In Man Up, sociologist and extremism scholar Cynthia Miller-Idriss makes a stark and necessary claim: misogyny is not incidental to mass violence, it is its engine. “Hostile sexist and misogynist attitudes are often a bigger predictor of support for violent extremism than any other factor,” she observes. “The most common – and least discussed – feature of mass shooters and violent terrorists is their manhood.”
Miller-Idriss traces how a sense of grievance and victimhood drives misogynists – from incel communities online to conservative evangelicals and conservative Republicans – who see women’s progress as a threat to their privileged status within patriarchy. This narrative of lost dominance fuses easily with white supremacist ideologies of racism, anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant hostility. She is particularly sharp on the hypocrisy of western observers who scrutinise misogyny and gender-based violence abroad while overlooking its pervasive role at home, including among domestic terrorists.
Movements such as Gamergate, pick-up artistry and incel culture are not fringe oddities, the author argues, but breeding grounds for violence. What begins as casual online sexism quickly hardens into world views built around controlling or punishing women. Far-right groups draw on this misogynist culture as a core part of their politics, yet institutions from governments to the UN have been slow to acknowledge just how central gendered exploitation is to extremist ideologies.
Miller-Idriss also illustrates how attacks on gender studies, sex education and history form part of a broader assault on knowledge – an erosion of expertise that leaves societies more susceptible to conspiracy theories and authoritarian movements. Unsurprisingly, Miller-Idriss delves deeply into how misogyny and conspiracy theories fuelled support for Trump and played a role in the January 6th insurrection.
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For Irish and European readers, relevance may lie less in the threat of mass shootings than in the global forces Miller-Idriss identifies. Misogyny, the desire to control women and white supremacist obsessions with reproduction and white women’s “purity” underpin and fuel racist and anti-immigrant violence, transphobia and authoritarian politics – phenomena with increasing resonance here. Meanwhile, the endlessly varied online spaces that normalise misogyny for boys and young men create fertile ground for extremist recruitment, a challenge already visible across Europe.
Miller-Idriss writes with clarity and urgency, reframing misogyny as ideology rather than pathology and showing how everyday sexism provides the scaffolding for extremism. The book’s weakness lies in its American lens: many references to shootings or conspiracy movements are sketched with little or belated explanation, assuming a familiarity that non-US readers may not share. (Miller-Idriss’ decision not to name any mass shooters in the book is morally admirable but can add to this confusion.) Structurally, too, some ideas are diluted across chapters where a tighter focus might have delivered greater force.
Still, Man Up is a bracing, vital intervention. It insists that until we reckon with misogyny – not as background noise but as a driving force – we will remain blind to the true nature of extremist violence, and the ways in which everyday misogyny enables it.
Roe McDermott is an Irish Times columnist
