How male grievance fuels radicalisation and extremist violence

Photo by Franco Alva on Unsplash

Originally published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (The Strategist)

Social extremism is evolving in reach and form. While traditional racial supremacy ideologies remain, contemporary movements are now often fuelled by something more personal and emotionally resonant: male grievance. These movements do not replace older ideologies but expand their appeal by reframing the modern world as emasculating, creating hybrid ideologies. They lead with hurt, portraying men as victims of societal change, betrayed by social progress and sidelined by institutions.

Australia has one of the highest male suicide rates in the developed world, with men accounting for three quarters of all suicides nationally. (There were 2,419 male suicides in 2023.) The emotional vulnerability behind this can become a security concern when it is mobilised into grievance-based narratives that encourage resentment, distrust and, in some cases, extremist violence.

We have seen cases in which men have committed mass violence in response to gendered grievance. In other cases, male-related grievance was framed as ideological, leading to Canada’s first terrorism conviction. More recently, in an Australian incident where women were the primary target, online incel forums celebrated these hateful actions, reinforcing how grievance and misogyny are validated in extremist spaces to encourage further harm.

These narratives gain traction by offering not just explanations but perceived emotional clarity and meaning. They recontextualise frustrations about work, relationships or belonging into a story of symbolic status loss and collective injustice. That story can be profoundly compelling and, when exploited, dangerous.

Radicalisation is intensely personal, and each case is individual. But emerging violent hybrid ideologies tend to follow a broad pathway to radicalisation. People move from personal grievances towards identity crises, then align with a collective group of similarly aggrieved men. From here, they are exposed to ideological radicalisation.

This is most visible in online communities such as the manosphere, where  frustration is recast as collective injustice. What begins as content on dating, business or self-improvement often escalates into grievance-based messaging that frames men as threatened, oppressed, marginalised and morally wronged. More than blame, these narratives offer belonging, clarity and the promise of status restoration. Comment sections and various online platforms further provide a decentralised digital meeting place for men to discuss this content and to approach radicalisation.

Recent analysis of these digital environments reveals how the sense of male victimhood is emotionally and politically mobilised. Men are portrayed as being unfairly treated by feminists, governments or shifting social norms. This then helps transform personal setbacks into symbolic grievances. These grievances are organised into calls for action. In some cases, this pathway leads individuals toward explicitly extreme ideologies that draw on themes of gendered grievance, while for others, it manifests in more diffuse forms of anti-institutional or misogynistic extremism.

Aggrieved masculinity, a mechanism I’ve identified in my recent work, is a dynamic state of identity threat in which men perceive themselves as falling short of idealised masculine norms. When social structures no longer affirm those norms, feelings of inadequacy are interpreted as injustice. This state can intensify when social comparison, institutional distrust or status anxiety are present. It is not simply about believing that something has been lost, but about feeling morally entitled to reclaim it.

Another mechanism is the belief that men, as a group, are being unfairly treated across society—from education and family law to media representation. This perceived victimhood becomes a moral narrative that reframes male suffering as evidence of systemic bias. These beliefs do not arise in isolation; they are shaped by digital content ecosystems that validate frustration and attribute blame.

What makes these mechanisms so powerful is their capacity to normalise extremist worldviews. Podcasts, influencers and lifestyle channels blend male grievance with ideological cues to include anti-feminism, anti-government sentiment, and nostalgia for traditional hierarchies. Without ever using the language of extremism, they cultivate an underlying worldview: that something has been taken from men, and someone needs to pay.

This dynamic is not limited to incels or adolescents. While teenage boys are often the focus of concern, adult men both create and engage with this content. The reach is wide, and the appeal is adaptive. Increasingly, radicalisation begins not with ideology, but rather, identity.

These mechanisms should not be used to pathologise all men or paint masculinity as inherently problematic. Many men are actively challenging misogyny, promoting gender equality and creating spaces for healthier forms of masculinity. The concern is not masculinity itself, but the way certain grievance narratives are weaponised to serve divisive and extremist goals.

So how can these mechanisms inform prevention? First, male grievance must be recognised as a psychological and social process rather than dismissed as a fringe ideology. Experiences of frustration, insecurity or status anxiety are common and do not inherently signal risk. Understanding this can expand how policymakers and practitioners approach radicalisation. We need to consider the emotional and identity-based needs that hateful narratives fulfil. That means investing in alternative spaces where men can explore questions of identity, vulnerability and personal development without being exploited, similar to the work done by community organisations such as The Man Cave.

Second, more public discourse is needed to distinguish legitimate male struggles—many of which have devastating consequences and remain under-addressed—from grievance narratives that symbolically reframe these struggles as collective injustice. The challenge is not that men are expressing frustration, but that some narratives channel that frustration into resentment and violence. These stories offer identity and meaning, and when they are built around loss, betrayal and restoration, they become powerful means for extremist mobilisation. Understanding these mechanisms can help explain how radicalisation happens, why certain messages resonate, and what can be done to disrupt their symbolic logic. In that understanding lies the opportunity to respond with nuance, clarity and care.

Haily Tran is a mixed-methods researcher in social psychology at Deakin University and Tackling Hate Lab, focusing on psychological drivers of online radicalisation, violence and hate-based ideologies.