Alternatives for Women is a feminist organization. We believe that women and men should be equal, that nobody should be discriminated against because of their gender. We want all of humankind to be able to live their best lives, fully, richly and finding love and joy. We know, however, that there are attitudes and policies and laws that can get in the way of that. And we also know that these most often negatively affect women.
Being pro-woman does not mean that someone is anti-man. Said in another way, being feminist, does not mean being anti-man. There is a general misconception, that anyone who is feminist at the least is distrustful of men, and at the furthest hates men. This can lead to a distrust of feminists, and feminist organizations. It can also mean that when feminist organizations share their expertise with the world, that expertise is questioned.
The names for the ideologies that contribute to this state of things are patriarchy and misogyny. Misogyny addresses a tangle of feelings of hatred, distrust, contempt and hostility against women. Patriarchy describes the social systems and cultural norms that locate the patriarch (or father) at the top of the pyramid. What flows from both of these is a higher valuation of men and boys, and a devaluation of girls and women.
Most men and women, girls and boys, don’t actively think about these ideologies as they go through their daily lives. Many don’t even really notice that they are there, and some don’t even believe that they really exist anymore. Despite this, research can demonstrate that these ideologies exist and that they affect how are laws are created and applied, how people interact with one another, how people interact with themselves, how institutions support or block people from participating in daily life, and so
much more.
One group of people who do think deeply about these ideologies are men who participate in the Manosphere. This is an online community loosely made up of a combination of Men’s Rights Activists, pickup artists and incels. The Manosphere is distrustful of the changes that have been made in our society following the efforts of the women’s liberation movement and the feminist movements. Some comments in their online communities explicitly state that they hate those changes and want to see them reversed..
The ideology of the incel movement considers the "fact" that they cannot find or maintain sexual or romantic relationships to be women’s fault. This is because, as the argument goes, women created the social order in which alphas are rated more highly in the romantic/sexual market. Women are shallow and manipulative. They look out only for themselves and will lie and cheat in order to work their way up the hierarchy to partner with the most alpha of alphas.
**** The incel movement (incel being a short form for Involuntarily Celibate) started in a largely harmless
manner close to three decades ago. A young woman who considered herself socially awkward, and who
struggled to find and form lasting romantic and sexual relationships, reached out through the internet
to try to form a community of people like herself. Rather quickly, given the internet tools of the time, what
had started as an effort to connect became a frightening mixture of misogyny, expressions of violence,
extremism, and rape culture. ****
The young woman has since condemned what the movement has become.
Incels identify with the theory of alpha males and beta males. This theory relies on beliefs that biology determines social outcomes. Thus, alpha males, men who are handsome and wealthy, are alpha because of their biology. So too are beta males defined by their biology, and incels are beta males. Following from this theory then, incels cannot be responsible in any way for not having sexual/romantic partners because biology made them the way that they are, and there is nothing that they can do about it. According to them women reject incels because women are superficial and unfair. To repeat, women cheat and lie to "get" the most alpha of alphas.
And women’s liberation and feminism are also at fault. Those movements encouraged women to claim their sexual and romantic agency. They are therefore blamed for the political, cultural and legal changes that have allowed women to stand more independently from men. Many discussions in forums dedicated to incels actively engage in seeking ways to reverse the gender equity that these movements brought into being. In their milder forms these discussions advocate for a return to the good old days when people married young, there was no divorce and Grandma always did what Grandpa told her to do.
Far too often these same discussions advocate coercion, rape, and other forms of very violent and hateful treatment of women. Incels connect online, but their rhetoric and attitudes are carried into the offline environment.
We do not know how many men who are part of the incel movement are likely to take their online vitriol and act on it through violence in the offline world. We do know that there is a lot of mingling between the online and offline world. This is true whether we are talking about the incel movement, or the latest Tik Tok dance trend/challenge. People create communities through sharing ideas online. They make plans in these online communities. They share skills. They explore theories.
This can be great when we are talking about a community of people interested in mutual aid.
But when it comes to the incel community this could be a real threat.
To say it again, there is little research to help us determine how many members of the incel movement would really act out the violent fantasies they share with one another online. Nevertheless, their attitudes are shaped by their time spent online. This has a negative impact on the women around them, be they mother, sister, co-worker, or staff at a store. It also has a negative impact on all of their offline communities. This includes the men and boys around them too. We know that there is a lot of pressure on men and boys to be manly, but within incel communities the versions of masculinity that circulate are not healthy. They are filled with self-loathing because they are beta and sometimes rage at those men that they think of as alpha. It also contributes to negative outcomes for people in 2SLGBTQ+ communities. Research confirms that strong beliefs about gender expressions and gender roles. such as those forwarded by the misogynistic ideologies of the incel community, generates higher levels of homophobia and transphobia.
At the beginning of this month, a man entered a mall in Sydney, Australia and stabbed several people. The available video evidence suggests that he was avoiding men and targeting women. Six people died that day. Five of them were women, and the sixth was a man; a security guard who was intervening to protect people. In the reporting on this situation, his father’s comments are shared. Those comments suggest that if the man was not a member of the incel movement, he certainly would have fit in there. His father said that he had tried and tried to get a girlfriend, but he couldn't, and it was driving him crazy.
This mass killing echoes one that happened on a Toronto (North York) street in 2018. In this instance the weapon used to kill people was a rented van. The man drove it up onto the sidewalk, and targeted women (according to witness accounts). He injured many and killed 11. He had left messages on social media accounts praising his incel idol and stating that the “incel rebellion had already begun!”
The incel movement is one that should give us all pause. Whether it was a motivating factor in the attack in Australia is not known, but it certainly was a motivating factor in the van attack in Toronto. We know that it has been a motivating factor in many violent incidents enacted against women in North America (where the movement is concentrated). Because it has become so savage and violent and can be shown to be a motivating factor in violent crimes, it has been classified as a hate group and gained the attention of law enforcement tasked with preventing terrorism.
The pure and extreme misogyny expressed through the central tenet of incel ideology, that man are entitled to sex with women, drives so many negative outcomes in our world. It is harmful to us all. It makes women simply something to be had, not really people at all. It sets men up to be either alpha (and therefore to be hated and envied in equal measure by other men) or beta (to be dismissed and condescended to by men and women alike).
Moments like the killings in Australia are opportunities for us all to pause,
take stock of our own lives and values, and to make changes and make things better.
Let us work together in our own communities to address misogyny,
whether it’s a sexist joke at a woman’s expense,
or the failure of a man to get a promotion because he chose to use his parental leave when his child was born.
We know better. We can do better.