressive about gender issues, right? It was about reproductive rights and LGBTQ issues. So let’s talk about the gender part of that, not just the progressive part of that,” she said. 

The man charged in Hortman’s shooting also had abortion providers and proponents of abortion rights on his list. As part of an evangelical ministry, he preached against abortion rights and condemned LGBTQ+ people.

Gender studies scholars and experts on domestic violence have long known that gender-based bigotry is a gateway to violent extremism. It’s time for national security officials to catch up, says Miller-Idriss, founding director at the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University.

The link is ignored, over and over: No threat models account for misogyny or gender-based bigotry. In 2018, the FBI released a paper detailing concerning behaviors of active shooters before their attack. Across a list of 22 warning signs, nothing related to gender is mentioned. A year later, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence classified violent domestic extremism into three broad categories: identity-based, anti-government and “other.” Misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ violence were shunted into a catch-all group.

“Violence that is rooted in gendered issues is a huge predictor of — and possibly the biggest predictor, in some studies — of trajectories that lead to mass violence,” Miller-Idriss told The 19th. “Over half of mass shooters are targeting a partner.”

Miller-Idriss argues that intimate partner violence and acts of violent extremism are on the same spectrum of violence. She wants security researchers to include domestic violence, antifeminist rhetoric and misogynistic attitudes in their threat models.

Miller-Idriss has been researching violent extremism for much of her career, first in Germany then the United States. Her lab partners with educators, pastors and parents to “inoculate” kids against online radicalization and researches pipelines that lead to extreme acts of violence. 

Miller-Idriss’ new book, “Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism,” published Tuesday by Princeton University Press, brings together research across academic disciplines showing how misogyny surfaces in the history of violent extremists time and again.

She takes a broad view of misogyny, including anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs, writing that it is “the hostile enforcement of patriarchal norms and expectations.”

Attitudes about gender roles or sexualities are often not the primary motivator in domestic violent extremism. Instead, they are frequently part of a foundation that pushes someone down the path to radicalization: The 18-year-old who shot up a Buffalo supermarket in 2022, killing 10 Black people, lamented falling White birth rates in his manifesto. The 21-year-old white supremacist who killed nine Black churchgoers in 2015 accused them of raping White women before shooting. 

A study of fatal mass shootings, incidents in which four or more people were killed, from 2014 to 2019 found 59 percent were domestic violence. In 68 percent of cases, the shooter was committing or had a history of domestic violence. Fewer victims survive mass shootings tied to domestic violence than ones where that dynamic isn’t present. 

The pervasiveness of gender inequality is part of the reason misogyny has been overlooked as a factor in extremism, Miller-Idriss said. “Most people are going to experience gender divides in their life at some point, right? It’s a huge dividing line. So people experience it across the board. It’s uncomfortable because they might be complicit.”

A lack of incentives for law enforcement to document crimes related to misogyny also contributes to the problem being invisible in national security contexts. Sometimes, the gender-based crimes are more overt but hate groups aren’t charged with them because they tend to be trickier to prosecute. This results in a dearth of data, hiding how common these types of behavior are among extremist groups. 

At the institutional level, domestic violence and violent extremism are siloed into different departments — and in the case of the government, separate bureaus. It’s partially why Miller-Idriss began honing in on gender later in her career: “In our field, my side of the field, literally, domestic violence is handled by the Department of Justice, and it’s seen as a local interpersonal issue, and mass violence is handled by the Department of Homeland Security, and it’s seen as a national security issue.”

Miller-Idriss wants to see misogyny integrated into threat models used in national security — for example, included in a list of concerning behaviors. She also wants state attorneys general to create a sex trafficking enhancement charge, so extremist groups can be held accountable for gender-based violence in drug or arms trafficking cases. 

But everyone can do their part to stop the cycle of political violence and violent extremism by addressing hostile sexism in their communities. Talking to kids about their online lives and the messages about gender they are receiving from media and their peers can help boost resilience to harmful narratives or scapegoating. 

PERIL has created resource kits for parents, educators, coaches and faith leaders to help battle radicalization and gender-based bigotry among youth. Talk to kids about “gendered grievance narratives and propaganda that comes across their phones,” Miller-Idriss said, “so they recognize and reject it when they see it.”

And in the words of young people she’s interviewed, “just don’t make it preachy.”