In an era of digital polarization, radical online spaces have become key arenas where ideology, identity, and belonging intersect. Despite the growing acknowledgment of gender in radicalization research, it remains absent from the core models and theories that explain radicalization. Without a gender-conscious approach, existing frameworks risk overlooking how masculinities, femininities, and gendered power structures shape extremist recruitment, group cohesion, and ideological framing.

To address the lack of gender integration in radicalization theory, this study advances two main goals. Empirically, it investigates how gendered narratives are mobilized to construct communities within far-right and Islamist online spaces, based on six contrasting Telegram case studies that vary across ideological (far-right vs. Islamist), gendered (male- vs. female-centered), and religious dimensions. Theoretically, it contributes to radicalization research by extending uncertainty-identity theory (UIT) with a gender perspective, demonstrating how gendered meaning-making operates as a mechanism of uncertainty reduction and collective cohesion.

Through qualitative analysis of administrator posts, the research identifies narrative strategies that mobilize gendered ideals of strength, purity, and moral order to delineate group boundaries and reinforce collective belonging. Across groups, these narratives resolve gender-related uncertainty through appeals to clarity, obedience, or nostalgia, sustaining belonging grounded in shared ideology and reduced identity uncertainty.

By extending UIT with a gendered perspective, this work demonstrates that the theory provides a useful framework for examining how radical groups construct communities that offer stability amid gender-related uncertainty. The study also shows how these meaning-making processes become politically charged in times of social instability. Thus, the paper contributes to theoretical psychology across disciplines by linking the social-psychological concept of identity uncertainty to the cultural and political dynamics of radicalization in contemporary online environments.

This project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. Project: 101073440 — VORTEX — HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-0