What’s Current: Westminster attacker yet another ‘lone wolf’ with history of domestic violence

Floral tributes to the victims of the Westminster attack are placed outside the Palace of Westminster, London. (Image: Matt Dunham/AP)

Khalid Masood is yet another “lone wolf” attacker with a history of domestic violence:

“The simplistic explanation here is that these men were all just bad ’uns and, given they had no trouble with killing countless strangers, it is not surprising they terrorised the women in their lives. But this is to look at the correlation the wrong way around. Domestic violence is frequently a way for male abusers to try to impose so-called traditional gender roles on their female partner… So it is almost inevitable that these men would then be attracted to belief systems — whether it’s Isis, evangelical Christianity or the fundamentalist version of pretty much any major religion — that advocate wildly restrictive attitudes towards gender and endorse patriarchal systems which encourage men to punish women for their own failings.”

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Susan Cox

Susan Cox is a feminist writer and academic living in the United States. She teaches in Philosophy.