THE PLYMOUTH SHOOTING - WHAT ELSE WE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT

On Thursday evening Jake Davison shot and killed five people (including his own mother and a three year old girl) before shooting himself in the city of Plymouth in the UK.

My heart goes out to the families of the victims.

In light of these tragic events there has been a lot of talk about why this 22 year old owned a gun, but I would like to talk about the fact that the attacker had expressed misogynistic views online for months leading up to this horrendous attack.

In fact, just two weeks ago he posted a rant on social media where he shared his hate, hostility and resentment towards women and his affinity with the 'incel' movement.

The Incel movement (involuntary celibate) are men who feel frustrated towards women for refusing their attention. They believe men are oppressed and argue that feminism is about fighting for female superiority (rather than equal rights) and advocate for mass massacre of women.

Since 2014 they have carried out mass killings in California, Florida, and Toronto. But despite the fact that Incel related violence and it's members are increasing (in the UK it is thought there are around 10,000 members and in the US it's in the hundreds of thousands), their threat is still not taken seriously enough.

And here is the problem - misogynist incels are often perceived as movements without political aims and there is a lot of 'sympathy' towards its members who are perceived to have mental health issues. HOWEVER, if you look closely you will see that these violent perpetrators are the same as any other far right white nationalists, and that what drives them is an IDEOLOGY.

Yet despite the fact that the Plymouth killing (and many others) are motivated by a fundamental haterade towards women, police do not see these people and/or their actions as terror related.

I find that shocking given the fact the killer was a gun enthusiast incel killer who intended (and succeeded) to spread terror based on his radical ideology and hatred towards a specific group in society. And while other forms of hatred are considered hate crimes and terorrism (and rightly so), I can't help but wonder how many more women will have to die before systematic hatred & violence towards women receives the same treatment?