We’re All Terrorists Now
Make no mistake: our governments want to outlaw dissent from feminism
Janice Fiamengo, Sep 01, 2024
One can sense the beginning of a joke: a radical feminist (barrister Charlotte Proudman), a men’s advocate (Ally Fogg of the Men and Boys Coalition), and a professor who studies the manosphere (cyber threat specialist Joe Whittaker) walk into a BBC studio to discuss the UK government’s announced plan to tackle misogyny (BBC Sounds, “Should some forms of misogyny be classed as extremism?”). The joke is that no real debate occurs, despite Fogg’s contention that boys and men are as much victims as victimizers. Overall, the three agree that extreme misogyny is a “serious” “pervasive” problem, that it is prevalent throughout online men’s discussions (in the so-called “manosphere”), and that boys and men must be educated out of any tendency to direct anger at women or feminism.
Inch by feminist inch, what was once a convenient exaggeration (that criticism of feminism and non-feminist men’s discussion are misogynistic) has become the only allowable view.
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No one who has been paying attention should be surprised. According to a report in The Telegraph, the UK’s revamped counter-terror strategy will likely address “extreme misogyny” as one of a number of “emerging ideologies” that “promote violence” and “undermine democracy.” The strategy will make it mandatory for teachers to refer pupils suspected of such misogyny to counter-terror officials; and will draw an equivalence between recruiters for Islamist bombings and influencers such as Andrew Tate. While details are as yet vague, the purpose seems undeniable: to (further) politicize any and all violence against women as an expression of woman-hating (an idea already embedded in terminology such as femicide and gender-based violence), and to stigmatize critics of feminism as potential threats to national security.
There is no reason to believe the UK plan will differ from efforts in other parts of the English-speaking world to link anti-feminism to political violence. Canadian legislation already defines incel violence as a form of terrorism; and Canadian authorities have prosecuted a knife attack at a massage parlor under the new law. A recent report by academics at the University of Melbourne alleges that “misogynistic beliefs” are a “significant predictor of most forms of violent extremism.” The US Prevention Practitioners Network provides a detailed outline of the alleged relationship between political violence and manosphere internet content.
Notable in all these initiatives is a revised definition of terrorism. Terrorism was once understood as the use of violence to achieve a political end through tactics of intimidation, and a terrorist was someone who advocated, supported, and carried out such violence. Now officials speak of violent extremism rather than terrorism, and shift the emphasis from extremist violence to extremism. According to this definition, an extremist may be someone who argues that men should avoid marriage; or believes there are significant differences between men and women. An anguished, bullied loner like Marc Lépine is transformed under this view into an aggrieved revolutionary with a political agenda. Even a twelve-year-old boy who asks his teacher “What color is your Bugatti” (an Andrew Tate meme), laughs with mates at a school video on same-sex relationships, or has prepared answers (now called “hate scripts”) for his teacher’s feminism is seen as at risk for “radicalization.”
