Using Social Psychology to Prevent Misogynistic Extremist Domestic Terrorism

Note for the reader: I wrote this for a class in my undergraduate in psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies in the summer of 2024. After the terrorist attacks in New Orleans the morning of January 1st, 2025 which happened right outside my home strip club and traumatized many of my former coworkers and friends, I felt compelled to share it here.

Domestic terrorism in the form of mass public shootings has become endemic to contemporary American society. According to the Rockefeller Institute, incidents of mass shootings have steadily increased over the last 50 years (Rockefeller Institute of Government, 2022). While the public struggles to understand the reason for this, citing mental illness, gun control issues, or violence in the media; those tasked professionally with the honor of protecting the American people from such threats have identified a major theme among these terrorists: Misogynistic Extremism.

Misogynistic Extremism is a set of beliefs that includes entitlement to, and simultaneous hatred of, women in general and women’s sexual or romantic attention specifically. Misogynistic extremism is inclusive of the term incels, which is an abbreviation of the term ‘involuntary celibate’, originally coined as ‘invcel’ by a queer Canadian woman to mean a person who would like to be having sex but struggled to find sexual partners (Love Not Anger, 2019). The term was later co-opted by male supremacists and has come to mean men who are unable to sexually access women, they believe, due to their genetically pre-determined unattractiveness (Bates, 2021).

Misogynistic Extremism is also inclusive of red-pill and black-pill theory, the former being the foray of contemporary male supremacist leaders such as Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, and the pick-up artists featured in Neil Strauss’s The Game (2005); who attempt to manipulate and control women in order to get romantic and sexual access to them. Black pill theory is when one accepts the futility of navigating the ‘rigged game’ in which women will reject them for sexual or romantic partnership and instead chose to partner with men who are more attractive (Kersley, A. 2021). The most lauded recourse in these groups, in which depression is quite common, is to opt to commit suicide, but to ‘not go out alone’, and instead take down as many people (specifically women and successful heterosexual couples) as possible in an act of mass violence. This is an homage to the incel patron saint, Elliott Rodger, who wrote a 137-page manifesto that attempted to justify his desire to kill all women and the men they partner with, before going on a murder spree in Isla Vista where he stabbed and shot six people to death. It is important to note that this ideology is often intersectional, with strong overlaps in other far right extremist beliefs, inclusive of the great replacement theory—that belief that white people, though superior, are being bred out by minorities (Faehrmann & Zech 2023).

The Overlap Between Misogynist Extremism and Domestic Terrorism

Terrorist violence is unique when compared to other acts of violence, in that it intends to “primarily attack noncombatant populations and exploit the psychological impact of these attacks in their efforts to bring about change to the current political system” or to accomplish a desired societal order (Kupper, 2022). In addition to the unique intentionality of their acts of violence, terrorists are unique in that there acts of violence are usually preceded by a period of indoctrination and radicalization. For Misogynist extremists, this usually occurs over the internet in incel chatrooms. “Almost 1,000 references to dehumanizing misogyny or violent action are recorded each day in the incelosphere as the toxicity of male supremacist content continues to intensify (Townsend, 2022). Obviously, having fringe beliefs, inclusive of the idea that “sex is their inherent birthright as men, and that rape and murder are appropriate punishments for a society they perceive as withholding sex from them (Bates, 2021)”, is not evidence enough to arrest someone for terrorism. However, calls for acts of violence, inclusive of rape and mass civilian slaughter, are common on the forums.

As a result, many government groups charged with protecting the American public have come forward to identify that male supremacist ideologies may be a key indicator in profiling domestic terrorists. According to the Domestic Terrorism Strategic Report of 2022, co-published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security, “We assess that involuntary celibate violent extremists (IVEs) pose a persistent threat of violence against women, heterosexual couples, and others perceived as successful in sexual or romantic pursuits” (p. 44). Since the Isla Vista killings, as many as 52 people have been killed by self-identified incels in domestic shooting sprees. According to John Horgan, a deradicalization expert at Georgia State University, there is evidence to suggest the misogynistic extremism trend toward terrorist violence is growing. “Incel-inspired violence is a threat to public safety. So we have no choice but to take it seriously.” (Kersley, 2021).

Interventions and Preventions

Male extremist violent terrorists tend to leave a significant trail, often years or months long, usually deliberately stating their intentions both verbally and in public online forums. Additionally, their behavior is not isolated to their online communities, and tends to predictably raise concern in those who encounter them well before they enact large-scale violence. An example of this is the first incel who was arrested for a hate crime before he was able to enact his terrorism plan, Tres Genco of Ohio. Genco was found out before he could enact his plan because his mother called the police after he had threatened her, and they took her seriously when she said that he had become increasingly aggressive. Because they headed her warnings, the police searched his home and car, finding his manifesto and the armory he had collected to enact his plan to murder women on a college campus.

According to the US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, “attackers tend to demonstrate observable concerning behavior across a variety of community systems, which often elicits concern in bystanders before violence occurs. This case study (the 2018 Tallahassee Hot Yoga Studio Massacre) describes how the attacker’s misogynistic views and associated behaviors resulted in him being fired from multiple jobs, banned from public locations, and being arrested” (United States Secret Service, 2022). In both instances, it becomes clear that those who witness such casus belli would be smart to report it, and that authorities have an obligation to take these warning signs seriously.

The Role of the Community and the Bystander Effect

In our text The Social Animal (Aronson & Aronson, 2018), the authors addressed a theory of the diffusion of responsibility (p. 134), in which if multiple witnesses are present to an emergency, individuals may feel less obligation to intervene than had they witnessed the situation alone. This is in part due to the social psychological phenomenon of conformity, in which due to the bystander effect (p. 134), “the mere presence of another bystander tends to inhibit action”. This may account for why Greco’s mother was willing to alert the police to her son’s dangerous behavior, but those who worked with the Tallahassee shooter did not.

Increasing and appealing to the idea of personal responsibility to report misogynistic extremist threats of violence may be beneficial in arresting potential terrorists before they are able to enact their hate crimes. In America, where hyper-individuality is a prized social conceit, I propose that a public campaign encouraging people to report misogynistic extremists’ violent rhetoric under the umbrella of “see something, say something” would be beneficial. Appealing to the individual ideal of heroism, or ‘being a hero’, by framing reporting as pro-social, altruistic, and heroic could be most effective in helping create social awareness and a feeling of public responsibility in stopping terrorism before it occurs.

The Role of the Police

Additionally, local police will need to be educated about the relationship between specific forms of criminality and misogynistic extremist terrorism. Currently, police are likely to investigate only one in five cases of domestic violence, and only three of five investigated will result in arrest. Unfortunately, “in more than two-thirds (68.2%) of mass shootings analyzed, the perpetrator either killed family or intimate partners or the shooter had a history of domestic violence” (Geller et al., 2021). Perhaps if local police departments were educated by federal law enforcement on this correlation, they would take accusations of domestic violence more seriously.

There are deradicalization interventions that exist with some level of success that may be effective in helping misogynistic extremists move away from their fringe beliefs before enacting violence. For most incel dropouts, this involves a level of engaging with the pluralistic world: entering the workforce or school, and forming relationships with people who share different worldviews (Kersley, 2021). There is also an argument to be made for educational programming that humanizes women in the eyes of the public to combat the idea that they are sexual service providers and objects.

Frankly, I am less interested in using limited government resources to reform inherently anti-social ideological extremists than in preventing their hate-fueled acts from occurring. Fringe beliefs will always arise in historically privileged groups who suddenly find themselves less favored as they attempt to ‘right’ ever-shifting cultural power dynamics in their favor. For this reason, I favor a dual prong approach to fighting misogynistic extremist violence: targeting the diffusion of responsibility effect of conformity as outlined in our social psychology course this summer (namely through appealing to cultural fantasies around individual heroism); and educating local law enforcement on what federal law enforcement already knows: that violent criminality (specifically domestic violence) and incel beliefs are often correlated with future acts of terrorism.

References

Bates, L. (2021. August 11). The Incel Movement is a form of extremism and it cannot be ignored any longer. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/17/incel-movement-extremism-internet-community-misogyny

Federal Beaureau of Investigation & Department of Homeland Security. (May 2021). Strategic intelligence sssessment and data on domestic terrorism.

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/fbi-dhs-domestic-terrorism-strategic-report.pdf/view

Faehrmann, A. & Zech, S. (2023). The great replacement in the Manosphere: Implications for terrorism. https://gnet-research.org/2023/11/30/the-great-replacement-in-the-manosphere-implications-for-terrorism/

Fugardi, R. (2024, March 1). First misogynist incel sentenced on federal hate crime charges. The Southern Poverty Law Center. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2024/03/01/first-misogynist-incel-sentenced-federal-hate-crime-charges

Geller, L. B., Booty, M., Crifasi, C. K. (2021). The role of domestic violence in fatal mass shootings in the United States, 2014–2019. Injury Epidemiology. 8(28). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0

Kersley, A. (2021, October 23). How do you deradicalize an incel? Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/how-do-you-deradicalise-an-incel/

Kupper, Julia. (2022, May 5). Preventing attacks using targeted violence manifestos. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. https://leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/preventing-attacks-using-targeted-violence-manifestos

Lankford, A. & Silva, J. R. Sexually frustrated mass shooters: A study of perpetrators, profiles, behaviors, and victims. Sage Journals. 28(2).
https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767922110697

Love, Not Anger: Beyond Involuntary Celibacy (2019). About. https://www.lovenotanger.org/about/

McCain Institute. (n.d.). The threat landscape: Incel and misogynist violent extremism. https://www.mccaininstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/incel-and-misogynist-violent-extremism-read-ahead-materials-august-2.pdf

O’Toole, M. E. (2000). The school shooter: A threat assessment perspective. US Department of Justice & Federal Bureau of Investigation. file:///Users/admin/Downloads/school_shooter.pdf

Rockefeller Institute of Government. Mass shooting factsheet. https://rockinst.org/gun-violence/mass-shooting-factsheet/

Schildkraut, J., Formica, M. K., Malatras, J. (2018, May 22). Can mass shootings be stopped? The Rockefeller Institute of Government. https://rockinst.org/issue-area/can-mass-shootings-be-stopped/

Strauss, N. (2005). The game: Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists. ReganBooks.

Townsend, M. (2022, October 30). Experts fear rising global ‘incel’ culture could provoke terrorism. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/30/global-incel-culture-terrorism-misogyny-violent-action-forums

United States Attorney’s Office, State Department of New York. (2021, December 15). Peekskill man who identifies as an “incel” or “involuntary celibate” pleaded guilty to stalking multiple victims [Press release]. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/peekskill-man-who-identifies-incel-or-involuntary-celibate-pleads-guilty-stalking

United States Secret Service. (2022, March 15). Hot Yoga Tallahassee: A Case Study of Misogynistic Extremism. https://www.secretservice.gov/newsroom/releases/2022/03/secret-services-latest-research-highlights-mass-violence-motived-misogyny