Lisa Sugiura's book The Incel Rebellion: The Rise of the Manosphere and the Virtual War Against Women (2021) is open access. It argues "that the ideology espoused by groups such as incels in the manosphere" predates the internet and continues to be "linked with the wider sociopolitical climate."
Homophobia and misogyny
MGTOW members are homophobic and sexist, tending to reject the idea that their members can or should have relationships with women, and "they use online harassment to police the borders of hegemonic and toxic masculinity." They "are influenced by the mythopoetic movement led by poet and author Robert Bly (1990), who suggested that men should return to their ingrained nature by embracing homosocial solidarity."
Giuseppina Scotto di Carlo's critical discourse analysis (CDA) found that Donald Trump's vocabulary about women in his 2016 campaign "perpetuates a male-centric hierarchy, significantly impacting upon his supporters...Seven core lexical and rhetorical strategies were identified by di Carlo (2020), which sound remarkably familiar to incel attitudes towards women ... Like incels, Trump’s Tweets portrayed his misogyny in an overt way, often used under the guise of humour..." Also, Trump invoked the "manosphere looks numerical scale," i.e., rating women on a scale of 1–10. The difference between Trump and incels is that Trump had a huge audience and was able to gain power.
Public figures who are "part of the so-called intellectual dark web" and are "the faces of men's supremacist movements" critique "the mainstream" (which they're actually part of) and serve as the "'respectable' faces of misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism."
What is incel?
The "essence of incel" is the idea that "men are marginalised from society, and are victims of the ‘natural social order’, initiated by second-wave feminism and the sexual revolution of the 1960s." To explain their "loneliness and self-loathing," they use "novel language...that obstructs outsiders and further perpetuates misogyny, racism, homophobia and ableism." This language aids in their community formation.
"Incels deny any connections with the alt-right [i.e., white supremacists and fascists] or, indeed, having a political purpose; however, there are overlapping ideologies..."
"Whiteness...is positioned as dominant of the racial hierarchy that exists within incels. ... homosexuality and transgender are disregarded and denounced ... Non-white incels are often told to commit suicide more than their white counterparts..."
Their ideology is fuzzy on the idea of choice. While they criticize women "for being uniquely superficial and shallow," they similarly mock women they find unattractive. Their continual rejection of the possibility of relationships with women suggests that their celibacy is chosen. What's the difference between an incel and a volcel? It isn't clear. Also, they choose to label themselves incels, to adopt the blackpill ideology (i.e., self-hating nihilism), and to be part of incel community.
Are they a cult?
"...ex-incels, those who have ascended – were able to leave the community – speak of feeling as if they were part of a cult. This is an interesting and concerning claim, and although I do not explore incel as a cult in depth, there is scope to describe it in this manner..."
Online, they perpetrate "overt misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism and ableism," excusing themselves by claiming they're being ironic or satirical.
What are their demographics?
The 2020 incel.co poll of 665 respondents found that 81% of their online users are from Europe and North America and 90% were under 30. Most are white. They claim to be depressed, physically unattractive, have low social skills, and have "never had a sexual relationship or kissed a woman." Despite the incel ideology that worries about heteronormative sexual attraction and conventional good lucks, height doesn't really determine who becomes an incel, as the average user claims to be of average height.
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