Manosphere and toxic males of the Trump era

[Svartalf]

I don't really understand the terms you use, but I'd guess, yes, might be it.

[pErvinalia]

Misogynistic views are biggest red flag for violent extremism, report finds

Hostile and violent attitudes toward women are the clearest warning sign of violent extremism, a study has found.

As national cabinet prepares to discuss how to combat family violence, the research identifies misogyny as not just a social issue, but a matter of national security.

The University of Melbourne survey of Australians as young as 13 found that misogyny could predict support for extremist violence "way beyond" where someone sat on the political spectrum, what religion they belonged to, or how much time they spent online.

Report author Sara Meger said the study was the first of its kind to show that misogyny was not an isolated prejudice, but a robust, cross-cutting predictor of violent extremism.

"The number one thing predicting whether or not somebody is going to hold extremist attitudes is whether they think violence against women is acceptable," Dr Meger said.

The research was funded by the Office of National Intelligence and put forward five recommendations, the first being that misogyny and anti-feminism should be recognised as a form of violent extremism in the national counter-extremism framework.
Dr Meger's team surveyed 3,429 Australians about their attitudes toward women, gender roles, consent violence against women, and a range of extremist ideologies.

A significant minority of Australian men and boys shared beliefs that gender equality had gone too far, that feminism was a hate movement, that it was OK to pressure girlfriends into having sex, and that feminism should be resisted with violence if necessary.

Teenagers and young men were much more likely to express hostile views when compared with both young women, and with older men.

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Dr Meger said the findings meant intelligence agencies and police forces should take anti-feminist views into account in their work to combat violent extremism.

However, she cautioned against "securitising" misogynistic views.

"I don't think the policy solution is to try and criminalise people's beliefs and attitudes," she said. "It's more about recognising the creation of these rifts in the first place that's driving the political violence.

"And that means the solution has to be much more oriented around education and cohesion building."

The Australian Federal Police confirmed that "some individuals charged with possessing or creating violent extremist material have also had misogynistic material".

"The AFP is currently exploring how it can improve the capture of information specifically relating to gender, sexual orientation and/or identity to better inform the identification of matters arising in our work, and to support future investigations, analysis and reporting requirements," the AFP said in a statement.

The Office of National Intelligence, which funded the University of Melbourne research, did not specifically comment on the findings or whether it would take up the recommendations in its advice to government.

Lucy Nicholas, an associate professor in gender and sexuality at Western Sydney University, has completed studies on the manosphere, gendered violence and right-wing extremism.

They noted the University of Melbourne findings were in line with other research, such as their own study around misinformation.

"We found more men than women were likely to believe misinformation about gender equality, family courts and the system being against men and they were also more likely to have violence-affirming views or believe that violence can be used for a cause," Dr Nicholas said.

"We need to always realise that whilst young men might feel aggrieved, what they're aggrieved about is a loss of entitlement and privilege and that's not actually reasonable.

"We need to work with men to see that violence is not a reasonable response to the loss of that privilege and that there's other ways to manage it where they work on themselves rather than blaming."

Dr Meger's study also explored the level to which online environments were cultivating misogynistic and extremist attitudes.

What it found was that exposure to manfluencer content, online dating platforms and pornography were the behaviours most connected to attitudes that excused violence against women.

This was in contrast to the platforms government agencies has been focused on such as social media, gaming and online forums.

When testing if these environments drove extremism directly, they lost all predictive power.

"The online factors that the government's been really concerning themselves with, the only one that retains any independent relationship with extremism, the only online variable that still has any independent relationship with extremism, is pornography.

"And this is completely off our radar for countering violent extremism."

[pErvinalia]

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