I've heard about incels lately. Who or what are they?

Q: I’ve heard the term “incels” a few times, and recently read a headline claiming that they pose a real risk of committing domestic terrorism across North America. Who, or what, are they?

A: We are living in a time when the gender divide is widening, with toxic results. The #MeToo movement, which has highlighted the unacceptably high rate of sexual harassment and assault, has led to many women being labelled manhaters. In reaction, some men are turning into vitriolic woman haters.

Maureen MatthewsCredit: Simon Schluter

“Incel” is an abbreviation of “involuntary celibate”. The term has been adopted by a deeply disturbed, and incredibly entitled, group of men. They believe that a woman’s body is a commodity, a sexual object they have a right to use. Their inability to do this leaves them angry and resentful towards a system they think is blocking, and victimising them.

On the surface, it might sound like the pathetic whingeing of a group of socially inadequate guys who are sexually frustrated, but it has grown into a misogynist, anti-feminist movement which espouses violence as a means to create a new world order in which women have been put back in their place.

Many young men go through an awkward period when they think that women will rebuff them, but, instead of getting over it, incels gather online to reinforce each other’s twisted thinking, and fan the flames of rage. For a lot of solitary guys, these forums become a family or tribe, albeit one with which they can only connect sitting, alone, in front of a computer.

In incel jargon, the enemies are known as “Chads” and “Staceys”. This kind of male insecurity used to be played on by ads in which a weakling had sand kicked in his face by a buff jock, or Chad. A Stacey is the gorgeous girl, such as a cheerleader, who only dates Chads, and sneers at the ordinary guys. This perceived cruelty is used to justify violence and rape.

Incels operate on many of the same online platforms used by Islamic State, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and so on. Attempts have been made to close down many of these forums, but with limited success. Often, censorship drives them underground, or onto the “Dark Web”, where they are harder to monitor.

In the past few years, 50 deaths across the US and Canada have been attributed to incel violence. Two of these attacks made world headlines. In May 2014, a former student, Elliot Roger (22) opened fire on a university sorority house. His hate-filled online “manifesto” led to him being dubbed Saint Elliot by the incel community. In April 2018, self-proclaimed incel, Alek Minassian (25) killed 10, and injured many when he drove a van into a crowded Toronto street.

But these examples are a symptom, not the cause, of what is wrong. Last year, Melburnians were shocked by footage of a group of schoolboys loudly singing a sexist song on a crowded tram – “I wish that all the ladies were holes in the road …” At the time, a former student at that private boys’ school suggested that it was fairly typical behaviour that was not being strenuously dealt with by the institution.

How are boys being raised? What types of unacknowledged misogyny and male entitlement are they absorbing at home, at school, and in wider society? We need research, and programs for boys that allow them to speak their fears and truths, have their unconscious beliefs challenged, and where they can interact with positive role models. All men can contribute by modelling positive practices themselves.

I also invite women to interrogate some of the ways they react to men. Asserting one’s autonomy and staying safe do not necessitate overt hostility, ridicule, disrespect or unkindness. It is difficult to expose one’s vulnerability to an ill-willed gaze.

The fact is, as one commentator has observed, these men hate women because, fundamentally, they hate themselves. Anger is often a sign of fear, and there is nothing more vicious than a cornered rat. Meeting rage with rage only escalates a dangerous situation.

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