The gender blind spot: How early reactions to violent attacks sideline misogyny

One year on from the Southport and Bondi Junction knife attacks, CIR researchers explore the narrative trajectories that emerge in the wake of violence, and the implications of what is left unsaid.

By Adam Campbell and Alba MacGillivray

The fourth instalment of our “Spotlight on Extremism” series examines how social media users reacted to the Southport and Bondi Junction knife attacks. We’ve uncovered how the incidents were framed in real time and the narratives that shaped public perception.

CIR has redacted several links and the names of channels/accounts due to privacy concerns and to avoid amplifying harmful content. Upon request, CIR can share any relevant data. 

On a road in Leeds better known for student nightlife and pub crawls, two women were shot with a crossbow on the evening of 26 April 2025. The man later named as the suspect, 38-year-old Owen Lawrence – who died two days later from a self-inflicted gunshot wound – had posted a manifesto online describing the attack as an act of “misogynistic rage.”

In the days that followed, media coverage described the violence as shocking, senseless, and scary. On social media, some drew links to Lawrence’s history of online extremism. Few, however, paused to ask why the victims were women, or what that might signify.

The tendency to overlook gendered motives, even when women are explicitly targeted, is far from unique. Narratives form rapidly in the immediate aftermath of such attacks, and can be difficult to dislodge even when more information emerges, often omitting misogyny from the frame altogether.

A worrying trend

Just over a year ago, on 29 July 2024, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana fatally stabbed three young girls and injured ten others (eight girls, one woman, and one man) at a Taylor Swift–themed yoga and dance event in Southport, UK. The attack targeted a room full of children, almost all of them girls under ten. Yet in the hours following the attack, online speculation focused not on the victims’ identities, but on the attacker’s perceived ethnicity and religion. 

Disinformation about his background spread rapidly before police had even confirmed Rudakubana’s name. Within a day, rioters had targeted a local mosque, and nationwide anti-immigration protests were underway. The fact that the victims had been almost entirely women and girls received little attention in early coverage and commentary.

A few months prior to the Southport attack, on 13 April 2024, a mass stabbing at Bondi Junction shopping centre in Sydney, Australia, left six people dead – five of them women. The New South Wales Police Commissioner initially suggested that the perpetrator, Joel Cauchi, was specifically targeting women. However, during the inquest, the homicide squad’s Andrew Paul Marks stated that he did not believe there was evidence to support this. In the immediate aftermath, media coverage largely framed the attack as a tragic but random incident, focusing on Cauchi’s mental health – a narrative that overlooked any potential gendered motivations

Speculation grew so much that the perpetrator was misidentified online, with the identity of an innocent Jewish man shared across the internet. It led to a deluge of mis- and disinformation, some of which was anti-semitic in nature. As seen in the Southport case, the fact that most of the victims were women was rarely a focus of reporting or commentary.

Across borders and contexts, a pattern emerges

When women and girls are the victims of violence, gender is often missing in how these attacks are first understood. Despite a 37% rise in recorded Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)-related crime in the UK between 2018 and 2023, misogyny remains a marginal explanation in public and political discourse. 

Much research on extremist violence has analysed how individuals are radicalised through collective grievances and ideological channels such as jihadism and far-right nationalism. Behavioural and psychological factors – including social isolation, identity crises, and aggression – are also commonly invoked in cases of lone-actor violence. Gendered violence, even when explicitly documented or self-declared, is frequently reframed, softened, or ignored altogether.

Understanding how public memory is shaped can help to explain why acts of violence against women are often misunderstood. CIR researchers gathered and analysed comments on X and Reddit in the first three hours after the Southport and Bondi Junction attacks using Meltwater, a social media listening tool. Researchers explored how early narratives took shape, what issues emerged at the fore, and whether misogyny was overlooked.

Recent research has argued that misogyny can be a cross-cutting driver of extremist violence, present in jihadism, far-right movements, and male supremacist ideologies – such as those espoused by “incels” and “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW) communities. 

Online subcultures like the “manosphere” can normalise these beliefs, intersecting with broader extremist ecosystems in what has been termed “salad bar extremism” – a blending of far-right, conspiratorial, and misogynistic ideas. As a unifying psychological and ideological thread, misogyny can underpin both public and private acts of male violence, so engagement with anti-feminist agendas or gender-based violence can heighten vulnerability to radicalisation. This underscores the need for gender-sensitive counter-terrorism strategies.

Southport aftermath

In the first three hours after the Southport attack (11:47 BST, 29 July 2024), a total of 7,482 posts from X and Reddit were collected and analysed by CIR researchers using targeted keyword searches.

Figure 1: Number of mentions of incident, identity, and gender-related keywords identified by CIR in the first three hours following the Southport attack. Source: Meltwater

Most social media posts focused on the incident itself, with incident-related terms appearing 9,642 times across 7,482 posts. The top 30 highest reaching posts also centred on reporting of the event. The single most widely viewed post was posted by CNN at 14:24, reporting the event and its casualties. Despite its broad reach, this post received only 299 likes and 155 reposts (see Figure 2 below). 

Figure 2: Post on X via @cnnbrk

In contrast, the post with the highest engagement (since removed from X) in the first three hours came from an account promoting a politically charged narrative (see Figure 3 below).

Figure 3: Post on X via @LillyinLondon

This contrast between reach and engagement reveals a key dynamic identified by CIR researchers on platforms like X – while traditional media’s posts achieve broader visibility, it is emotionally charged or politically provocative content that appears to generate significantly higher user interaction. 

Gendered violence underrepresented

Despite the presence of child victims and the potential for a gendered reading of the violence, posts referencing gender were markedly low, with only 106 posts including these terms. Of those, several referring to  “gender” or “women” were not about the Southport attack, but the stabbing of a transgender woman in Southport just days earlier. Notably, there were zero mentions of “misogyny” in the dataset.

Some posts did allude to gendered dimensions of violence – raising concerns about a rise in male violence and the victimhood of women and children (see Figure 4 below).

Figure 4: Sample of posts from three hours after Southport attack

However, no coherent public framing emerged around the gendered dimensions of the attack. Where gender was alluded to, it was often through protectionist tropes of women and children, used to justify further violence. This politicised framing ultimately reinforces, rather than challenges, gender hierarchies, minimising the agency of victims and obscuring the potential role of structural misogyny in the violence itself.  The posts shown in Figure 5 exemplify this; they are all posted by male users and frame women and children as a category to protect. 

Notably, these protectionist tropes were often framed in terms of anti-immigration rhetoric – such as the term “aliens” – suggesting the invasion of a foreign species. One user stated that violence in the UK is “getting worse with each dinghy that crosses English channel” – as though rising numbers of immigrants pose a growing threat to British women, which men must respond to accordingly. 

The use of the word “cucks” (a pejorative term for men who do not conform to traditionally masculine traits) also suggested that English men would be deemed weak or inferior if they did not respond to the Southport attack with violence (see Figure 5 below).

Figure 5: Sample of posts from three hours after Southport attack

Anti-immigration narratives

In stark contrast to gender-related content, posts referencing immigration or the identity of the perpetrator were far more numerous. In the first three hours after the Southport attack, there were five times more posts discussing identity-related terms than gender-related terms. 

Immigration was the most frequently cited explanation for the attack in this initial period. Many users immediately assumed the perpetrator was an undocumented migrant and used the event to criticise immigration policy and what they perceived as government failures (see Figure 6 below). For example, one user claimed the perpetrator was “more than likely Muslim as most off [sic] them on the dingys are.” CIR observed multiple mentions of “dinghies” and “boats” across the posts – reflecting the politicised conflation of violent attacks with illegal immigration in recent years.

Figure 6: Sample of posts from three hours after Southport attack

Many posts combined anti-immigrant rhetoric with racist and Islamophobic language, presenting Islam as inherently violent or unstable, and linking immigration with criminality. These narratives often targeted the media – for allegedly covering up key facts – as well as minority communities, and appeared to stem from racist beliefs and fear of the alleged dilution of British culture (see Figure 7 below).

Figure 7: Sample of posts from three hours after Southport attack

Speculation shapes public narratives

In the absence of verified information, users quickly turned to speculative profiling, attempting to infer the attacker’s immigration status, religion, or race. Posts rooted in stereotype and assumption – especially those invoking Islam or racialised tropes frequently attracted high engagement. This “identity anticipation” reflects a broader online pattern, where speculation fills the vacuum and shapes the public narrative through sheer volume and visibility. The misinformation-fuelled discourse perpetuates the in-group’s wider narrative that immigrants (perceived out-group) carry out violent attacks, further solidifying in-group and out-group distinctions (see Figure 8 below). Here, the in-group refers to a group with which an individual identifies, while the out-group consists of those perceived as different or outside this group, often leading to bias and stereotyping.

Figure 8: Sample of posts from three hours after Southport attack

Counter-narratives reveal polarisation

While a substantial proportion of posts framed the attack through racialised or religious lenses, a smaller but significant contingent pushed back against these assumptions. These posts criticised the rush to judgment and the racial profiling implicit in much of the speculation. These users tended to agree with one another, criticising the politicisation of the attack to fit racist narratives. 

For example, one user states, “We see you Fash”, implying that users who assumed the perpetrator was Muslim were exhibiting fascist or far-right tendencies. These accounts also noted how narratives tended to focus on the attacker, not the victims,  and, as a result, removed victims’ agency and eroded attempts to understand the perpetrator’s true motivations (see Figure 9 below). Notably, CIR researchers observed that posts in this category tended to receive relatively low engagement.

Figure 9: Sample of posts from three hours after Southport attack

Users defending racist, anti-immigrant, or Islamophobic narratives framed their arguments as common sense or based on precedent (see Figure 10 below). These posts often accused critics of:

• ignoring patterns of violence;
• failing to protect national interests; or,
• framing the polarisation as a left-right political issue, reinforcing ideological divisions and attributing blame accordingly.

Figure 10: Sample of posts from three hours after Southport attack

The analysed posts highlight the deep political and ideological fault lines in online responses to violent incidents. While many users speculated the attacker was Muslim or an illegal immigrant, others expressed frustration at what they saw as racial scapegoating and opportunism. Rather than fostering shared concern, the attack became a flashpoint for polarised discourse with each side accusing the other of instrumentalising tragedy for ideological ends.

Bondi Junction attack aftermath

In the first three hours after the Bondi attack (15:10 AEST, 13 April), a total of 5,304 posts from X and Reddit were collected and analysed using the same targeted keyword searches. CIR researchers analysed the same immigration or identity-related terms as Southport, but also identified “jihad” as an additional keyword. There were no references to “asylum” in the data analysed. 

Figure 11: Number of mentions of incident, identity, and gender-related keywords in the first three hours following the Bondi Junction attack. Source: Meltwater 

Like Southport, the overwhelming focus across Reddit and X was on the incident itself. Across 5,304 posts, incident-related terms appeared 4,323 times. This included high-frequency mentions of “emergency”, “baby”, “attack”, “incident”, and “stabbing”. The top 30 posts with the highest reach focused on limited but factually accurate reporting on the incident, declaring a stabbing had taken place at Bondi. The post with the highest number of views, just over 36 million, was shared on Reddit and stated: “Sydney mall stabbings: Man shot and reports of fatalities at Westfield Bondi”. 

CIR researchers identified several adjacent narratives in posts with high engagement, speculating on the attacker’s motives: that he was targeting Jewish people; that the attacker was an Islamist extremist; and that the attack was an act of Islamist terrorism.   

False narratives suggest anti-semitic motivation

CIR found 447 mentions of “Jewish” in the social media posts analysed, which suggests this became a widely circulated narrative immediately following the attack. Social media was quick to speculate about the perpetrator’s antisemitic motivations, whilst others were keen to disagree. In the first three hours, there were almost 4x more posts discussing possible anti-semitic motivations than possible gender-related motivations. 

This disparity highlights the misidentification of motive in early responses in public discourse, and points to a broader tendency to overlook gender-based violence following violent attacks such as the one in Bondi (see Figure 12 below for examples).

Figure 12: Sample of posts from three hours after Bondi Junction attack

Posts with the highest engagement often politicised or framed the incident in a more emotive way. The post with the second-highest engagement suggested that the attack was terror-related and targeted a Jewish area in Sydney (see Figure 13 below). The post has so far garnered over 2.6 million views and, at the time of publication, remains on X.

Figure 13: Post on X via @Visegrad24

In contrast, local police confirmed the attacker targeted women, and CIR researchers found no evidence to suggest Jewish people were targeted. 

False narratives suggest anti-immigrant or Islamic extremism motivation

The most highly engaged with posts claimed the incident was both terror-related and/or an act of Islamist extremism. CIR researchers found no evidence to suggest the perpetrator was guided by Islamist extremism or any terror-related ideology. 

Of the 30 posts with the highest engagement, six framed the incident as terror-related. These were posted immediately following the attack, when the perpetrator’s motivations were at that point completely unknown. CIR researchers found that posts that shared content which headlined a terror attack spread quickly, given the emotive nature of the word “terror” (see Figure 14).

Figure 14: Sample of posts from three hours after Bondi Junction attack

Similarly to Southport, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, some of the most highly engaged with posts focused not on the victims, but on the motivations of the perpetrator (in this case, Islamist extremism). 

Social media users – such as Tommy Robinson, the alias of prominent anti-Islam and anti-immigration figure Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – sought to capitalise on and push a political message in response to the incident. Other accounts, in response to a vacuum of information and existing prejudices, assumed the attack was terror-related. Another highly engaged post (see Figure 15 below) also claimed the attack was targeting a Jewish area, with the post calling for a “ban on Muslim immigration”. 

Figure 15: Sample of posts from three hours after Bondi Junction attack

Moreover, CIR researchers found that “Muslim” and “Islam” were mentioned 71 and 36 times, respectively. Of these posts, the majority speculated on the motivations of the perpetrator as an Islamist extremist or blamed Islam as a whole, whilst the minority denounced these speculations. 

Such posts fuel politically-charged narratives and anti-immigrant rhetoric while overlooking gender-based violence. Rather than addressing the systemic roots of such violence, including misogyny or radicalisation within far-right or incel communities, the public discourse becomes preoccupied with discussions rooted in racial or religious prejudices (see below).

Figure 16: Post from three hours after Bondi Junction attack

Victim emphasis imbalance

CIR researchers found a significant disparity in the references to the identity of the victims compared to the attacker. CIR observed that significantly more posts discussed the identity of the perpetrator and their motivations compared to posts that referenced the victims. The focus on the perpetrators is common in violent extremist discourse which can inadvertently minimise the impact of the violence on the victims, and in turn overlook the broader societal factors that contribute to extremism, such as misogyny.     

Furthermore, of the posts relating to victims, CIR found over 270 references to the search terms “baby” or “child” in reference to the stabbing of Ashlee Good’s child, who herself was fatally stabbed defending her nine-month-old. In comparison, CIR researchers found 17 references to “female” and 37 references to “women” and/or “woman” in reference to the five women killed in the attack (see Figure 11 above). 

While the harm to a child understandably triggered a widespread emotional response on social media, the relative silence surrounding the other victims and their gender reflects a broader pattern: violence against women often goes under-acknowledged.

In over 5,000 posts following the Bondi attack, CIR researchers identified several discussions and narratives on social media – relating to immigration, ethnicity, terrorism, and religion – which dwarfed gendered motivations in what was highly likely a misogyny-fueled attack. 

In conclusion: Speculation, polarisation, and the absence of gender

The immediate social media responses to both the Southport and Bondi attacks revealed strikingly similar dynamics. In both cases, correct factual reporting achieved the widest reach, yet speculative, politically-charged posts consistently generated higher engagement. 

Identity-based speculation, particularly around immigration, Islam, and race, emerged within minutes of each incident, often in the absence of verified information. This speculative profiling served as a catalyst for polarised political discourse: some users framed the violence through narratives of immigration policy failure or religious extremism, while a minority of others countered these claims with accusations of racism and far-right opportunism.

Despite the predominant presence of women and children among the victims in both attacks, references to gender and misogyny were minimal. While acts of public violence increasingly serve as flashpoints for polarising and politically charged rhetoric online, the gendered dimensions of such attacks remain largely absent from public discourse.

When misogyny is excluded, perspectives of extremism become distorted and prevention is undermined. Narratives can form rapidly, often without verified information. Future research should identify incidents in which misogynistic motives have been overlooked and apply large-scale sentiment analysis to trace how gender-based violence is framed, or omitted, within real-time public discourse more widely. 

Adam Campbell is an Open-Source investigator at CIR, specialising in civilian harm and human rights violations during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as online disinformation.

Alba MacGillivray is an Online News Coordinator at CIR, writing on the conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar, and Israel-Gaza, as well as on tech-facilitated gender based violence and the broader field of open-source investigations. 

“Spotlight on Extremism” is a series of articles based on investigations our CIR analysts conducted into some of the extremist ideologies that are circulating online. The articles will cover multiple narratives, events and concepts related to the broader sphere of extremism with the aim of analysing the impact it has on societies and furthering an understanding of the concept.