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PROMPT 1: Question/Prompt(s): How do white nationalist and right-wing populists recruit, retain and mobilize their members? Your essay should incorporate the film: “Skin”, (screened in class), and all four of the required readings from 1/29 (Minkowitz, Blee, Kelly & Wilson). (attached)PROMPT 2: How do varying white right movements and organizations conceive of gender? What are some of the ways in which femininity and masculinity are practiced? Your discussion should utilize at least 4 of the 5 required readings from 2/5 (Spierings et al, Love, Sunderland, Perry & Whitehead, and Mikkelson & Kornfield). For written assignments, please use double-spacing, 12-point font, and insert page numbers. When citing materials, you may use any academic citation style MLA.
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Terrorism and Political Violence
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftpv20
Nostalgia, Entitlement and Victimhood: The
Synergy of White Genocide and Misogyny
Chris Wilson
To cite this article: Chris Wilson (2020): Nostalgia, Entitlement and Victimhood: The
Synergy of White Genocide and Misogyny, Terrorism and Political Violence, DOI:
10.1080/09546553.2020.1839428
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2020.1839428
Published online: 02 Nov 2020.
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TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2020.1839428
Nostalgia, Entitlement and Victimhood: The Synergy of White
Genocide and Misogyny
Chris Wilson
Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
Western countries are experiencing a wave of violent attacks against places
of worship, stores, schools and other crowded locations. The perpetrators of
these attacks explain their actions as necessary to stem an “invasion” of
immigrants which threatens the very existence of the white race. At the
same time, many of the same countries have experienced very similar attacks
motivated by a particularly contemporary form of misogyny. Known as incels,
an abbreviation of involuntary celibate, young men in this community
believe they are denied sexual partners by feminism and societal norms of
male attractiveness. These two series of attacks are generally understood to
be separate (if overlapping) forms of extremism. In this article I contend that
the concept of white genocide central to white nationalism and misogynistic
incelism are more intertwined than it appears. Misogyny and the notion of
white genocide are mutually escalatory. Rather than separate and comple
mentary forms of extremism, the two ideologies converge to create a single
more volatile worldview, one which makes its proponents more prone to the
use of violence. Misogyny and white genocide are synergistic, their effect
greater than the sum of their parts.
White genocide; white
nationalism; incels;
misogyny; terrorism
Introduction
Western countries are currently experiencing a wave of ideologically inspired violent attacks against
places of worship, stores, schools and other crowded locations. Attacks in Trollhattan, Sweden,
Christchurch, New Zealand, Pittsburgh and El Paso in the United States, Hanau and Halle in
Germany, Oslo, Toronto and many other locations have taken the lives of dozens of victims. The
perpetrators of these attacks have all explained their actions as necessary to stem an ‘invasion’ of
immigrants which threatens the very existence of the white race.1 This notion that white European
societies and cultures face an existential threat is referred to by the term white genocide, an idea with
a long historical provenance.
At the same time, many of the same countries have experienced very similar attacks motivated by
a particularly contemporary form of misogyny. Known as incels, an abbreviation of involuntary
celibate, young men in this community believe they are denied sexual partners by a combination of
feminism and their own inability to meet societal norms of male attractiveness.2 Attacks motivated by
this ideology have been as deadly as those conducted in the name of white nationalism, killing
approximately fifty people in Toronto, Arizona, Tallahassee and Parkland, Florida and Isla Vista,
California, and elsewhere. Illustrating the severity of this threat, in May 2020, Canadian police stated
they were bringing terrorism charges against a man who attacked a Toronto massage parlor and who
identified as an incel.3 Indeed, all of these attacks meet the definition of terrorism—violence against
civilians to disseminate a political message beyond the victims themselves—whether or not local laws
identify them as such.
CONTACT Chris Wilson
© 2020 Taylor & Francis
[email protected]
University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand.
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C. WILSON
These two contemporary series of attacks are generally understood to be motivated by separate (if
overlapping) forms of extremism.4 For example, one author contends that male supremacism does not
fit into a schema of three main types of right-wing extremism in the United States: racist extremism,
nativist extremism, and anti-government extremism.5 He writes that while others have documented
the “many links between forms of white supremacy . . . and male supremacy” in fact “some of the most
prominent forms of male supremacy (such as the ‘incels’) are not right wing but are best understood as
their own form of extremism.”6
In this article, I demonstrate that the concept of white genocide central to white nationalism7 and
misogynistic incelism are in fact more similar than they appear. While other studies have demon
strated the overlapping nature of misogyny and white nationalism more generally,8 and indeed the
role of misogyny in other forms of extremism such as jihadism,9 in this paper I focus on the close
connection between misogyny and the notion of white genocide, currently the most important—and
dangerous—aspect of white nationalism.10 I contend that misogyny (more recently manifest as
incelism) and the notion of white genocide are mutually escalatory. The two ideologies are not merely
complementary and overlapping, but interact to create a more volatile worldview, one which makes its
proponents more prone to the use of violence. Misogyny and white genocide are synergistic, their
effect greater than the sum of their parts.
As I will demonstrate, some of the most central themes of the notion of white genocide relate
directly to male supremacism and misogyny—the damage caused by feminism, women’s economic
and sexual independence, miscegenation (interracial sexual relations), and falling birth rates. As the
Christchurch terrorist began his manifesto, “It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates.”
Many white nationalists are deeply misogynistic, some advocating for a return to more traditional
gender roles, while others call for the execution of women who betray the race by entering relation
ships with nonwhite men. For their part, many incels express fury and frustration at the encroachment
of nonwhite men into the pool of potential female partners to which they believe they should be
entitled. The links between white nationalism and misogyny are longstanding, stretching back to some
of the earliest white supremacist movements.11 Both movements also vilify some white males, whether
for intermarrying with outgroups or the “obnoxious brutes” (so-called Chads) which Elliott Rodger
claimed were so attractive to women that they denied incels of any opportunity of female partners. But
it is a disdain for women, and a desire to “police and enforce women’s subordination and to uphold
male dominance,”12 which links these movements and, I contend, increases the potential for violence.
The paper is divided into three parts. The following section examines the nature and history of the
idea of white genocide, a key ideological component of white nationalism. While I briefly flag the role
of misogyny at some places in this section, I focus primarily on the historical provenance and
transnational nature of the white genocide theory and its centrality to white nationalism. The
following section then turns more explicitly to the role played by misogyny within white nationalism
and the concept of white genocide. The section examines the importance of misogyny in past white
supremacism as well as in the contemporary incel movement. In the final section, I discuss recent cases
of mass casualty attacks to demonstrate that a contemporary form of racist misogyny is generating
a wave of violence by predominantly white males.
White genocide
A claimed threat to the sustainability of the white race, variously termed white genocide, or (the more
publicly palatable) ethnic or demographic replacement, is among the most core elements of white
nationalist ideology. Various versions of this theory depict an intentional plan to destroy the race,
often by nefarious “globalist” forces with the assistance of liberals and nonwhites, or an inadvertent
failure to protect national borders. The notion of white genocide unites otherwise different white
nationalist groups such as neo-Nazi and neo-fascist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and racist organiza
tions. Many contemporary proponents of the theory of white genocide deny that they are race
“supremacists,” instead emphasizing their respect for “diversity” and the right of all races to exist in
TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
3
their own “homelands.” In reality of course, many white nationalists who point to the threat of
extinction of the white race also see their own group as more advanced than all others.13 Indeed, this
partly explains the emotional valence of the concept: the perceived threat of elimination becomes more
disturbing when it emanates from those seen as inferior.14
Claims of an “existential” threat also fulfill an instrumental purpose. By their very nature
existential threats demand attention and allow movements to attract recruits and resources.
Framing a clash of cultures in defensive (rather than offensive) terms reduces public stigma,
increases the legitimacy of the movement and the likelihood of recruitment into the organization.
Internally, such a frame helps overcome the collective action problem and stimulates action on the
part of its members. When an alien force is perceived as not only hostile but threatening the very
way of life or existence of one’s group, then conflict appears irresolvable and an extreme response is
required immediately.
The key perceived threat to the white race has long been external: the mass immigration of people
of color. Throughout the twentieth century, white nationalist nativists advanced the idea of an
“invasion” or “flood” of criminal and unclean colored peoples threatening the sanctity and progres
siveness of Western society.15 For many American white nationalists, a key watershed in the grave
threat to the white race in the United States was the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act which
greatly increased non-European immigration.16
By the 1970s, the notion of white genocide was widespread among American white nationalists.
Kevan Feshami notes an early reference to the term in the magazine White Power, the publication of
the American National Socialist White People’s Party.17 David Lane would promote the idea over the
next two decades beginning with a 1979 pamphlet, “The Death of the White Race.”18 By the 1970s and
80s, American Nazi and other white nationalist organizations saw the survival of the white race as
dependent on the elimination, expulsion or segregation of other inferior races.19 Territorial and racial
purity was paramount for these groups.20
The notion of white genocide has been prevalent on both sides of the Atlantic. Similar ideas were
advanced in Europe, particularly France. A series of fictional depictions of a threat to the white race
have been influential on white nationalism since the 1970s. French writer Jean Raspail’s 1973
dystopian thriller The Camp of the Saints told the story of the destruction of Western civilization by
a wave of mass immigration. As he wrote in the preface to a later edition, “The proliferation of
other races dooms our race, my race, irretrievably to extinction in the century to come, if we hold
fast to our present moral principles.”21 Although largely ignored in mainstream circles for a decade,
the book became one of the key texts for the white nationalist movement. The Southern Poverty
Law Center writes that the American white nationalist Social Contract Press “plucked the 1973
book from relative obscurity and distributed it in the United States.”22 In the past decade it has
roared into prominence on both sides of the Atlantic, openly read and discussed by White House
adviser Stephen Miller, former adviser Steve Bannon, and French presidential candidate Marine Le
Pen.23
More recently, the French author Renaud Camus’ 2010 book The Great Replacement became the
text most referenced by those white nationalists concerned about the elimination of the white race.
Camus argues that through a process of “reverse colonization,” all Western countries are faced with
“ethnic and civilizational substitution.”24 By around 2010, a younger generation of French men called
for more revolutionary action to protect French and European culture from extinction. Referring to
themselves as Bloc Identitaire or Generation Identitaire (known internationally as the Identitarian
Movement), leaders stated that the “central question of our century is the right of peoples to selfpreservation.”25 Beginning in France (with a precursor in the Italian CasaPound), this movement was
explicitly transnational, with connected organizations in Austria, Italy, Czech Republic and other
countries asserting a European rather than national identity, and calling for the need for a united front
against immigration, globalism and other forces which pose a grave risk to the sustainability of that
identity.26 The Austrian Identitarian Movement (Identitare Bewegung) referred to the “last genera
tion” which could take action to save European culture.27
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Misogyny
While immigration is key to the notion of white genocide, the sense of existential threat to the white
race also emanates from within. White nationalists point to degeneracy, homosexuality, miscegenation
and the denigration of masculinity and traditional values as weakening the white nation, making it less
capable of or willing to resist the threat posed by racial others. Women not constrained by traditional
gender roles, and the feminist ideology which encourages them, are the source of these dangers. As
a result, white nationalism has long been highly misogynistic, notwithstanding the involvement of
many women in the movement.28 In this section, I advance my argument that misogyny (and the
related ideology of incelism) and the notion of white genocide are in fact mutually escalatory. The two
are not simply related ideologies but together, create a single more volatile worldview, one which
makes its proponents more prone to the use of violence.
The white nationalist and misogynistic worldviews have much in common. Both are ideologies of
nostalgia, idealizing a past in which women and ethnic minorities were subservient to white males.
Both misogyny and the notion of white genocide and other nationalist ideologies are extreme
manifestations of more widespread structures of sexism and racism within society. These ideas have
become radicalized in extremist communities both online and offline, with both ideological frame
works having extensive potential to motivate violence, as discussed further below. The perpetrators of
mass killings inspired by white genocide and misogyny share the same rage and self-pity, often
blaming society for their personal failures. The rest of this section focuses on three key issues in
which misogyny informs and exacerbates fears of the end of the white race: birth rates and demo
graphic change; “race mixing” and miscegenation; and masculinity and the protection of white women
from “invaders.”
Birth rates and demography
Central to white nationalists’ fears of the impending destruction of the white race are declining
European populations in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. For many white nationalists,
a reduction in white reproduction rates becomes more threatening when compared to the much
higher rate among nonwhite populations. Many point to rapid population growth in Africa, the
Middle East, Latin America and Asia and among immigrant populations in the West. Declining white
birth rates and immigration are therefore key to the concept of white genocide. Yet they are not merely
two sides of a single coin which threaten the white race and culture. Combined, they have an effect
greater than the sum of their parts, each threatening the race more in the light of the other.
The earliest reference to the term white genocide within nationalist circles directly addressed the
threat of declining birth rates. A 1972 article entitled “Over-Population Myth is Cover for White
Genocide,” published in the American National Socialist White People’s Party’s White Power maga
zine, railed against white women’s acceptance of birth control while nonwhite countries continued to
breed at pace.29 These concerns over failing reproduction rates have remained central to white
nationalism in both the United States and Europe. For the Identitarians for example, “the seriousness
of the demographic challenge currently faced by flesh-and-blood Europeans, in fact—a combination of
falling birth rates, a rapidly aging population, a rising age at first marriage, delayed childbearing, and
a massive decades-long influx of non-European peoples—is of such magnitude as to generate
a pervasive, existential despair.”30
Unsurprisingly therefore, opposition to (white) abortion has long been central to the white
nationalist cause.31 Many white nationalists claim that white women disproportionately receive
abortions, while minorities continue to produce large numbers of children. Such claims are not
new. In nineteenth century America, nativists associated abortion with the Catholic threat to Anglo
Saxon dominance. In 1868, the anti-abortion campaigner Horatio Storer implored Anglo Saxon
women that “upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.”32 Contemporary white
nationalists continue to rail against high rates of (white) abortion as a grave threat to European
TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
5
demographic majorities.33 White nationalist leaders urge their followers to impregnate their partners.
In June 20120, Andrew Anglin, the neo-Nazi founder of the Daily Stormer website, told his readers,
“by hook or by crook . . . Google when she’s most fertile, seduce her and tell her you’ll pull out and
don’t.”34
Contemporary white nationalist terrorists place declining birth rates at the heart of their motive for
action. The Christchurch terrorist, Brenton Tarrant, began his manifesto with the words “It’s the
birthrates, It’s the birthrates, It’s the birthrates.” Mimicking Tarrant, Stephan Bailliet, who attacked
a synagogue and a kebab shop in Halle, Germany, livestreamed his attack. Illustrating the mutually
constitutive nature of ideas of white genocide and misogyny, he blamed feminism for low birth rates in
the West which in turn had increased the need for immigration.35 In one document written in English
rather than his native German, he called for “discontent white men” to murder Jews, nonwhites
communists and traitors.36
Miscegenation
White nationalists depict white women as either breeders for the race or traitors to it by failing to
reproduce, or by doing so with nonwhite men.37 Many see interracial relationships as a substantial
threat to the white race and key to the threat of white genocide. As Abby Ferber writes, “White
supremacist discourse asserts that this genocidal plan is being carried out through forced race-mixing,
which will result in the mongrelization and therefore the annihilation of the white race.”38
The trope of the foreign man defiling white women, and the latter acting as traitors to the race by
choosing nonwhite partners, has been central to European racist discourse since the time of Shakespeare
and to more explicit white nationalism since the Ku Klux Klan of the nineteenth century. Many nationalists
of the early twentieth century saw miscegenation as a key threat to the race, many pointing to the supposed
weakness of “half breed” races.39 Further illustrating the link between the issues of interracial mixing and
white nationalism, the term cuck, which is derived from cuckoldry and is now used by white nationalists to
refer to effeminate conservatives who are soft on immigration and feminism, reflects this notion. The term
itself has its origins in racism, with the earliest references often made to the indignity of one’s wife sleeping
with a virile black (or in Shakespeare’s case, “Muhammaden”) man.
This theme has been common in white nationalist fiction. The 1978 dystopian novel The Turner
Diaries by American William Pierce has been perhaps the most influential work for the American
white nationalist movement. The book is also highly misogynistic and consumed with miscegenation
and female race betrayal. It tells the story of a white supremacist terrorist group, The Order, which
leads a campaign to overthrow a Jewish-run system. In a climactic genocide of nonwhites, on what
Pierce calls “The Day of The Rope,” The Order kills thousands of white women who are guilty of
interracial relationships and are thereby endangering the sustainability of the white race. Describing
this imagined day of retribution, Pierce wrote, “There are many thousands of hanging female corpses
like that in this city tonight, all wearing identical placards around their necks. They are the White
women who were married to or living with Blacks, with Jews, or with other non-White males.”40
Authorities have tied the book to at least 200 murders since its publication,41 including Timothy
McVeigh, who, after his attack on the Oklahoma City government building, was found in possession
of several pages of the book.
Masculinity and the protection of white women
Given the centrality of white women to white genocide it is unsurprising that their defense is central to
white nationalist discourse. The movement’s propaganda and imagery often depicts (as in Brenton
Tarrant’s manifesto) muscular men in martial pose defending beautiful and domesticated wives and
children. These gendered roles are therefore central to the movement’s struggle against white genocide:
white woman’s role is to ensure the reproduction of the race, white men will defend them as they do so.
As Ferber writes, “the protection of white womanhood comes to symbolize the protection of the race.”42
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White nationalist chat rooms such as Stormfront are consistently full of discussions of the threat of
sexual violence posed to white women by men of color and Jews.43 The neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin wrote
in June 2020 that men should not hold their babies, and instead tell their partners that they would be
“guarding the door with a gun to keep the rioting blacks from kicking it in and raping her and slitting
her throat.”44 Individuals associated with the extremist Phineas Priesthood movement used violence
against abortion facilities and mixed-race couples as a way of enforcing God’s laws.45
Nativist politicians, organizations and perpetrators of violence against migrants have also regularly
referred to the threat of sexual violence by “savage” migrant males as a way of highlighting the dangers
of uncontrolled immigration of different races. Donald Trump made similar claims a key part of his
2016 election campaign, referring to Mexican “rapists.” Similarly, when Hungarian Prime Minister,
Viktor Orban announced increased benefits for those native families which have more children, he
stated that “immigration brings increased crime, especially crimes against women.”46 As will be
discussed below, Brenton Tarrant wrote in his manifesto of “The Rape of European Women (by)
Invaders” and of his anger at the murder of a schoolgirl in Scandinavia.
Exacerbating the fear of many white nationalists is a decline in the vigor and masculinity of the
white race which renders its men incapable of defending it. In his manifesto, Breivik writes that “When
I was younger and a lot more ignorant I used to ask . . . what’s wrong with the European modern man?
Why doesn’t he rise up against the multiculturalist elites and at least attempt to inflict some damage or
contribute to seize power on behalf of himself, his family and his people (to resist the elites’) attempts
to completely demographically reshape Europe.”47 After analyzing Breivik’s manifesto, Lucken writes
that he saw his violence as an effort to jump start a defensive war against the elites, Islam and to
reassert a “besieged European (white) masculinity.”48
As a counter to this need to protect the women of the race, white nationalists have portrayed women
and feminism as responsible for a decline in masculinity. These claims have a long history in the
movement. The 1893 book Might is Right (or Survival of the Fittest: Or the Philosophy of Power) written
under the pseudonym Ragnar Redbeard, which has been influential among present day white national
ists, is also deeply misogynistic. In a chapter titled “The Chief End of Manhood,” the author, New
Zealander Arthur Desmond writes, a woman “must be held in thorough subjection,” because she is “twothirds womb. The other third is a network of nerves and sentimentality.”49 The book has remained in
print for more than a century because of its popularity among anarchists, Satanists, and white
nationalists.50 “Racist, misogynist, and full of praise for authoritarianism, Might is Right quickly became
the catch cry of reactionary movements.”51 The book was closely linked to the main ideologues of the
white genocide theory. Katja Lane, the wife of leading white nationalist ideologue David Lane discussed
above, edited the centenary edition of Might is Right, and promoted by another Tom Metzger, the
founder of White Aryan Resistance.52 The book is widely disseminated in PDF or audio formats on
8chan, Youtube and other white nationalist platforms. As discussed below, the perpetrator of the attack
killing three people at the Gilroy Garlic Festival urged his followers to read the book.
More recently, the Turner Diaries, one of the most influential books in the white nationalist
movement, made a similar claim, again encapsulating the symbiotic relationship between a threat to
the white race from ethnic others and misogyny. In one diatribe, the protagonist Tuner writes:
“The corruption of our people by the Jewish-liberal-democratic-equalitarian plague . . . is more clearly manifested
in our soft-mindedness . . . Liberalism is an essentially feminine, submissive worldview . . .. It is the worldview of
men who do not have the moral toughness . . . to stand up and do single combat with life . . .. Decade after decade
the race problem in America has become worse. But the majority of those who wanted a solution, who wanted to
preserve a white America, were never able to screw up the courage to look the obvious solutions in the face.”
Incelism
In recent years, a largely online community of young males has referred to itself as Involuntary
Celibate, or Incels. These men perceive themselves as sexual outcasts, unable to attract a girlfriend or
TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
7
wife because of their unattractiveness and societal norms which favor alpha males (so called “Chads”).
Ultimately, their failure to attract a mate results from decades of women’s empowerment and freedom,
and the decline of traditional ways of life, both caused by the rise of feminism. Incelism derived from
the so-called Manosphere, a collection of anti-feminist and men’s rights activists. The anonymity of
the internet led to increasingly hateful and provocative language.53 Incels are hostile toward so-called
Stacys, the attractive and unattainable women who date only handsome Alpha males (known as
Chads). Yet they reserve their most intense anger for those women they see as past their prime or not
stereotypically beautiful, women they refer to as Beckys. According to incels, these women should
accept less attractive white men such as themselves.
Incelism is therefore contradictory: it is highly misogynistic yet differentiated from the toxic
masculinity which occupies a much broader and influential space in society. With their Beta sensi
bilities and self-deprecating rhetoric, and their sedentary, indoor lifestyles, disdain for sport and
occasional acceptance of bisexuality, incels position themselves as outside the masculine norm.54
Their frequent abandonment of any hopes of employment and marriage also distinguish incels from
the broader conservative movement.
There is however, a great deal of overlap between incels and white nationalism. Men’s rights blogs
often advanced the same notions as the white nationalists discussed above. In 2017, Angela Nagle
summarized the message of one now defunct blog: “women’s . . . freedom is leading to civilizational
collapse” and that “white civilization is being destroyed by miscegenation, immigration and low white
female birth rates owing to feminism.”55
The language of incelism is common among white nationalist groups, particularly online where
men joke about rape, vent their suspicion of false rape accusations and discuss women in degrading
and violent terms.56 In turn, incels used highly racialized language. While the term Chad is used to
refer to the archetypal attractive male (who monopolizes female sexual partners), incels also refer to
Tyrone, Chadpreet, Chaddam and Chang to refer to African American, Indian Muslim and Chinese
men.57 Both communities use the same “medicine cabinet” terminology of red, blue and (in the case of
incels) black pills. The same websites—Gab, 8chan and others—host dedicated forums for both Incel
and white nationalist topics and the two arenas almost inevitably overlap. An anonymous poster on
one white nationalist forum read by the author referred to an anti-fascist activist as being so ugly that if
the poster was him he would have “roped long ago” using a term for suicide common among incels.58
Online anonymous discussions of the negative consequences of immigration often continuously
move between anti-feminist and misogynistic as well as racist white nationalist discourse. Indeed this
cross fertilization has likely increased as the online communities have moved to more diverse chat
boards on 4chan, 8chan and Reddit rather than contained websites. Users of the now defunct 8chan for
example, were only one forward slash away from a board dedicated to a separate topic. The similar
language and humor of these groups also facilitates this movement. White nationalists use misogy
nistic references in their anonymous online profiles. For example, the leader of the accelerationist
group Atomwaffen, John Denton, used the alias “Rape” in online forums.59 Many incels use online
avatars which reflect their affinity for white nationalist extremists, including photographs of Dylann
Roof who murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015.
The misogynistic world of incelism also provides a rich recruiting ground for white nationalist
groups. The young men who inhabit these online chat rooms are often vulnerable, lonely and feel
disparaged and dismissed by society. For many who are apolitical, sex and the role of feminism in
society are easy entries to more politicized topics.60 White nationalists point to the role of feminism,
immigration and multiculturalism as the source of their problems and a return to an idealized white
and male supremacist past as the solution. In doing so, they quickly draw these young men into
a milieu focused more on racism and political anger and, in some cases, action. A belief in the threat of
white genocide is often the endpoint of this radicalization. As Ashley Mattheis puts it, “Misogyny is
used predominantly as the first outreach mechanism . . . Once you engage with the idea that a socialjustice-warrior club and the feminist movement have increased the precarity of men that moves over
time into the increased precarity and endangerment of the West.”61 Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and
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Madeleine Blackman have shown that individuals sometimes transition from one form of extremism
to another, through a pathway they refer to as “fringe fluidity.”62 Indeed, acceptance of one extreme
ideology can make an individual even more receptive to another radical worldview, in particular if the
two share a common enemy.63 I contend that many of the perpetrators of violence discussed in this
article have alternated between extreme misogyny and a belief in a threat to the white race, creating
a spiral of radicalization for some individuals.
Violence
This section examines several cases of white nationalist violence (motivated primarily by fears over
white genocide) and other incidents of incel mass violence. It seeks to demonstrate the very similar
motives—and worldviews—of the perpetrators. These are all cases of terrorism
