Incel mentality crosses racial and generational lines
While it's rooted in white supremacy, the group of men who want to oppress women is intersectional as well.
Misogyny and right-wing extremism have always intersected. Many want to return to a patriarchal society where women are subservient.
It’s been mainstreamed in the last few years, shifting from platforms like 4chan to sites like Youtube, Reddit, and X, formerly known as Twitter. Jessica Reaves, Director of Content and Editorial Strategy with the ADL Center on Extremism, spoke with me about their research.
“A lot of right wing extremists, what you're going to see is a strongly rooted desire to return to better times when women were subservient, when women knew their place,” Reaves said.
There are different iterations of misogyny. Some within the movement emphasize white men as the natural leaders, mixing in racism with sexism. There are others, though, like Andrew Tate, a social media personality, who don’t think race should play as significant a role in those circles.
“They view women as potentially bestowing some sort of status on them,” Reaves said. “And they have very strict rules about what these women should be like, what they should look like, what age they should be, what their sexual status should be, all of those things.”
One of the more interesting parts of history when studying white supremacy has been the role women have played in those movements despite their patriarchal nature. Daisy Barr, an imperial empress of the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan, was a famous example. Today, there are some instances in which some women find comfort in the abusive nature of these circles.
“To be part of these worlds, there's just an enormous amount of internalized misogyny that has to be going on,” Reaves said. “But then, there's also the promises of security, and they will protect you, and all of these things.
“And I think for women, maybe who are brought up in abusive relationships, or who are just sort of conditioned into that, I think there is an element of them thinking that feels safe.”
Many, if not most, of them are part of the community of Incels, short for involuntarily celebate, or men who are not able to form consensual sexual relationships with women. Though it’s historically been perceived as a white group, there are men from other races that have also been part of the Incel sect. They also have twists on the Incel term, with Asians who are sexually inactive calling themselves ricecel.
Some have been violent. Elliot Rodger, an Incel who killed sorority sisters in California, was Asian.
“We're seeing much more of a move towards a less racially specific, a less white specific brand of or breed of misogyny taking root,” Reaves said.
So, what is the solution to this? These men won’t read feminist history books or literature or talk to feminist thinkers and leaders. What methods could we employ to move men to healthier views of women, which may permit them to have healthy and rewarding relationships?
Reaves said that’s where popular culture comes in. Movies and music that depict those types of relationships will go a long way toward creating an atmosphere where both men and women are happy.
Still, Reaves acknowledged the challenges.
“Because we're not going to get these guys to read the important texts they should be reading to be functional adults in the world, all of their worst impulses are being magnified,” Reaves said.