• A Charles Sturt University study found gender is used to increase the appeal and resonance of ideological milieu’s systems of meaning by leveraging five distinct yet interrelated gendered narratives
• From mothers and brides to monsters and heroes, discourse on gender and extremism is often rife with assumptions
• These gendered narratives increase the appeal and resonance of overarching ideological narratives

A Charles Sturt University expert on extremism examines the question, ‘why would a woman join a misogynistic and hyper-masculine extreme right organisation, or submit to seemingly oppressive religious norms?’.

Dr Kristy Campion, Senior Lecturer in Terrorism and Security Studies in the Charles Sturt Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security (AGSPS), and her colleague Dr Kiri Ingram, (formerly with the AGSPS, now with the University of Queensland), grapple with the complexities and crossovers of contemporary extremist ideologies.

Dr Campion said, from mothers and brides to monsters and heroes, discourse on gender and extremism is often rife with assumptions.

“The discussion has been energised in recent years with the furore surrounding the repatriation of Islamic State’s (IS) women, and more recently, with the rise of right-wing extremism and the ‘Tradwife’ phenomenon,” Dr Campion said.

“However, women’s political agency, their politico-military and strategic value, and the appeal of Salafi-jihadism and right-wing extremism to women are often downplayed or overlooked.

“Afterall, why would a woman join a misogynistic and hypermasculine extreme right organisation, or submit to seemingly oppressive religious norms?”

Dr Campion explained that their study analysed how and why gender is used in ideological narratives of Salafi-jihadist and extreme right propaganda by applying discourse analysis to four case studies: AQAP’s Inspire, IS’s Dabiq, Mason’s Siege, and Breivik’s 2083.

Conducting a top-down analysis of Salafi-jihadist and extreme right propaganda, with a focus on their gender appeals, can help breakdown assumptions, and provide insight into how and why gender ideology is constructed to target and appeal to audiences.

“We argue that gender is used to increase the appeal and resonance of each ideological milieu’s systems of meaning by leveraging five distinct yet interrelated gendered narratives that increase the appeal and resonance of overarching ideological narratives,” Dr Campion said.

The five distinct yet interrelated gendered narratives are:

• constructions of a corrupt gender order linked to crisis
• constructions of a historically traditional gender order reinstituted by the ‘in-group’
• portrayals of ‘good’ men and women contributing to solutions and ‘bad’ men and women warranting punishment
• constructions of local gendered crises that justify violent action from the in-group
• the juxtaposition of masculinities and femininities to shame or empower audiences into action

“Analysing how these gendered narrative constructs are leveraged in correlation with strategic objectives offers unique insights into how each ideological milieu wants its audiences to view the world, how to behave, and how to view gender and power relations,” Dr Campion said.

In the annual The Australian Research Magazine, Dr Campion was listed as the Top Researcher in her field, Military Studies (that is, ‘Security’), in Australia for 2025.

Dr Campion was the only Charles Sturt University academic recognised on the list.

The Australian determines this ranking by calculating ‘Impact Scores’ for Australian researchers and institutions across 250 fields of research by tallying the number of citations their papers have received in the top 20 journals of each field over the past five years using Google Scholar data. The top-scoring individual and institution in each field are named leaders.