From Patriarchy to Extremism: How Domestic Violence and Honor Culture Fuel Lone-Wolf Terrorism

This entry argues that lone-wolf terrorism must be understood as an extension of patriarchal violence rather than a discrete ideological phenomenon. Conventional analyses prioritise political or religious motivations, yet this obscures how domestic violence, coercive control, and ‘so-called honour-based violence and abuse' cultivate the emotional dispositions entitlement, humiliation, and grievance that underpin lone-wolf extremism (Bouhana et al, 2022; McCulloch et al, 2019 ). These private forms of harm embed practices of domination and control that mirror the logics of extremist violence.
Perry & Alvi’s (2012) framework of proximal and distal victimisation illuminates how personal histories of gendered violence intersect with broader structures of marginalisation. Lone-Wolf terrorists often emerge from environments where violence is both normalised and justified, while experiencing wider gendered insecurities and status anxieties. Seen through this lens, radicalisation functions as a gendered coping strategy a means of repairing threatened masculinity within patriarchal systems that both produce and punish such crises (Connell, 1995; Rottweiler, Clemmow & Gill, 2024).
Extremist narratives, especially jihadist masculinities, capitalise on these vulnerabilities by presenting violence as a path to restored honour and visibility (Pearson, 2019; Messerschmidt & Rohde, 2018). Thus, lone-wolf terrorism emerges not from ideological isolation but from a continuum of patriarchal practices in which public and private patriarchal violence mutually reinforcing. Recognising this challenges counterterrorism approaches that ignore gendered power and the domestic foundations of extremist harm.