Men who Hate Women: The Misogyny of Involuntarily Celibate Men

Abstract

This paper uses computational data and social science theories to analyze the misogynistic discourse of the involuntary celibate (“incel”) community. We analyzed every comment (N=3,686,110) produced over 42 months on a popular incel discussion board and found that nearly all active participants use misogynistic terms. Participants used misogynistic terms (e.g., “foid,” “roastie”) nearly one million times and at a rate 2.4 times greater than their use of neutral terms for women (e.g., “woman”). The majority of participants’ use of misogynistic terms does not increase or decrease with post frequency, suggesting that members arrive (rather than become) misogynistic. We discuss these findings in relation to theories of masculinity, sexism, and intersectionality. We likewise discuss potential policies for mitigating incel misogyny and similar forms of online discourse.

A solider and a victim: Masculinity, violence, and incels celebration of December 6th

“…Manosphere communities, including incels, share a "red pill" ideology that suggests feminism is undermining men, that feminists promote misandry, and there is an ongoing war against men and boys (e.g., Bratich & Banet-Weiser, 2019;Liu, 2021). Situating incels within the larger manosphere is important, as our research suggests that users of incels.is arrive at the community already endorsing misogyny, rather than becoming misogynistic through their participation on the site (Halpin, Richard, Preston, Gosse & Maguire, 2023). As such, men might become misogynistic in other forums, before identifying with the inceldom.…”

“…We collected every post made between November 8th 2017 and April 16th 2021 (N = 3,686,110) on incels.is (see also Halpin et al, 2023). From this dataset, we extracted the 637 comments that explicitly mention Marc Lépine.…”

“…As we demonstrate below, Lépine is often positively contrasted with other murderers, particularly Rodger. Lastly, while relatively few comments mention Lépine, these comments are part of a broader pattern of incels endorsement of violent misogyny (e.g., Halpin, 2023;Jaki et al, 2019), which are consumed by the more than one million monthly visitors to the site.…”

“…The term has since been co-opted by heterosexual men, who see themselves as undesirable and unable to establish sexual/romantic relationships (O'Malley, Holt & Holt, 2022). Incels suggest there are numerous reasons for their status, including lookism, technological developments (e.g., dating apps), social awkwardness, and feminism (e.g., Cousineau, 2020;Jaki et al, 2019;Preston et al, 2021). Incels views are characterized by both misogyny and fatalism, as they see women's preferences for physically attractive men as biologically fixed, which leaves average and unattractive men with "no hope" of establishing a relationship (e.g., Halpin, 2022;Menzie, 2022;Witt, 2020).…”

“…Incels and other manosphere communities operate as "male preserves" (Matthews, 2016) that provide online affordances (boyd, 2011) for men to participate in networked misogyny (Marwick & Caplan, 2018), such as creating forums for men to stalk, bully, and assault women, as well as the encouragement and celebration of such practices. Incels are ubiquitously misogynistic, with users of incels.is using misogynistic slurs three times more frequently than "neutral" terms for women (e.g., "woman"), and explicitly targeting women of color through a combination of racism and sexism (Halpin et al, 2023). Likewise, incels venerate mass murderers Alek Minassian and Elliot Rodger as "heroes" and "saints" (O'Donnell & Shor, 2022;Witt, 2020).…”