“Incel”

I’ve never heard a genuinely decent man describe himself as a ‘nice guy.’
Ooh. Lightbulb moment. ..you're right!
I actually think most men are inherently fairly decent, but also, because unlike feminists they spend very little time thinking about inequality or sexual politics, they are prone to believing rubbish spouted by actual mysoginists ( eg divorced women getting everything). A lot of men beleive what other men tell them but disregard a lot of what women say.
There are some horrifying comments on that Twatter thread. Interesting how all the woman haters have declined to have an actual photo of themselves on their profile.

I hate Twitter, I really do. It's a haven for maladjusted angry losers, and I agree the more oxygen they get the more atrocities we will see.

They can't just be lumped in with all the other misogynists and renamed, they need to be identified separately as they are now.

twitter.com/ArshyMann/status/988818797086871558

"Incel" refers to "involuntary celibate," essentially meaning that a person can't get laid because of their looks/personality. The incels make up one segment of the broader "manosphere", a collection of online masculinist communities that interplay with one another.

Incels differ in important ways from Men's Rights Activists. While both movements are misogynistic at their core, MRAs deploy a human rights framework to argue men are oppressed. Incels don't talk about rights, they just hate.

Incel language is often explicitly racist & they can be especially focused on interracial relationships. That element of racial panic is prominent in Elliot Rodger's manifesto.

(FWIW this is why I believe that labelling these groups extremists and perhaps treating people who are members of such forums as members of an extremist group is perhaps needed. Particularly if we see more of these type of attacks. Toronto is already a copy cat crime - in both its motive and its method - so the idea that this won't happen again is incredibly naïve).

This guy has written an indepth thread on Twitter

twitter.com/ArshyMann/status/988818797086871558

One tweet - "Self-described incels today are almost entirely men who are laser-focused on their inability to have sex & blame women. Of the manosphere communities, incels are the most virulently misogynistic."

Mostly women were targeted

The deadly van attack in Toronto is shining a spotlight on the controversial, often misogynistic world of "incels."

The term incel is short for "involuntarily celibate," and the community that uses the label is typically dominated by men voicing frustration online about their lack of sexual relationships, sometimes blaming women for their failures with the opposite sex.

In the incel community, "Chad" is a name used as a stand-in for conventionally attractive men who always seem to succeed with women while "Stacys" are unattainable women who always turn them down.

A number of incel-related posts have idolized Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old California man who killed six people and injured a dozen more during a deadly rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/what-is-an-incel-toronto-van-attack-explainer-alek-minassian-1.4633893

There is something of a problem here with it all becoming mainstream. This stuff is extremist and a social contagion. The more publicity it gets, the more people who didn't know about it, are drawn to it. In some senses it needs to be treated like suicide reporting. (I believe the same for all terrorist attacks).

People talking about the problem therefore becomes a double edged sword.

From the BBC

"Incel" is short for "involuntarily celibate" and in particular refers to online groups of men who feel that they can't enter into sexual relationships.

The attitudes of men who visit the boards vary widely, but online they frequently vent anger against sexually prolific men ("Chads") and women ("Stacys"). More generally, incel forums often include rants aimed at feminism and women.

In November, Reddit banned a section or subreddit of its site devoted to incels for hosting violent content.

On Tuesday, another subreddit dedicated to incels, r/Malecel, was banned.

However, other similar boards remain active on Reddit, and many other sites play host to incel discussions.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-43881931#

twitter.com/ObjectUK/status/984157067735961600
Another thread, which touches on the cross over between incels and TRAs (or more accurately hijacking). Note: this is about how the good will and trust placed in the trans community is being abused. It is not an attack on transwomen.

Indeed this thread was linked to and highlighted by a transwoman who is horrified by this every bit as much as women because it is also a threat to them.

I personally think it is somewhat brave of them to do so, because they may be lumped in with this. And this is why I am trying to be very careful in my wording here. It is important there is a distinction made. It is also important that this is not ignored and is written off as nothing either. This exists. It is not nothing.

It is disturbing so read with caution. It is the absolute dregs of society.

I’ve never heard a genuinely decent man describe himself as a ‘nice guy.’

The apologism in that article is shocking

I see what you're saying @Lancelottie but the problem with 'good guys' is that they often have far more power and control than the outright misogynists and any misogyny they have is hidden deeply within a facade of niceness protected very fiercely by a belief in their own righteousness. As long as the misogyny remains hidden it is nigh on impossible to tackle and the overall effect of the combined hidden misogyny is damaging in a way that is different to but equally as destructive as outright misogyny.

Take all those 'good guys' who claim not to see mess and who insist on doing their 'hobby' for six hours a week while their wives stay at home with the children and become more and more worn down with exhaustion and resentment. It's not abuse, it's not outright misogyny but it condemns enormous amounts of women to years of unnecessary stress and unhappiness. So many women in that position are made to feel that they're lucky because their husband earns enough to 'allow' them to stay home and act as skivvy to everyone. It's a total con and one that massively benefits the men who get the added bonus of thinking they're absolutely fantastic because they take the kids to the park for an hour on a Saturday and change a few nappies.

Oh she’s good. I do like Hadley. I often wonder if she’s on here.

Hadley has tweeted about them today twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/989070345134014464
twitter.com/HadleyFreeman/status/989074043130269696

Weirdly, though, that makes me want to give more credit to men who at least try to see past that sort of socialization. 'Trying to be a good guy' and being a bit blind to one's own faults is still worth something, if it's in the teeth of so many influences to the contrary.

It has left them disorientated and in some cases hateful.

Absolutely. The problem is that too many of them think it’s OUR fault...

Not sure if this has been posted but this article is a supposed expose of incel boards, with the conclusion that men are great really and it’s all just a big fuss about nothing because they’re just poor boys who want a cuddle. I despair.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/14/the-red-pill-reddit-modern-misogyny-manosphere-men

The guardian needs to run through the Scott trust a little faster ... :/

I should add though that it's worth remembering how bad humans are in general at giving up things that make their lives easier. For example, if all of us stopped using cars tomorrow the difference to the planet would be enormous, but because cars are convenient, we don't do it. Equally for men, pliable controllable women were a great convenience - one whole half of the population there for their benefit. They can't imagine doing things any other way because they've never had to. And they certainly don't want to.

'Bowl that is a great quote and succinctly sums up the problem. I think a lot of men genuinely feel oppressed and put upon. They are bewildered at the sight of women succeeding and refusing to kowtow to their every whim. It has left them disorientated and in some cases hateful.'

Precisely Eastie. 100 years ago, which is a nanosecond in historical terms women were there just to meet the needs of men and men took every advantage of that while considering it the natural and right thing to do. All the structures of our society grew out of that - work, law, morality etc etc and patriarchal attitudes very strongly promoted the idea that women were secondary creatures, no better than children and lunatics. That mindset is so embedded that men who consider themselves enlightened and feminist have it as much as incels do, they just deny it to themselves and everybody else. It's inevitable really because it's in our cultural DNA but it's so hard to fight against when the people who perpetuate it the most (and it's not the incels, it's the 'good guys') won't see that it's there.

Bowl that is a great quote and succinctly sums up the problem. I think a lot of men genuinely feel oppressed and put upon. They are bewildered at the sight of women succeeding and refusing to kowtow to their every whim. It has left them disorientated and in some cases hateful.

Oh I DO hope you get promoted above him :)

There’s. No insight is there? No reflection that it might just be down to them that they don’t have a stream of women throwing themselves at them/a decent job/respect from the community. That those things are earned through hard work and merit.
The locus of responsibility remains firmly external. And the rage is targeted outwards.

(ordinary men, not necessarily incels) are aggrieved that they no longer get as many Life and Success bonus points for their penis and balls. In their heads any restriction on their god-given right to be Fantastic is a Terrible Societal Problem that everyone should be super concerned about.
Ha! So true.
Eastie that is horrifying about your manager, I hope you can not let it get to you too much...and i hope you get promoted again so you are in charge of the fucker.

Someone on here said the other day that when all you’ve known is privilege, equality feels like oppression.

I think it definitely feeds misogynistic rage. Add in racism as well and it gets very ugly indeed.

i am black and female so how the hell has he been brought so low as to find himself at the same level as me?

I’m white, but yes, I have also seen this in action. It’s disturbing, isn’t it? The entitlement is stunning.

In a previous role, I actually had a Male colleague follow me through a set of doors shouting at me that I couldn’t do work task x (complex scientific shit) because I was a woman.

I mean how do you even reply to that?

Yes a lot of views ‘ordinary’ men hold are definitely views espoused by incels writ small: the commonly held belief that men are shafted when it comes to divorce because women always ‘walk off with everything’; most women are shallow and only want men with money who can provide for them, women want equality in the workplace but we don’t deserve it..after all if we choose to have children and go off on maternity leave why on earth should be paid the same as hardworking men who don’t get that type of break?

The angry white working class man is supposedly responsible for putting Trump into power and who can blame him really when on top of everything else he has had to cope with being emasculated (the fault of those pesky women who have managed to go out and gain better qualifications, get jobs, advance their careers) while leaving men behind. When I was promoted at work another manager complained that he had effectively been demoted since I was now at the same level as him and he had much more experience blah blah. Oh it was also apparently all about political correctness since there are very few non white managers in our organization and my face ‘fit the bill’ to rectify that.

IfNot you are spot on and I think explains one of the reasons the manager at work is so angry. I am black and female so how the hell has he been brought so low as to find himself at the same level as me?

Something that I definitely suspect is that a lot of the hand-wringing about how hard things are for people these days comes from the fact that men (ordinary men, not necessarily incels) are aggrieved that they no longer get as many Life and Success bonus points for their penis and balls. In their heads any restriction on their god-given right to be Fantastic is a Terrible Societal Problem that everyone should be super concerned about. Funny how they didn't show the same concern when women couldn't vote, own property or have any control over their body, eh? Men seem pathetically underequipped as people to cope with any sort of 'hardship' and by 'hardship' I mean any sort of obstacle that is generally miniscule in comparison to the massive barriers put in the way of women for thousands of years. We're supposed to feel sorry for them because they can't put their hands on women's knees for fear of being seen as harassers - we're genuinely suppose to worry about their poor hurty feelings around not being able to touch knees when there are minimum 85,000 rapes of women in the UK every year. I mean, come the ACTUAL FUCK on.

I do wonder about men in general. 2000+ years of being expected to be the superior human has got to fuck you up. That's why inadequate men (especially inadequate, well-off white men) find it harder to cope-they know they have no obstacles to success in any area, so if they can't cut it for whatever reason, they feel like even more of a failure, and need someone to blame.
I think actually the worst ones online are the economically unsuccessful white men. They hate feminists because we say they are privileged, when, understandably, they don't feel that working in an Amazon warehouse on a zero hours contract is a privilege. Whereas what we actually mean is that there are no restrictions on them, as there might be for their pregnant co-worker, or their black neighbour, not that they are automatically wealthy by virtue of being a man!
It must be hard to realise that, even if you are born into the "neutral human" category you still do actually have to develop your character and skills. It's not a free pass to just get anything you want.