Epiphanies 2021: Plymouth - and is misogynistic violence terrorism?
Those in the UK will be aware that there was a shooting last night in a town just outside the south coast city of Plymouth. The police are clear that it was a "domestic incident" and not terrorism - on the basis (I presume) of the definition of terrorism that it must be motivated by a political agenda.
The media is speculating that the Plymouth shooter was motivated by being an incel (involuntarily celebate) and being angry that he didn't have the girlfriend he felt the world - and particularly the female sex - owed him. For those not familiar with the term, an "incel" seems to be member of an internet-driven group of men who are deeply angry at women, and men who are successful with women. There rhetoric can be deeply violent and abhorent promoting rape or treating women as property.
I don't propose to discuss the incident in Plymouth - obviously nothing certain is known about it and we don't have any definition information on the motives of the alleged perpetrator, who I prefer not to name. What I would like to discuss is the principle of whether we need a change in the definition of terrorism. Laura Bates argues in "Men Who Hate Women" that violence motivated by an ideological hatred of women or a toxic version of the patriarchy should be counted as terrorism. There are shooters who have posted online saying they were going to kill as many women as possible to punish the whole sex for perceived slights or failure to get a partner and other men online who celebrate these "agendas" and treat the shooter as a "martyr" to their political ideology. And yet these shooters are not defined as "terrorists" nor their supporters as terrorist sympathisers.
Wouldn't it be more honest - and more respectful of the worth of women in society - to allow violence motivated by a hatred of women to be defined as political and therefore terrorism?
The media is speculating that the Plymouth shooter was motivated by being an incel (involuntarily celebate) and being angry that he didn't have the girlfriend he felt the world - and particularly the female sex - owed him. For those not familiar with the term, an "incel" seems to be member of an internet-driven group of men who are deeply angry at women, and men who are successful with women. There rhetoric can be deeply violent and abhorent promoting rape or treating women as property.
I don't propose to discuss the incident in Plymouth - obviously nothing certain is known about it and we don't have any definition information on the motives of the alleged perpetrator, who I prefer not to name. What I would like to discuss is the principle of whether we need a change in the definition of terrorism. Laura Bates argues in "Men Who Hate Women" that violence motivated by an ideological hatred of women or a toxic version of the patriarchy should be counted as terrorism. There are shooters who have posted online saying they were going to kill as many women as possible to punish the whole sex for perceived slights or failure to get a partner and other men online who celebrate these "agendas" and treat the shooter as a "martyr" to their political ideology. And yet these shooters are not defined as "terrorists" nor their supporters as terrorist sympathisers.
Wouldn't it be more honest - and more respectful of the worth of women in society - to allow violence motivated by a hatred of women to be defined as political and therefore terrorism?
Comments
I think my major objection is that the word 'terrorist' is often used just to signal disapproval, and this is used to create muddled thinking. Thus a liberation movement like the ANC under apartheid could be dismissed as terrorist on the basis that they were a political movement that hadn't renounced the use of violence. The rights and wrongs of any situation of asymmetrical warfare, in the Middle East or elsewhere, can be simplified by calling the side resisting the state forces terrorists. And so on.
To be honest, to some people and I think I may be one, calling violence terrorism may even seem to legitimise the goals if not the methods; my gut reaction tends to be if they're calling them terrorists other people may call them freedom fighters. I don't intellectually agree that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, but it colours my gut reaction.
On the other hand, it is true that stuff that far-right white males do that should properly be classed as terrorism and would be if it were by any group usually doesn't get described in that way.
I think redefining words such as 'terrorism' on the basis of moral condemnation is a bad thing. One should state the facts clearly and the moral condemnation should follow of its own accord. The question for me is not whether the word should be redefined to include misogynistic violence but rather whether misogynistic violence already falls under the current definition.
There is a pretty big overlap between far right terrorists and misogynists but the law and media focus on the far right bit not the misogynist bit, almost as if violence against women is just one of those things that happen and have to be accepted. I think explicitly making clear that violence against women can be motivated by anti-women ideology and terrorism would help combat that.
Also worth pointing out that the term 'incel' was coined by a woman to describe her difficulties dating (and she has since repudiated it due to the later adherents) - hijacking women's terminology, issues, interests etc is a common feature of these groups.
Probably. Terrorism by definition has a political element (i.e. trying to force the state or society at large to change in some way, or to prevent a change already underway) and the complicating factor is the modern terrorist trend towards 'lone wolf' attacks or actions by small, independent cells. (Incels in cells!) It's a lot easier to identify terrorism if there's an underlying organization (e.g. the Ku Klux Klan) with a set agenda and spokespeople. 'Lone wolf' attacks make it harder to separate out violent acts of personal grievance from violent acts intended to advance a political/social agenda.
Apologies if I've missed it in the preceding posts, but what is the current definition of 'terrorism'? I can think of a number of possibilities
- actions intended to cause terror to some person or persons
- actions intended to cause terror to the wider community
- actions intended to cause terror in pursuit of an agenda
- actions intended to cause terror in pursuit of a political agenda
Accepting that I haven't necessarily defined my terms ('the wider community'? 'political'?) which of these (or something else) do we consider to be the current definition?
"Terrorism is the use or threat of action, both in and outside of the UK, designed to influence any international government organisation or to intimidate the public. It must also be for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause."
The source is the Crown Prosecution Service so I presume they know.
Agreed. I wouldn't want to put too much weight on a decision the police took while trying to sort out the actual incident, specially not if they updated their position later.
Thank you. So going back to your original question:
The CPS definition appears to require violence (or the threat of it) to pursue a cause.
I don't think that I'm nit-picking to suggest that if the motivation of the violence is 'hatred of women' then that suggests an absence of a 'purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.' I wouldn't in any way want to suggest that hatred of women can be in any way excused - but it's not terrorism. If anything, it's got more in common with murder - which is also inexcusable, but does not require an agenda on the part of the murderer.
It seems to me that we do need a concept of 'violence in pursuit of a cause' - not because we approve of the concept but so that it can be discussed. Blurring that concept by including other unacceptable behaviour may perhaps honour the victims of the 'other unacceptable behaviour' - but it does not make discussion of the original concept any easier.
(I guess you haven't seen any of the male boards spewing this stuff to see how ideological it is? for example Men Going Their Own Way (link to Wikipedia).)
I would strongly recommend Laura Bates' "Men Who Hate Women" (which will also give you nightmares).
This goes down to terrorism being defined as violence in pursuit of a cause. I'm sorry if I'm being slow, but I can't see in the words 'violence motivated by a hatred of women' what is the cause that is being pursued.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not trying to troll. Neither (as far as I understand myself) am I trying to denigrate women or in any way play down violence against them. What I am trying to do is to understand why violence motivated by a hatred of women should be considered terrorism when other acts of violence are only considered terrorism if they are in support of intended to advance some sort of cause.
(n.b. edited to reword struck through element per italics)
According to the Wikipedia article on Men Who Go Their Own Way, in the reactions section: which rather suggests a terrorist implication.
If anyone were killing to further that agenda it would definitely meet the definition of terrorism (though I think naming politically motivated violence terrorism is rather unhelpful in general).
However, what we usually see in these spree killings is an estranged male killing a specific female they have a grudge against and associated family members, followed by some people who get in their way. If we addressed domestic violence and stalking more effectively, the risk of these killings would be reduced - but I don't think it is quite the same dynamic as the IRA or DAESH.
I think terrorism is about using violence to achieve broadly political aims. So the IRA are terrorists, because they blow things up as part of a political campaign for Irish unity. The Islamists are terrorists, because they kill people as part of a campaign for Islamic dominance.
I don't think I'd generally describe a criminal gang as terrorists. They often use violence, in order to control crime in a particular area, or extort money or whatever, but it doesn't have the same sort of "political" motivation.
So where do these "incels" fall on the spectrum?
My first thought is that most traditional terrorists have some kind of vaguely coherent, rational goal. An independent unified Ireland is a reasonable goal - it might not be everyone's preference, but it's not obviously absurd. Even Islamic world domination - if you start with the fact that a number of countries (mostly where the terrorists originate from) are to a greater or lesser extent Islamic theocracies, then spreading Islamic theocracy further doesn't look quite so absurd.
But the incel "philosophy" is just batshit crazy. Their entire "philosophy" is that unpleasant men with no particular skills, personality, or other redeeming features are nevertheless owed sex by any nearby woman, because that's what women are for.
On the other hand, they do band together online, so perhaps that's enough to call them "terrorists" - I'm not sure.
Hold on. If someone commits an act of violence motivated by hatred of Black people, say, they're not necessarily a terrorist. They're guilty of racially-motivated assault, but they're only terrorists if they're part of some coherent movement intending to subjugate Black people using terror and violence as a weapon. The KKK are terrorists. A few drunk lads giving a Black man a kicking on the way home from the pub are probably just racist thugs.
But it sounds like you're thinking of terrorism as a "worse" crime than ordinary assaults and murders, and so you're wanting to "upgrade" misogynistic violence against women to terrorism. I don't think terrorism is necessarily "worse" than violent non-terrorist crime.
I think rather than trying to call this sort of violence against women "terrorism", one might do better to extend the current offences of racially / religiously aggravated X to include similar offences motivated by sex, or sexual orientation.
I think that might be a more accurate characterization of "violence against a member of group X, because they are a member of group X".
It changes the legal frameworks and service & political prioritizations. Essentially, the state tends not to take domestic violence seriously but terrorism is considered a national emergency.
The perpetrator is dead, so the state can do no more to prosecute this case. So I ask again, to what end? Is this incident any different to the Cumbria shootings in 2010 (where no serious suggestion that it was terrorism was ever raised, to my knowledge), for example?
If what you mean is "it would enable the state to shut down incel/mgtow/whatever websites and lock up their members" then you may as well just say that.
The kind of mass murder I would like to see redefined as terrorism is when a given person posts material online saying that they wish women to be subjugated to men, that women owe them sex, and that they are going to take revenge on a women for failing to appreciate these two things.
So are you saying you think all domestic violence should be classed as terrorism?
I think I mean that, and also that it would signal to society that there is a serious threat from these groups. "Domestic violence" sounds like occasional, troubled men setting out to rough their partner up a bit while "misogynist terrorism" says "this is just as bad as those bombers you hate and probably despise".
I'm certainly not saying that and I doubt @Doublethink is either though I could be wrong obvs.
One man punching/stabbing one woman is not necessarily terrorism any more than one IRA member murdering a person who happened to be an Ulster unionist (or vice versa). The terrorism comes in when an ideology lies behind the act and is promoted by the act.
The implicature seems to be that society doesn't really care about violence against domestic partners, so we have to pretend we are talking about something else. That's a serious problem, and it's not a problem with people like @HelenEva who want to call it terrorism. It's a problem with why we don't care about domestic violence. Occasional troubled men who rough up their partner "a bit" is a big deal in itself.
No I don't, I was illustrating why I think people argue that incel activity should be classed as terrorism. What they hope it would change.
I think it shouldn't be beyond the wit of society to take violence against women seriously.
What we really want is precursor behaviour to be taken more seriously, everything the state may do is fuck all use to you once you're dead.
The prioritisation of terrorism means considerable state resources devoted to *preventing* attacks.
Domestic abuse resulting in murder is usually preceeded by years of violence and intimidation.
If you look on a map, where all this happened is a stone's throw from the dockyard wall really. Devonport is the largest naval dockyard in Western Europe.
Babcock, who he worked for, manage the dockyard (and are the largest private sector employer in Plymouth to put it in some context). Now, I don't know what he did for them, but 'Babcock employee' in Plymouth might be someone that works in nuclear submarine refits, but it will also include 'litter picker', 'road marking painter', etc.
The clearance and background checks will slide up and down depending on what job you do, but worth bearing in mind that 'arms company with MOD contracts' will also include really (and I mean really) dull facilities management stuff.
There might turn out to be a story there, but the law of averages suggests there won't be.
Modern day terrorism which works off forums and Facebook groups and messaging sites like Telegram often doesn't organise in the same coherent way as the more structured terrorist groups of yore we're more familiar with. From what I can make out, it's more like you get radicalised online reading various forums/channels and watching YouTubes and then decide to commit an atrocity and perhaps claim it on the Internet or leave some manifesto.
And yes I'd say its about recognising how dangerous it is and getting resources committed to dealing with it and researching it so it can be taken seriously and dealt with. This kind of terrorism is hate speech with weapons like the homophobic Admiral Duncan pub bomber or the Neo-nazis who shoot up synagogues but the focus is women who're not performing female gender roles in the way the terrorist wants (and their male/other allies) who are therefore to be murdered and terrorised.
I would suggest that members of these groups should be under suspicion of terrorism as research is linking them.
Nor do I, I just don’t think labelling it as terrorism is the answer.
For one thing, if we do call incel stuff terrorism then any reports of domestic violence that can’t be connected to an incel group in any way wouldn't be treated any differently than they are now. Calling incels “terrorists” instead of “dumbshit losers who’d rather get angry at every woman in the world because they can’t get laid than undergo even the tiny bit of personal growth that would tell them the problem is actually them” could actually take attention and resources away from the far more prevalent common-or-garden domestic violence.
How do you define “member”? Regular poster? Regular reader but occasional poster? Occasional reader? Registered but never posted or went back again? Not registered but reads a fair bit? Looked at it once after searching for something else?
I'll be moving it in a moment.
Doc Tor
Admin
Punish the violent, yes. Punish everyone with similar ideas to them just in case they also decide to become violent, no. Hell, if we did that then there’s barely one of us that would stay unpunished.
That particular group, the independent one that still exists, has a membership that is signed in and approved. Only members can post. Which answers a number of your questions.
For the record, murder also requires an agenda in most Western law. What distinguishes murder from manslaughter, negligent homicide, and other forms of humans getting killed by other humans is the intent (i.e. "agenda") of the murderer.
I'm not sure it's as easily separable as all that. If the "few drunk lads" are living in areas with active Klan cells it's very possible that they've adopted the Klan's perspective on white supremacy even it they aren't formally members of the Invisible Empire. (Terrorist groups very often do not publicly identify their membership, for obvious reasons.) For example, I don't think it's ever been demonstrated that the Charleston church shooter was a member of a larger organization, yet his manifesto made his terroristic intentions pretty clear.
Agreed - and I'm not persuaded that troubled men who go in for a bit of light spousal abuse are really so many miles away from troubled men who murder a room full of women because they're upset that they can't find someone who wants to have sex with them.
In both cases we're dealing with men who think they have, basically, ownership rights over women. The mass murderer is more extreme, just like bombing a gay pub is more extreme than just "roughing up a gay man a bit", but at root they look like the same problem to me.
Easy to say and to minimise for those who are not the target.
Seems like a dangerous thing to me. Today it’s the incel groups that post about how much they hate women. Tomorrow it may be web forums that frequently post about how much they hate certain politicians. Where do you draw the line for what is, in effect, government surveillance of online activity? And what level of involvement with such websites is enough for someone to be arrested and locked up before they do something violent?
I am concerned. Worried, even. This whole thread feels like a group of people who want to take one more step towards the concept of thought crime.
I’d have thought doublethink, at least, would be able to appreciate that problem…
Perhaps this is the best distinction for cases where it's useful to call something terrorism - it depends on the extent to which there is some sort of network or organization that can be disrupted. Rather like the distinction between "organized crime" and just "crime".
To me, the obvious thing to do is to treat websites / online groups / people that promote this sort of vile misogyny in the same way as we treat racist groups. (Or perhaps "in the same way as we should treat racist groups".)
And how great violent attacks against women are. And how awesome the men who commit those attacks are. In any other context websites that praise "martyrs" for carrying out violent attacks against hated groups are usually seen as inviting at least a little bit of scrutiny from authorities or the press. When the targets are women, on the other hand . . . ¯\_(ツ)_/¯