Gender, the Far-Right, and the Riots in Britain – Dr Elizabeth Pearson

For one turbulent week at the end of July this year, serious rioting broke out across around 20 towns and cities in England and Northern Ireland. Rioters attacked homes and businesses owned by immigrants, and set fire to accommodation housing asylum-seekers. The riots began near Liverpool after the horrific murder of three young girls in a neighbouring town, about which far-right supporters spread false claims online that the perpetrator was a Muslim migrant or asylum-seeker.

Whilst some women were involved, the vast majority of the rioters were men. So how should we understand the place of masculinities and misogyny in these events, and in extreme movements more generally? What should we make of the response of the authorities, focused largely on criminality, arrests, and imprisonment? How significant is the subsequent upsurge in anti-racism rallies across the country, which heavily outnumbered the far-right rioters?

We talk to Dr Elizabeth Pearson about her recent book ‘Extreme Britain: Gender, Masculinity and Radicalisation’, which explores misogyny and masculinities in relation to the far-right (English Defence League, Britain First, and For Britain) and the Islamist group al-Muhajiroun. The book is based on interviews with figures including Anjem Choudary, Tommy Robinson, Jayda Fransen, and Anne Marie Waters. Elizabeth argues that radicalisation is a ‘masculinity project’ for those who get involved in extremism – both for those on the far-right, and those in Islamist groups.

Elizabeth is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is also an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for Defence and Security Studies. Prior to academia, she worked as a radio journalist for the BBC.

• Profile: https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/elizabeth-pearson
• Twitter: https://x.com/lizzypearson
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-pearson-3572a117/
• Elizabeth’s ‘Extreme Britain’ book: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/extreme-britain/
• She also co-authored ‘Countering Violent Extremism: Making Gender Matter’ (2020): https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-21962-8
• Her Conversation piece about the riots: https://theconversation.com/the-hypermasculine-far-right-how-white-nationalists-tell-themselves-they-are-protecting-women-and-children-when-they-riot-236250
• Her writing for RUSI: https://rusi.org/people/pearson

Episode timeline

• Introduction (00:00-02:37)
• Elizabeth’s feelings as she saw the riots unfold (02:37-05:42)
• Government and public responses to the riots (05:42-09:30)
• Discourses about ‘protecting’ women and girls (09:30-14:41)
• Connections between misogyny, domestic abuse, and extremism (14:41-19:06)
• Men's responses (19:06-23:55)
• Break (23:55)
• Why extremist radicalisation is a ‘masculinity project’ (24:00-27:45)
• Similarities and differences between the far-right and Islamist extremism (27:45-33:37)
• Elizabeth’s experience of conducting her research (33:37-39:40)
• Women’s place in the far-right (39:40-49:11)
• What got Elizabeth involved in this area of research (49:11-54:12)
• Conclusion [The counter-protests; addressing the root causes; l