The Allure of Violent Extremism as a Pathway to Manhood

This article emphasizes the growing number of disenfranchised young men who turn to radicalization and extremism to attain and maintain certain hegemonic masculinities in a world of widening inequality and volatile future perspectives. Often, socio-economic grievances that affect achieving said masculinities are making individuals more prone to ideological indoctrination. Adopting extremist ideology may compensate for the perceived loss in maleness and androcentricity. In addition, the changing of gendered roles within the workforce is ushering in constant societal renegotiations on the idea of masculinity and its implied breadwinner role. Consequently, another point of interest is how multiple extremist entities use this dynamic to promise and facilitate rites of passage into Manhood as a recruitment strategy in strict accordance with their own beliefs based on violence and misogyny. Starting from the use by the Far right of the "Crisis in Masculinity" and "Male Victimhood" narratives based on so-called wounded male role and ego by the various emancipation movements and continuing to Islamic State visual depictions of masculinity and tactics of gender-based violence manifested though a visual spectacle violent propaganda. No matter the ideological background, using violence offers a sense of security, in its narrow anachronic gender norms, to those who seek a model of masculinity via the use of violence. This paper seeks to make use of the current understanding present in literature to offer another perspective on (1) the appeal of violence and radicalization among vulnerable young men who experience feelings of inadequacy and alienation and on (2) the mechanisms behind the co-opting of concepts such as "manly," "manliness" and "manhood" in the extremist meta-narratives. The current understanding regarding the significance of gendered issues related to the rise of extremism in the world is limited and does not offer a one-size-fits-all solution to grasping the complexities of such a dynamic phenomenon. Therefore, this article aims to introduce the importance of further analysis of the relationship between gender and extremism as a path to understanding and ultimately finding effective exit strategies for those radicalized.