Transcript

What is the link between gender and extremism? What makes it a national security issue? 

Can domestic violence act as a ‘comorbidity’ for extremism and radicalisation? 

Should the Australian Government consider following the lead of other countries and classifying misogyny as a form of extremism? 

In this episode, Elise Stephenson and Pascale Taplin join Danielle Ireland-Piper to discuss the complex relationship between extremism, gender and national security. 

(This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm Dr Danielle Ireland-Piper, Associate Professor and Academic Director at the ANU National Security College. Today's podcast is being recorded on the lands of Ngunawal and Ngambri peoples, and we pay our respects to elders past and present. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Elise Stevenson and Pascale Taplin for a conversation on extremism through the lens of misogyny and gender.

National security is primarily preoccupied with safety. The safety of a nation's existence, its citizens and its values. Of course, a marketplace of ideas is a wonderful thing for any functioning democracy, but extremism poses risks to safety of a nation's citizens, its existence and values. Today we'll have a conversation with Elise and with Pascale on the links between extremism and gender.

Welcome both.

Elise Stephenson
Thanks so much for having us.

Pascale Taplin
Thanks Danielle.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Thank you.

So Dr. Elise Stevenson is a multi-award winning gender researcher with expertise across diplomacy, national security, government, entrepreneurship, and diversity and inclusion. Elise is the Deputy Director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at ANU and a fellow at the National Security College.

Pascale Taplin is a PhD candidate here at the ANU National Security College and her research interest is in disinformation and cognitive security. Her PhD research applies anthropology to understanding the intersection of conspiracy theories and accelerationism. Did I get that, that say that right, Pascal?

Pascale Taplin
Yeah, absolutely.

Danielle Ireland-Piper

Yes. Wonderful. And Pascale is also an anthropologist with a background in applied social anthropology. So let's dive into it. Pascale, you're an anthropologist and now you're a PhD candidate at the ANU NSC.
So I understand your practice is considering aspects of the relationship between disinformation and extremism. Is that right? Can you talk us through your work?

Pascale Taplin
Absolutely. So I look at the narrative influence of conspiracy theories. And that's really about looking at, as you said, the intersection of conspiracy theories and extremism, the use of conspiracy theories strategically to draw in audiences. I seek to understand why conspiracy theories resonate with audiences and how they can be used to manipulate audiences.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
And before we dive into that further, would you say some of the theories around, for example, the incel movement, the idea that 80% of women are only attracted to 20% of men type thing and therefore men should pursue women in certain, sometimes violent ways, would you categorize that as a conspiracy theory?

Pascale Taplin

I think some of the, I mean, I think it's important to acknowledge that there's a diversity, as always, of people and ideas in incel communities. But there's certainly a hardened edge of incel communities. You might say black-pilled incels, who consider feminism and inclusive policies broadly to be part of a conspiracy by a global elite to intentionally emasculate and oppress men. And in that sense, those sorts of ideas can certainly be characterized as accelerationist conspiracy theories.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Great, thank you. So, we'll loop back to that, but that's really helpful by way of scene setting. Elise, of course, your work is known to many of our listeners and to government, and you've been providing really useful commentary in the media in the lead up to the election. But if you could, could you just offer a brief recap of your work in putting a gender lens on the National Security Community and your recent book, for example?

Elise Stephenson
Yeah, absolutely. So, I prominently work on gender equality in what I call policy frontiers. And really that's just a way for me to be able to communicate that I'm doing all different kinds of policy research. But with this end aim, I suppose, of looking at who gets to represent our nation when it comes to policy making and decision making and other particular lenses that that might kind of result in when it comes to things like national security and other strategic, strategic threats that we're perhaps missing out on because we aren't applying a gender lens, for instance. So, my PhD studied women's leadership and gender equality in particular across Agencies, including DFAT, Defence, AFP and Home Affairs. Since then, I've gone on to study all manner of gender as well as broader diversity questions in the National Intelligence Community, including doing some really kind of groundbreaking work around security fitting, looking at inclusion in the recruitment pipeline and applying what does a kind of a gendered national security threat look like?

And if we were to actually use that lens, you know, looking at things like misogyny and extremism, are there threats that we're currently not identifying that we could do a much better job of? So I think I've got a lot of interest in this space and I suppose very interested to hear what Pascale also thinks on this topic.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
That's a really nice segway to my next question. So we'll stay with you for at least a moment and then head back to Pascale. But what is the link between gender and extremism? You said that there could be threats that we are missing by not considering these things through a gender lens. What are we missing? What are the threats and what are the links between gender and extremism?

Elise Stephenson
Yeah, so I think I see this playing out in two main ways. So Pascale already mentioned and you mentioned kind of that there is this element of extremist misogynistic violence. So perpetuated, you know, in the most part by, kind of, the incel movement, for instance. So that stands for involuntary celibate, if you're not aware. And so this is kind of, you know, misogyny as a key motivation, shall we say, for violence. And we've seen that in, occur in a number of different locations, Canada and the UK, for instance. That's one part.

A second part I would see is kind of misogyny as, I don't know, a comorbidity, you could even say, contributing to terror. So, it is a kind of part of a political or, you know, part of a motivation or ideology behind terror, which might kind of sit alongside things like political or religious motivations. In that way, I think it's really important to understand, I suppose, what does the research actually say? And we see out there that misogynistic attitudes are a strong predictor for violent extremist intentions, not just on their own in incel movements, but also in kind of far right movements, for instance, jihadist views rooted in patriarchal worldviews, and just general misogynistic views towards women.

But we also see this kind of trend in recent years where some governments, so Canada and the UK, for instance, have actually started to label extreme forms of misogyny as a form of extremism and terror. Now, this is really something to take strong note of because whilst these kind of elements of misogyny may have been kind of, always there, I suppose, in other terror movements across the decades. What we're now seeing is this overt recognition that, hey, there is a relationship. It might, you know, kind of play out in terms of radicalizing pathways for those who do engage in extremist forms of violence. Or, you know, it might be an actual form of violence in and of itself. And I think that this is really something to be following in Australia. I'm certainly strongly encouraging our Government to apply gender lens for this and recognise that too.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Thank you. I think that comorbidity analogy is a helpful way to think about and understand the issue. Pascale, did you have anything to add to that? In your view and drawing on your own research and expertise, is there a link between gender and extremism? And if so, what does it look like?

Pascale Taplin
Look, I think building on some of the points Elise has raised, there are certainly incels and misogynists who are violent extremists, but in my view, it's not necessarily helpful to characterize the majority of boys and men who engage to various degrees with hypermasculinity and misogynist ideas, or even every kid who goes on incel forums, for example, on the internet, I don't think it's helpful to characterise all of those people as extremists. And I think we have to be careful when it comes to that.

I think we get in a muddle when we start to conflate radicalisation, extremism and terrorism. And these are all three different things. Radicalisation from the perspective of a social anthropologist is at its core a social process. Online environments certainly provide really fertile ground for radicalisation, but people aren't just exposed to hateful images and hatespeech online and then suddenly radicalized. People come together in these forums to share their lived experiences and through that process they make sense of the world and themselves as individuals in the world. And when those shared narratives start to normalize violence as I think Elise has spoken about, when that affects the way individuals see the world and behave, then we talk about them as being radicalised, but not everybody who's radicalised becomes a terrorist. There's a big gap between talking about or celebrating violence online in the context of this highly performative subculture and taking violent action in real life.
And in that gap, there's really important opportunities to connect with people, to offer different perspectives, to challenge extremist narratives. And we get into trouble when we put all the people who affiliate with these or are sympathetic to these worldviews into one bucket because we shut down those opportunities.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
That's a really interesting point. And I, and I think it's a really important one, not just in this context, but in the broader context of how we have dialogue about things on which we disagree more broadly and increasing sort of, I guess, polarisation of views rather than, than meeting people where there are and having a conversation, which as you say, on a really practical level can actually save lives if we do that and bring people with us rather than sort of corralling everybody into one bracket. So thanks for making that point about the distinction between radicalism, extremism and terrorism. Of course, not the same thing. Elise, did you have any comment on any of that?

Elise Stephenson
Yeah, I suppose one thing I'd be thinking about is, you know, as I mentioned before, to even view radicalisation or extremism or even terrorism through a gendered lens and to see how gender plays out, whether that is, you know, misogynistic worldviews that kind of contribute or maybe co-morbidity kind of factors alongside other ideological drivers. That acknowledgement is really, really recent. So we're talking about a recent, like, a research space that, you know, there's been phenomenal feminist international relations scholars who've been looking at this show for the last few decades, but that has been incredibly marginalized, almost unfunded or, you know, very marginally funded, and certainly not part of the mainstream debate or doctrine when it comes to national security. What I mentioned just before about Canada and the UK, so the UK only classified extreme misogyny as a form of extremism in 2024, so just last year. And it was after the 2020 Toronto attack on a massage parlor by an incel that they formally categorized that as their very first misogynistic terror attack. That was, very recently, just in the last few years. Across the world, so we're not seeing that this lens is being uniquely applied, or consistently applied, I should say.

And so, I suppose one thing that I'm really interested in is how, yes, I think it's really important that we don't kind of tar everyone with the same brush when it comes to radicalisation doesn't equal terrorism and extremism. But when we're looking at violence, we often talk about kind of this pyramid of violence and what is what is kind of accepted at the baseline layers contributes to a subsequent radicalisation up to the most extreme levels. And so, you know, I work a lot in this kind of gender equality space, and we always talk about fix systems, not women. I think you can apply the same here, you know, if we are predominantly talking about men who are predominantly holding misogynistic views in this way, I would say fix systems, not men, right? Like we're actually looking at what are the systems and structural things happening in society and the kind of culture of permissiveness that enables some of these worldviews that actually can be really dangerous in lots of ways and harmful for individuals as well as society and thinking about, hey, how can we walk you back and support you in some really kind of flourishing ways? And so is that something else that I'd kind of be thinking about?

Danielle Ireland-Piper
I'm glad you used word permissiveness because that was sort of what was the word in my head listening to you that yeah, it's not so much that radicalism equals terrorism, but there's a pathway of permissiveness that sort of in some ways needs to exist in order for that endpoint to get reached. So that's sort of where the crux of the issue is, as you say, and fixing systems, not men, not women.

Moving, if you'll indulge me for a moment, of course, being the lawyer in the room, I'm mindful that the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor is talking about reviewing the legal definition of terrorism as it's set out in legislation. So, generally speaking, there's not a widely internationally accepted definition of terrorism at international law, but generally speaking, most iterations of the definition have as one of the core elements that a person's violence must be motivated by an ideology.

And so as I understand it, and please correct me if I'm wrong, what we're starting to see is extremist views and potential for, I guess, terrorism dangers motivated not by one ideology, but by a patchwork of ideas. And we heard in the National Threat Assessment, perhaps a month or so ago about concerns about, you know, young men between 18 and 25, that group, and some of the information, disinformation or information they're consuming. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on what a definition of terrorism should look like. And if you don't want to go there, whether you had any response to the idea that ideologies are no longer singular, there's a patchwork of them and what that means for extremism.

I'll flick to you want Pascale first.

Pascale Taplin
Sure, look, I think this is actually where social anthropology can provide a potentially really useful set of tools to unpack the relationship between behaviors, norms and ideologies. Bringing it back to violent incels and I'm trying to circle around here as well to Elise's point about fix the system, not men. I think if you, If you look at incel subculture, for example, it's, it's, it's, it defines itself in opposition to the system. So fixing the system isn't, isn't really addressing that problem. It's a, it's, in my view, it's a very separate and distinct problem from, you know, misogyny more broadly, because incel violence, I think, is underscored by a demonstrably different set of understandings of the world, of narratives and ideologies then that which underpins other types of gender-based violence.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
So, know, in a way it's sort of counterculture. It's deliberately counterculture, would you say?

Pascale Taplin
Well, I mean, anything is deliberate only in the mind of the person, but that's certainly an expression that comes from the perspective of incels themselves, I think, when you start looking at some of the discourse that happens. The grouping is defined as a set of people who find what we might call mainstream hostile. They find society as it is hostile to them for a set of reasons. And so it’s, the group becomes a group in opposition to the prevailing system.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
To be devil's advocate with you there though, is there something that the system then is doing wrong that those men don't feel included? Is that still a system issue?

Pascale Taplin

I'm not here to decide who's right and wrong about anything. And I actually, I don't think that's useful for a social anthropologist to do. I think what we can, we can helpfully do is try and explain what's going on. The processes of socialization and community-building, we can explain that. Deciding what's right and wrong is someone else's job. Obviously I have my own views, but I, I don't think it's helpful to bring that to analysis.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Absolutely, absolutely. Not a question of who's right or wrong, but I guess I'm asking, are there things that we can do as a society that would help that?

Pascale Taplin
Yes, well, I think, I think there probably are. And I think it comes back to, I think it comes back to. I think it comes back to, you know, a broader task around polarisation and remediating some of the, some of the damage that's been done by an increasingly sort of polarized political discourse as well. But they're really big questions and I don't necessarily feel qualified to answer all of those.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
No, it's it's, grateful that we're having, having the conversation at all. Absolutely. And, and your point about polarisation of views is a really important one that's, that's come up a couple of times already. I might flick to you, Elise. Did you have anything you would like to add to that?

Elise Stephenson
Yeah, think, I guess what I would probably maybe make a delineation, you know, and I think Pascale absolutely spot on, know, incels are a particular group who, yes, I think see themselves in opposition to elements of society. What I would say though is misogyny, which underpins incels, also underpins the rest of society.

And that's the point that I would kind of make about a system issue. So it can manifest then in different ways. So in the case of the incels, it's manifesting as a particular subgroup that does particular types of actions and beliefs and behaviors around that. How it might manifest in other parts of society is, as I said, might be a co-morbidity, you know, alongside ideological, you know, some sort of political stance or religious stance on an issue. We know from the data that it is part of that radicalisation pathway.

We know that it is, you know, kind of associated with, like, a need for control, but also really bound up in identity politics and who you are relevant or, kind of, in comparison to others around you. And I guess what I would really highlight is, you know, for me, I think that, you know, and we come back to that definition of terror, terrorism that you were talking about before, Danielle, you know, you mentioned that ideology often underpins all these different definitions, no matter where they came from in the world. What is an ideology at the end of the day? Ultimately, it's a belief system that informs our world. And at its most basic level, therefore, I do think that a lot of these current definitions for terror and perhaps for radicalisation and these other pathways, I do believe that they do or could encapsulate misogyny as it is. In that banner of ideology. However, if you are a national security practitioner or policymaker, and you've grown up in the world like the rest of us, which misogyny and sexism, it's a fact, it is quite normalized, we see, you know, gender differences in who can do what in society in what leadership looks like in like who who is deemed credible in national security, all of these different factors. And so if you grow up in a society that has normalized these things, it might not even occur to you to look at ideology through this real gendered lens and be able to see as an ideology misogyny as a bedrock behind many types of kind of extremist patterns and behaviors.

So I think that I guess when we have a look at that, if you aren't being trained to look for these things and if a degree of misogyny and sexism is just part of Australian culture and perhaps even national security as a sector, we know that the data on the national security sector is that it's one of the most male-dominated spheres of state, it is underpinned by masculine norms and that some parts of the sector in particular in some military cultures it can be quite rife with sexism and sexual harassment and violent misogyny in some ways too, right? So this can be difficult to spot the patterns that I think it's really worth asking how far is too far in our society and really what can we be doing then to kind of, I guess, walk society back from norms and ideas and patterns of behaviour that maybe aren't leading us in the way of prosperity and maybe are leading us down a path in which we do get more instability and violence. And I think that's something that I'd be kind of, yeah, adding to the conversation.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
I think that's a really interesting point. There are other reasons outside of this issue why the definition of terrorism is being unpacked, but I really think that's a useful perspective that perhaps it's not the legal requirement for ideology that distinguishes a murder from an act of terrorism offense, for example, two different offenses, but instead to look at what we consider to be ideology and whether misogyny meets that threshold. And I guess the more practical question, as you say, is that setting all this aside, if you're in a community like the national community that does tend to be male-dominated, then there's a lens that's just missing in that sense as well, in a really practical sense. And Pascale, did you want to jump in on that?

Pascale Taplin
Yeah, I think the one point I'd like to make, is that it's important that we acknowledge that incel violence and mass casualty attacks, the incel subculture promotes the use of violence against the against civilians as an instrumental tool to impact the existing societal and political order. Because as we said, incels see the world order as compromised by a feminist conspiracy that aims to subjugate them. So, this is, you know, I'm not fully across all of the broader debates around changes to the definition of terrorism, but I think it's pretty likely that incel mass-casualty attacks fall within existing Australian legal definitions of terrorism comfortably insofar as they are designed to advance a political and clearly ideological cause. And I think, I just think those two issues, it's important to separate the issues and to be clear minded about what incel attacks are as distinct from violence, gender-based violence more broadly.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Yeah, thank you. I can see that they're related, but discrete, discrete issues. Thanks for that, Pascale.

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Danielle Ireland-Piper
On that note, moving more generally to the issue of gender-based violence. We know that over 70 women were killed last year in Australia as a result of gender-based violence. And in 2023, this figure was at 64. In 2022, 56 up from 44 in 2021. So that's, it's increasing, which of course is quite disturbing according to this study I read, of course. In your view, does this make gender-based violence a national security issue? If we think about national security being occupied with the safety of the public and the safety of citizens, is gender-based violence more broadly a national security issue, if we had any other demographic in that statistic, would it be considered so? But is, even if that is the case, if it is a national security issue, is it actually helpful to think about it in that way or is it less helpful? I wondered if either of you had any views. I might jump to you first, Elise.

Elise Stephenson
Yeah, sure. I think, you know, I've been in so many rooms with different senior women and men, where specific to the national security sector and where DV or domestic violence has been spoken about. In those rooms, you know, the leaders I listen to again, you know, men and women are pretty adamant: domestic violence is not a national security issue. Now, I do take issue with this, based off the evidence, know, we're researchers, we're trained to look at the data and what does the data actually say? I think the first point to make is that it depends on how you define national security. So, kind of, historical national security doctrine has taken a real states-based approach to national security and that you are secure if your national borders are secure against another nation and it's very state-based. That's the primary actors that we're looking at. We're looking at states.

However, there are other national security experts and those who come from a more kind of human-security lens, feminists, but not only feminists who come from this lens, who might look at a definition of security that is different. You can therefore see the definition of security as a spectrum. On the one hand, you've just got it, kind of, state-to-state violence, for instance, and preventing that. But on a human security level, it might be, well, are the people within your borders safe ultimately?

You know, I was part of Women, Peace and Security Coalition workshops a number of years ago. And I just remember vividly, you know, we just had this amazing workshop on talking about, you know, basically conflicts everywhere else in the world, apart from Australia, and talking about, you know, women who couldn't walk, you know, down their streets and, you know, or who were subject to all this violence because they were in a conflict zone or whatever. And what could we do? And then after that session ended one of the young women in the room piped up and said, hey, is anyone able to walk me back to my car because I don't feel safe to walk home tonight. Now, what does that say about human security? They're the same sorts of issues, right? You're not safe to exist in the place that you are in. And the threat might be different, but, you know, I think we do have to look at that definition. So that's one issue. But if I can jump to another, you know, the research on the links between domestic violence and interstate violence have been established. Now, I'm talking specifically about correlations, not causations, because it's really hard to study these sorts of things. But we do see from the evidence that states that have higher levels of domestic violence within their own country are also more likely to use violence at an interstate level. Now, that's one thing. When you look at some other factors. We look at the fact that domestic violence is an early indicator of terrorism. So a UK analysis of 3,400, 3,000 individuals who were part of an extremist prevention program that found that more than a third had a link to domestic violence, which was far above the average general population figure of 5.7 % with a link to domestic violence.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Wow, that's considerably higher, yeah.

Elise Stephenson
Considerably higher and interesting because it wasn't just perpetrators but also victim survivors. Other global studies have found similar patterns. So victims or witnesses to domestic violence are often more likely to gravitate towards extremist ideologies. Now, if we have a look at some of the drivers and kind of interrelated factors between domestic violence and radicalization, we see that both are prompted by a need for control and identity. And these are things that extremist groups can exploit. We also see that kind of both cohorts exhibit levels of moral disengagement and view kind of harmful actions as necessary or justified. And they've got some way of grappling with that. And then if you have a look at, whether it's Orlando nightclub shootings or the Link Cafe incident in Australia, we start to see patterns where people who were involved in those events and who perpetrated those events, both had significant domestic violence histories. So, I think, to me, it is uncontroversial to say that domestic violence is a national security issue. I do believe it's a national security issue and I believe that evidence supports that. I think what we need to have a debate and discussion around is, well, whose primary role is it to do DV prevention? And what I would say is while it's not necessarily the national security sector's kind of primary or best role to play in that space, they do have to be part of that space. And what I would see is that the national security sector has a role to play in conjunction with domestic violence prevention services and that whole sector that I don't think we're doing as well as we could right now.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
And if I, if I can just interject there and mention that for listeners who might be interested in reading more on domestic violence prevention, I highly recommend Jess Hill's book, “See What You Made Me Do” and the SBS series that was made drawing on that book and and not at all inconsistent with what you've said, Elise, for sure. And if it helps to sort of go back to your point about what what is national security, historical conception of being preoccupied with external threats, to mention that in the aftermath of September 11, there was a bunch of anti-terrorism law made in Australia at the federal level. And to cut a long constitutional story short, the High Court held that the Commonwealth's power to make laws for the defence of the nation also included a power to make laws for internal threats. So, it's been recognised at law for some point that defense of the nation does not only include external threats, but extends to internal threats and not just against the body politic, but against sections of the community.

And I guess that's why I asked the question. I'm not an expert on these issues in the way that you two are. But when I think about the statistics and, you know, the percentage of women who will face gender-based violence in their life, it's hard to imagine replacing those demographics with any other demographic and it not being seen as a national security issue or a hatecrime-type genre. Pascale, would you like to add anything to any of that?

Pascale Taplin
Look, think you've both made like really compelling argument about this being a national security issue. I think the only thing I would I would raise in addition is, coming back to this definition of terrorism and you know adjacent arguments that gender-based violence can be defined as acts of terrorism, I think it's important to point out that it, I think it's incredibly dangerous to start characterising certain types of issues or ideologies as as terroristic or terrorism, because the prevailing view of what's unacceptable an idea can these these are norms that are culturally contingent and they change over time and sometimes multiple multiple times in someone's lifetime. And so I I think we need to be we're trading we need to tread carefully in this space.
And I think the other thing I would point out is that the perdurance and ubiquity of gender-based violence is not a reason to provide Australia's security and intelligence agencies powers to bring the considerable tools at their disposal, including powers of surveillance and penalty, into the homes of everyday Australians.

And I think we need to acknowledge as a society that gender-based violence predominantly resides in the homes of everyday Australians.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
So I guess that's what I was getting at when I asked, well, A, is it a national security issue? And B, is a national security response helpful? I think what you've alluded to there is is some of the, know, securitization is a double-edged sword.

Pascale Taplin
Right.

Danielle Ireland-Piper

It can elevate the importance of the issues. It can help allocate resources to it. On the other hand, it does bring with it the national security apparatus and, you know, the over 700 secrecy offenses that may or may not apply to a given scenario.
And this debate plays out with climate change as well, right? Like climate change is clearly a threat to national security.

Pascale Taplin
Exactly.

Danielle Ireland-Piper

But is securitization of the issue helpful? And from what you're saying, I think you're saying that you don't think securitization of the issue is helpful.

Pascale Taplin
I think, I think as a society, we need to come to terms with the issue, which, I mean, let's face it, gender-based violence has been around since day one of, you know, since since we started the project of building the contemporary Australian nation state. It's been ubiquitous throughout the history of our nation state. It doesn't represent a threat to it in its current form in the same way that the security and intelligence agencies in this country are built and designed and do a good job of protecting.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
You don't think that the risks have accelerated in the modern era with the spread of disinformation and the easy access to this sort of information.

Pascale Taplin
But I think what I've been trying to get at is that that's a separate set of risks. And I think the intelligence apparatus is well equipped to deal with that set of risks. And I think it's reasonable to define, for example, incel incel-based violence as terrorism within the existing definition.

National Security Podcast
As fitting within that parameter. Right. Elise I can see, yeah yeah go.

Elise Stephenson
I mean, I’ve got so much to say.

National Security Podcast
No please do, we’ve got time, it’s good.

Elise Stephenson

One thing I'd caution against though is an idea that just because it's always existed means that it's ok to continue to exist or that it isn't a threat to national security. I mean, you talk about sovereignty and we can say, well, whose sovereignty? And you talk about gender based violence always being in Australia since day dot.

Does that mean it should be and whose security are we protecting? I suppose what I would argue is that without interrogation of who is actually secure within our nation, we actually potentially only will continue to, you know, have a focus on kind of traditional security threats, which might miss a whole range of threats that have always existed. And that doesn't mean that they should always continue to exist. So I guess I'd have a bit of a problem with that kind of characterisation. And I think as a society, we can do more in this. I do agree, though, that national security and intelligence agencies, you know, they're highly specialised and have some really important work that they are doing. And we don't necessarily want that in everyone's homes, of course. However, what I would go back to is what is the complementary role that national security agencies can provide alongside, you know, you'll notice I really focus on domestic violence prevention, right, so because prevention and we talked about domestic violence as as a, the pathway to radicalisation, that prevention space is a really natural space, I think, to see some great collaborations and, and ability to do, you know, that's very different to, I don't know, ongoing monitoring of a situation within a home or whatever you might say. I suppose there's, there's, there's a space for us to open up debate and discussion and collaboration on this topic that I don't think we've got to quite as yet.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
I guess it's about elevation of the issue as well in a way that gender-based violence is sometimes not elevated in a security context.

Pascale Taplin
The point I wanted to make about national security in this space is actually an extension on on what you've been saying, these opportunities for collaboration. And it, look, it strikes me that these pre-existing fissures in Australian in the fabric of Australian society, such as that represented by incels and hyper-masculine movements are fertile ground for hostile foreign actors to to leverage, to destabilise Western democracies in their weak spot. And I don't have access to data about the efforts or the efficacy or even the existence of this sort of foreign interference, but it strikes me as something that you know may may may be happening and that it would be really useful for some collaboration on that front in particular.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Right. So your concern is that extreme views along sort of misogynistic ideologies are actually fertile ground for hostile actors in a foreign interference sense. That's actually,

Pascale Taplin
I think so. And if you look at, for example, the history of Russian, for example, information operations, there's a modus operandi to leverage pre-existing fissures and fractures in society, to leverage pre-existing conflicts.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
And I guess in that in that sense, it sort of loops back to what we were speaking about at the beginning when Elise was talking about permissiveness. It's all it’s all in some ways, groundwork or indicators or predictors of more extreme action later on. But of course, as you've pointed out, Pascale, being careful not to conflate radicalism, extremism, terrorism altogether.

But of course, understanding the bigger picture that these things can be connected and that misogyny can be a foundation that connects those those three. We are almost at time, but I wondered if there are any additional final, they're not final because you'll both go on to keep doing your research and I will continue to read and digest it, but are there any additional comments you would like to make about the relationship between gender and extremism?

Pascale Taplin
There’s  one point I'd like to bring up, I was in Finland recently and I had the privilege to meet a team at the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare who have developed an online publicly accessible tool that's research-based called Valiant that provides members of the public a tool to support them if they're worried that people in their orbit, either through their work or family, are at risk of being radicalised.

And, you know, I know that teams put a lot of thought into security and safety of users. And I think it provides like a potentially really useful model in Australia where we're concerned that increasing numbers of young people are at risk of radicalisation.

Danielle Ireland-Piper
Thank you for that, Pascale. And of course, Elise, you know, separate from this issue, but but related is the threat-multiplying aspect of gender in other national security issues, including, for example, climate change, again, correlation, not causation, but domestic violence increases in climate, in extreme climate events and a number of the other factors you've pointed to and which you kindly wrote about with Susan Harris-Rimmer in a chapter on gender and security in our recent book with Federation Press National Security Law in Australia. So if you're interested in reading more about the broader gender lens on national security, that's also a helpful resource. I'm really grateful to both of you for your time. It's a really interesting conversation and I feel that the conversation is not over and needs to continue. So thank you very much, Elise and Pascale.

Elise Stephenson
Thank you.

Pascale Taplin
Thank you.

National Security Podcast

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