What kind of upbringing makes an incel?
Something I've always wondered is what kind of women were in the lives of incel men when they were young. Did they have a bad relationship with their mother? Did they lack sisters or other female family members? Or is their family situation irrelevant? Maybe some particular situation in their early years caused them to develop a complex around women?
I think boys and men have serious issues in our society that are not getting the attention they need. This along with changing social structures leaves some men behind. And they turn to the dark corners of the internet where other men just like them seem to care about them, and seem to have the same problems as them.
Boys and men are falling behind in schools and universities. Many colleges that have affirmative action are now having to use it to boost enrollment for men. Many of these rules were originally meant to increase numbers for women.
Women and girls have issues that society needs to help them with, and often times these issues get a lot more attention and are met with sympathy and understanding.
Whereas sometimes for men’s issues, the base reaction of society is to say stop crying and be a man. Men asking for help in and of itself is generally seen as not a manly thing to do.
This is an oversimplification of the issues, but just making fun of incels without trying to understand where they are coming from is probably not the best strategy to get them the help they need.
This in turn, leads them to start listening to men like Andrew Tate and other asshats.
What gets me is that the discourse around incels is forcibly centered on how they effect women, when it should be focussed on the societal problems that turned those men that way in the first place. But it's not palettable to discuss the issue unless women are given the victimhood role.
It's much like how every year funds raised for breast cancer research are an order of magnitude more than funds raised for prostate cancer research, even though more men die of it than women do of breast cancer. Both are worthy of funding, but they're certainly not treated equally.
Very interesting. I checked your claim and you're right https://hechingerreport.org/an-unnoticed-result-of-the-decline-of-men-in-college-its-harder-for-women-to-get-in/
I would just like to say, that society didn't just start "caring more about women's issues over men's issues" overnight. To get society to give a shit about women at all has been a constant, centuries-long battle fought by various feminists.
It's not the effect of society "caring more about women" necessarily that you're seeing, it's the direct impact of a loooooong battle for recognition. I think that men could benefit from the same thing, because there are a lot of problems that men also face because of the same patriarchy that women face. The be strong, don't show emotion, being to close to another man is gay type of rhetoric is extremely harmful.
When done in a good-faith way that's not a disguised attempt to roll-back women's rights as some men's rights discussions can sometimes be, I (a feminist woman) am a huge advocate for healing our boys and men. Obviously changing the way we parent boys will help, but it also takes communities of already-grown men themselves to come together to do that work on themselves, as with any self-improvement.
I listened to an interview with a woman who did an in-depth study of the loose coalition of websites and social media personalities of which the incel movement is a part. She described it as "funnel shaped," which is to say that they don't start with the darkest, most unhinged language. They start by talking to young men who feel lonely and rejected, and they talk about how they shouldn't feel bad about being men, how they deserve respect and status, and then it goes on from there down the rabbit hole into the really depraved stuff.
The reason this works is because a lot of young men don't hear those initial encouraging words in a lot of other places. They hear a lot about toxic masculinity and the harm of the patriarchy, and they feel like their identities are being targeted, and they don't have a lot of positive healthy male role models to turn to.
We need to have ways of talking to men, especially young men, about how they should feel good about themselves, how they should be proud of the good things they can do in the world, how they should be the best versions of themselves that they can be, and all of that in ways that don't lead down that dark road to toxicity. It's an incredibly wide ranging problem, and it's not going to be easy to fix.
This ⬆️ 💯 great take.
There’s no real blanket statement for this. It will always be anecdotal evidence.
My anecdotal evidence is that incels I’ve met tend to be men who were always turned away by women for being weird in one way or another. This can be never bathing, weird anime obsessions, never holding a job because they perceive themselves as above it, etc. And because of this constant spurring of them and depression or anxiety they start to blame whatever they can. They see being in a relationship with a women as what would make them happy, but women don’t want them. So it must be the women’s fault. From there they just go further and further down the rabbit hole.
All anecdotal by the way and in no way is this a blanket every incel statement.
Also: There are people who still believe women to be property. I have family like this, who are sex offenders, that still justify their actions to this day.
Pretty much boils down to women having too much autonomy, at least to my sex offender family members.
I’m sure you can guess what side of the political isle they were raised on. lmao
Isn't it mostly the appearance?
It can be, but I’ve met some decent looking guys who were incels. I think most I’ve seen tend to initially put off women because before full blown incel they already have a warped perception of women. Some I’ve seen are also just downright narcissistic. It can be a lot of different things.
... Did you just ignore their entire paragraph where they included reasons these guys have been rejected?
I had incel like behaviour for a while when I was younger I had a pretty normal family and upbringing, but I spent a lot of time online I really resonated with the "nice guys" memes of the late 2000s - I genuinly believed that I was really nice and that no one saw it because they were "sluts" (which they totally weren't and it's shocking that I thought that) and that they only liked guys who were sporty I was good in school, I got good grades and I think I leaned into the trope shown in media where the smart guy is always a jerk, so that didn't help I had nerdy hobbies too and would assume women in those spaces were fake nerds, when really they were more nerdy than me!
I'm so glad I matured out of that headspace, I hate the person I was - but tldr I think the nice guy memes were a big influence, and while they're not as widespread now, they are on some corners of the Internet
Honestly I have doubts it's related to female exposure; I grew up in a family of men, my mom was the only woman in the entire house and had her own bathroom. She was an oncology nurse and worked crazy hours. I learned more about women dating women than I ever did from hints and lessons from Mom. I'm more inclined to think it's related to the men in their lives and the examples they set in their interactions with women. The men online who shovel misogyny and bullshit about alpha men are doing more harm to the male sex than anything else I've seen.
How about the appearance, I believe that would be much more relevant.
It's not really, in my experience. That's a very common thing for incels to focus on in their forums, but if you actually talk to most women, a good personality can be much more attractive than appearance. Appearance helps, but it's not the only thing. Focus on dressing well, proper hygiene, and developing kindness (not nice-guy niceness), and you will already be so far ahead of the game you have no idea.
If you look up studies on "incels" you'll find most report that incels have an incredibly high rate of mental health disorders, mostly untreated and sometimes undiagnosed. Issues like depression, anxiety, and autism are very common. These mental health issues affect their ability to form social connections which can eventually lead to inceldom where they surround themselves with other incels and feed off each other. I read one study that called this "tendency for interpersonal victimhood (TIV)".
Upbringing could certainly have an effect on people's mental health, but not everyone with mental health issues is an incel. Becoming an incel is an extra step only some take and I don't think anyone truly knows how it happens.
“tendency for interpersonal victimhood (TIV)
I found that paper. Its in interesting read, but it only seemed tangentially related to incel behavior. It seemed much more focused on something like...the arguments that "white supremacists" use.
I found the paper again. It's this one
Compared to non-incels, incels were found to have a greater tendency for interpersonal victimhood, higher levels of depression, anxiety and loneliness, and lower levels of life satisfaction. As predicted, incels also scored higher on levels of sociosexual desire, but this did not appear to moderate the relationship between incel status and mental well-being. Tendency for interpersonal victimhood only moderated the relationship between incel self-identification and loneliness, yet not in the predicted manner. These novel findings are some of the earliest data based on primary responses from self-identified incels and suggest that incels represent a newly identified “at-risk” group to target for mental health interventions, possibly informed by evolutionary psychology.
Just a minor but important point: being neurodivergent is not a "mental health disorder."
I do agree it plays a role in boys becoming incels, but it's not in the same category as depression or anxiety disorders.
Edit for the replies I got: I strongly believe our society needs to stop looking at neurodivergent people as somehow "wrong" or "messed up." Your brain is your brain just like your skin color is your skin color, and no should be discriminated against for either. In this case, it really is society that needs change, not the individual. It's uncomfortable or even traumatic for the individual because of how other people react to them, not because of who they fundamentally are. Having to Face all the time, being forced into far too stimulating situations, having very few people understand your needs while at the same time foisting their expectations on you is exhausting. And it shouldn't have to be this way.
As someone neurodivergent I would say it either is a disorder, otherwise everyone normal has the disorder. It has also caused me a great deal of anxiety and depression from being different and whatever else. None of it led to incel tendencies in my case and I just felt like nobody liked me because I was different from them. I couldn't get along with other divergent kids either. Sometime into my several years of incessant migraines and hating everything and wanting to die, I became able to talk and react to people in a way that generally didn't make them react differently to me as they did to others. I think the migraines made me worse though.
Nothing to do with upbringing.
I was borderline incel. Viewed positive female peers (family, etc.) as completely different from "tainted whores" or whatever.
Bad experiences, chronic isolation are what make an incel. Lonely men without supportive friend groups who turn to the Internet for their social needs. Rejection and dismissal from real world people, acceptance and empathy from the hive mind.
Loneliness does a lot more damage than a shitty upbringing.
I wonder how incels would change if they just had a group of friends they could trust.
Hypothesis: what matters here is a social toolbox for engaging with "attractive"/compatible women in a non-romantic/sexual way.
I.e. someone who, even as a teenager, had lots of female friends, is likely to have a learned how to deal with them as persons, beyond "I'd like to hit that".
(Paradoxically, such a person is more likely to find a romantic partner, because they might have lots of M-F acquaintances/friendships that can potentially become something more.)
Someone who never learned that, can only interact with (to them) attractive women through the lens of "I'd like to hit that", which has a much higher risk of ending in failure.
If someone in the second category was always raised on the values of romantic success being a requirement for a non-failed life, and possibly with a touch of chauvinism/misogyny, they might wind up caught up in a frustrating loop of failure.
This is how incels can happen.
raised on the values of romantic success being a requirement for a non-failed life
Literally having a conversation down thread with someone who thinks like this. It just mystifies me. I'm single by choice. I'm not asexual, I'm reasonably attractive. But I'll tell you I learned the very hard way that romantic relationships will not just magically fill that empty hole in your heart. You gotta learn how to do that for yourself even if you're married.
Lack of personal accountability ("my baby is a perfect angel," "he's just a kid")
Discrimination (racism/sexism/propensity to find scapegoat for issues)
Not teaching conflict resolution at all ages
Popularity of toxic masculine celebrities
Mental disorders not being treated/toxic behaviors not being called out
I'm not an incel, but I do think there are cultural problems among a large percentage women (and men). I'm bi, but woman often don't like my less planned out take on life, but men don't mind it so much.
I also think car based infrastructure and the lack of 3rd places is destroying social circles, contributing to inclism.
Since I haven't seen it mentioned...it might be the same attitude you displayed with the question OP. Immediately wondering which woman's fault it is that a man is acting badly.
It's the Freudian question. What every psychology treatment, let it be behavior, psychoanalysis, humanist... comes to: Can you talk about your childhood/parents? It's not an invalid question, but not a responsible thing for an actual adult to do, make your parents totally responsible for your actions past adulthood.
A digital upbringing it seems. Self taught, doomscrolling with no one around who loves them enough to tell them they are slipping away into darkness.
Then oversimplification by people stereotypes and lack of socialization to realize the complexity of humans and human interactions. It's so easy to consider that "all women are A" or that "some of the people are A and some are B" when, in fact, you have all sorts of people with different spectrums of beliefs and understandings that you can't just box into a category. Then, when getting together with people with the same stereotyping and labeling standards, they get to slip away together and reinforce their beliefs
I want to add to this that it's also a self circulating thing too. It's easy to start reading text that's antiwomen, seeing videos about it, slowly further looking into more and more negative things. Some guys literally brain wash themself on this. That's why some media worry me.
For example I recently watched a video that discussed the negatives of Captain Marvel as a movie. Not long after my videos started showing negatives of other shows and movies like velma, shehulk and snow white etc.
Then not long after that all my videos started showing anti women, and more just outright incel videos.
YouTube recommendations/ads are weird. I started watching the Atheist Experience again and the very first time I put an episode on all my ads became for Christian products or services.
Makes me wonder whether those with the top dollar gets to influence what we see, and slowly how we think. A couple vids here a few ads there that slowly appeal to things it already knows you like. Until it creates a new norm.
My casual take: I’m not sure if it’s 100% upbringing but for most it seems some sense of entitlement. They deserve the pretty girl because something-something even though they might not be bringing much to the table attraction wise.
And now I just had a passing thought. We don’t seem to hear about gay incels much. Is that even a thing?
It's deeply patriarchal in the sense that incels are a group of people that think women are obliged to give sex to men. This simply doesn't work for gays, even though there are deeply misogynist gays who embraced patriarchal norms, and are maybe even sympathetic to incels.
So yes you are completely correct about the entitlement part. The entitlement is that men are entitled to sex from women. The something-something is the patriarchy and the bemoaning of a culture that is taking it away. Or giving women the freedom to pick and choose, because they will then only pick 'chads". Etc.
This is only half the explanation. This patriarcal culture is the old model, but also the only one. The old model has been broken, but no new model exists. There are only two solutions out of this: a new male model, but you can hardly do that alone and no one cares about it currently ; or the feminists are wrong and the old model is actually good.
It's easy to fall in the trap of the second solution, and fascists are now making hard propaganda for it because they feast over hatred and a glorified past. Here they get to glorify an outdated culture, and to hate on a political opponent. This outdated culture is also about hating on a supposedly weak group, women. Win win for them. Hard loss for society.
This is far from the whole story. And in fact, this kind of disdain is part of the problem.
"Gaycels" and "femcels" do exist in tangential universes to incels.
I always find the word "femcel" funny, since the word incel came from a woman describing her situation.
I don't think, that there's a certain type of environment, but some combinations of environments, character traits, and maybe just events in life.
What I noticed is, that incels fundamentally lack the ability to see other people as people, but more as automatons, NPCs. You manipulate levers and dials in a certain way and get a predictable result. To me, that sounds a bit autistic. Most people who have that trait in one form or another (I'd include myself), learn that this is not actually the case and humans are in fact a bit more complex.
But if you don't learn that and then end up in a life situation, where you are sexually "underserved" (which is very likely for autistic people, ask me how I know), but desperately want love, but also don't understand, that you're might be the problem, I guess there's a chance, that you could become vulnerable to that mindset.
On the other hand, there's the loudmouths of the movement, who I personally suspect to just be socially incompetent narcissists. They can't fathom that someone doesn't want them, so they'll create a narrative, why everyone else is at fault.
Content consumption. A guy is lonely and goes to Google and types "how to talk to girl" or a variation of that, which is fine and normal mind you, and instead of the top search results being positive and genuinely helpful it's the beginning of a rabbit hole that directly leads to this kind of woman hating BS. Couple that with terrible male role models in that guy's life and there you have it.
What's your definition of incel? Just involuntarily celibate, or also full of hate?
It's a lack of positive male role models in a person's life. If they see people calling women hateful evil sluts, they may assume any negative interaction with a woman is because she's a hateful evil slut, and they may not look inward. Don't have to look inward, in fact, because the answer is obvious - just a useless slut just like whatever podcaster has told them.
Isn't it going to be more likely the men who taught him to hate women than women? That's kinda incel thinking that the women caused it / deserve it, somehow. Incel is a cult, it's fed by a lot of stuff online. It's my take that extremely unbalanced overblown ego + not getting what they want = hate the things that don't just give them what hey want, rather than be capable of self reflection. And the whole upbringing of men is socially oppressed by toxic masculinity to "be the best" (= toxic ego / never question the self), because if they are "the best" it's others that are wrong, it can't be them, and they can't handle the cognitive dissonance of having any faults (aka being human) which would equate them to being not "the best". So by their maths, the equation is "actually it's everyone else that's the problem and if I have to twist logic, reason and reality while crating crazy conspiracy theories, rather than self reflect, I will"
I've never met any incels in the real world. I assume it's because like many other synthetic groupings of individual traits, they're a minority that has worked themselves into an echo chamber which has simply gotten loud enough to be noticed by others not within that group.
I find that actually going out and interacting with people in the real world, absolves most individuals of these kind of horrendous traits. In the real world, people can call you out for your bullshit and you can't just close the browser tab and run away from it.
I knew a guy in real life who got into men's rights and Men Going Their Own Way nonsense- basically, he had sex so he didn't qualify for incel, but he held a lot of the same beliefs.
I was the only woman he seemed to have any respect for. He didn't respect his mother or younger sister, felt they had taken advantage of his dad and were now taking advantage of him. The one girlfriend I know he had, was very manipulative and not a good girlfriend.
I pointed out all the issues with his thinking and his MRA, MGOTW sources multiple times. he'd come back around to being reasonable for a while, then wander back into the toxic wilds of the internet. eventually, I gave up; I can't be the only voice of reason you bother to listen to.
People call out your faulty behavior? What?
Toxic male role models (boomer parents have this is far too large of a quantity) a long with modern society/the internet. There a lot of people looking for someone to blame for how their lives turned out. The Internet makes incels if you watch a couple of the wrong videos/frequent the wrong forums.
Same ahit that makes nice girls / femcels. Just toxic propaganda repeated over and over again woth the aim of making a person believe its never thier fault and always someone elses.
Nothing to do with upbringing. They lack the social skills and in most cases, attractiveness, to easily attract the opposite sex. Most you'll notice really tried in their teen and younger years but when that didn't pan out their brain essentially created a safe space in their mind where it can't be their fault. It MUST be women are terrible people because I'm a great person and they don't want me. Think of it like kids who've had a shit childhood. They see the world through a protective lens they've created to make their unpleasant reality easier to swallow.
I'm a man with terrible social skills and low attractiveness, not sure what differed with me but I don't hate women like those arseholes do. Don't have a terribly high libido either though so maybe that's the difference.
Never hated women, but I allways sympathised with the incel community about feeling life as a burden.
I still feel that way, but I made a decision to still be kicking as long as my parents are too.
Well, I personally know five. Four are mormon. I think it has something to do with being raised to think you're better than women.
I think incels are a group of sufficient size that you can just state relatively is that all of the above are likely to be true to some portion of them whether that be extremely negative experiences with women such as abuse from a parental figure, they mentally don’t connect well with the women they meet and thus are unable to form meaningful relationships or they just fell into it and are on the edge and not in the deep black pill stuff but identify with the word.
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-08/ran_cn_incel_phenomenon_20210803_en.pdf presents three main ideas (on page 4) being
history of abuse/mental trauma, social skills deficit and/or lack of awareness/distorted boundaries.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/finding-a-new-home/202301/new-research-on-why-incels-hate-women?amp Whereas this one (looking for the extremist and violent incel subcategory of incels) basically hits upon every possible reason from abuse to indoctrination to just active toxic masculine.
Adding this link, though it doesn't seek to answer the "why" as much as describe the "what"
I can't copy/paste from that soutce on mobile, but it mentions many respondents to a questionnaire indicated they lived with their parents and had either depression, anxiety, or autism (prevalance in listed order).
Internalized logical fallacies combined with perceived (or real) trauma along with a lack of critical thinking skills or self awareness required to understand that their thinking is illogical.
The brain is a dumb piece of meat that was shocking into awakening and it is scrambling to make sense of the world and its experiences. It doesn't do a good job if left to its own devices and very often makes mistakes that if not rectified early on can become near impossible to unlearn due to cognitive dissonance.
These lines of thinking have existed for a very long time, becoming louder during the age of information, and all it takes is for someone not in a good headspace to read something that both reaffirms their sorrow as well as shift their personal responsibilities onto another entity. Our brains eat that shit up if not critically analyzed.
So when someone attempts to say that their perceived persecution is wrong or self imposed they become angry feeling invalidated on a personal level.
Having your child only have the internet as a guide for how men should act. Or to only get their answers about women. It breeds paranoia. It takes every tragic story and repeats it causing a false sense of ubiquitous understanding that all women are evil. It was especially bad in the early 2000 with MRA brigading everything. Reddit especially was welcoming to beat women subs, subs about getting off on women who cry, raping and create awful backstories to somehow justify women were in general deserving of vitriol and abuse. They had stories that women were con artists coming up with ways to fool men/be vindictive/ toy with emotions so they deserved to be tormented. The Reddit ‘MO’ was that ‘this was free speech at its finest’. At one point I witnessed one story of one women who lied about getting raped and it was copy pasted as a statistic with men believing this was more than one woman and more than one experience.made up stories were everywhere. Not one person could give first hand experience. It was always a friend of an uncle or cousin and for whatever reason this was enough for them to take on as evidence it was pervasive.
I think these kinds of websites are getting a bit more healthier in that people are catching it and calling it out for what it is. That is not to say there are some deep recesses that a developing mind prone to believing everything could get sucked in.
So with this I would suggest if you do have a child (or even man) somewhere that you’re worried about and starts saying some really fucked up shit about woman you sit them down to do a gratitude list with them about all the wonderful women they know(and help them define what makes a great person - catch out poor definitions like trying to define women by their worth to men or attacking women’s sexuality). Remind them that humans are a complex mix of individuals and that not all a person does is all about them. Help that needle find the balance cuz it’s real easy to go ‘all things are bad’ real easy cuz the human mind tends to focus on the negative. It’s a good exercise to do about anyone and anything really. Catches out a lot of unfounded negative energy and keeps it in check.
It is not linked to the past, it is a rejection trauma.
It is considered normal in our societies to be with someone. And as a man, you are culturally expected to be able to find a woman, and you are responsible for it. If you are a single man, it is because you choose it or because you're a failed man. The media like to talk about how you now have sex at 11 and how men have many relationships. When you're still virgin at 18, you already feel like a miserable failure. And the longer it goes, the harder it become. For some men they don't even need to be virgin, they may have had their first relationship by luck.
Then came #metoo. Many men discovered how hard women had it because of men. And this broke something: before, when you were bad with women, you merely had to man up. There was only one model for men, but it was there. After metoo, this model was broken. Now men are completely helpless.
This second point is reinforced politically by the fact that the left spend a lot of time to talk about women problems, but never talks about how men should be to be successful with women. You have feminist movements spreading hatred against all men, and this is also hard. When communication makes it like all men are assholes and can't behave with women, but no one tells you how you should do instead, you just feel attacked and helpless.
With that, these men are completely destroyed. Suicide is an option an this point. But hatred is another one. And fascism lives out of hatred. But fascism came later. First there was hatred as an exit of this situation for the desperate men: it's not their fault, it's women fault. That's only the only way you can go out of the misery. And with hatred, you can start to blame them for everything that's happening. You're single because the women are stupid and prefer the machist men. And feminism is a fraud.
And oh boy do fascists love this situation! Now they can easily radicalise you because you already did the job. Because the progressive left abandoned these men, the fascists gladly took the opportunity. And you now have a strategy and a market around this.
Not all men fall for this. But the pain and hardship is shared by many men nonetheless. The problem is societal: there is no counter-model to the one old toxic one that's been discarded by #metoo. You can't merely make your own model, because the point is to be attractive to women. Which means it actually is a problem for women too. But the progressists unfortunately forgot those men in their fights for the rights of the sexual minorities and the women, so these men are alone.
As a man, you no have 3 solutions : you are lucky enough to be with a woman already ; you embrace the toxic masculinity of the fascists ; or you're left alone in a no man's land of solitude and despair. The incels are the men going from the 3rd to the 2nd category.
Society is changing. The process will take time with highs and lows. We're getting into a low with this problem, and we'll go to a new high when we will have fixed it. But for now, incels will be the symptom of the failure to include men in feminism.
Feminism does not exclude men.
The media like to talk about how you now have sex at 11
What?
Now men are completely helpless.
WHAT?
How can you think so poorly of men, to believe their only purpose in life is finding a sex partner, and blame feminism for anything? Maybe learn to respect yourself and realize that you have value and things to contribute to this world that don't have anything to do with romantic relationships.
Maybe some people want romantic relationships.
Women fought to have the lives of men: a public, non romantic life, and that's an excellent thing.
Many men today want romantic relationships. How is this a bad thing? What kind of monster are you to say that a man should suck it up and forget any idea of intimacy or romantic relationship with a woman?
This is exactly the reason why these people turn incels or machists. And you're not worth more than them.
I don't blame feminism. I don't blame the left. I point at their shortcomings. You can't build a world of equality of you don't include men.
The future is together.
I hope you realize that this very message of yours is asking men to man up and stop complaining. You are hereby promoting toxic masculinity.
You have feminist movements spreading hatred against all men, and this is also hard.
Lies, this is propaganda by the reactionary anti-feminism movements
no one tells you how you should do instead, you just feel attacked and helpless.
Again, made up. It's simply that any solution presented didn't offer the same power dynamic the previous one did, because women are more empowered.
As a man, you no have 3 solutions.
Lmao what??? Where's the "be a decent, respectful person while also being authentic," the one that has been doled out for decades at this point?
incels will be the symptom of the failure to include men in feminism.
I see you have no idea what you're talking about, because you're not at all educated on feminism. Men are not in the title of feminism, and they're angry they're not.
It's funny how your last sentence directly contradict your first one, don't you think?
I'm all for being decent, authentic and blablabla. But that's not the matter. Which shows how oblivious you are to the problem.
The problem is about dating and romantic interactions. Being decent, romantic and authentic is a worthless advice.
Seems like these incels have no personal responsibility, it is society's fault.
Yeah, kinda.
If you need help or support of some sort, and you're black, there are tons of black or African American support groups available. If you're a women, again, there are tons of support groups. Black and a woman? Congrats, you can double dip.
Now, what's the first pro-white-male group you can think of.
That's why I think it's not just an individual problem, but a societal one.
Exactly this. I'm someone who definitely could have fallen into the incel pipeline and you hit the nail on the head. To be clear, I'm 28 years old and have never gotten past a first date (and have only had one of those). I've only ever experienced rejection. I've never experienced any kind of physical or emotional intimacy from someone I was attracted to. Basically every aspect of human culture and society make me feel like a failure for this. Of course, while I am "involuntarily celibate", I'm not an incel. I have the good sense to realise that it's my own fault and to hate myself rather than to place the blame with women. I have a recently diagnosed case of Autism Spectrum Disorder which has hardly impacted other aspects of my life. I have friends, a career, pastimes, I live on my own. Literally the only place where I feel "disabled" is in trying to form meaningful connections with women.
I feel for you. I'm in the same boat. I hope it'll get better for you.
#metoo made made men helpless? Dont rape confused you? Really?
Are you stupid or did you simply not read? Otherwise if you didn't understand something you can just ask instead of being an asshole.
if you had to state something, probably over-bearing, over-nurturing mothers. but i highly doubt anyone would say that is the sole factor. it's a combination of many things. even just being small or less masculine than peers can contribute. heck, being a completely normal person who is just a late bloomer can do it.
Too much unfettered internet access.
I blame deep space 9 and the hideous misogynist ferengi gets a hot girlfriend bollocks. Nerd gets hot girl has been a trope for decades and it feeds the entitlement complex.
Yes, let's blame the women again.
The better question would include the father of the incel or what kind of parents does the incel have?
Why not just take responsibility for who and what you are and I don't know, just live your life? Get help and get over it. Women don't owe you anything.
I'm more interested in how the incel would treat a woman if he ever found one.
Oh goody gumdrops I’m about to become very unpopular again. Maybe this time someone will help me change my POV if I am wrong instead of just getting angry and resorting to name calling.
Here goes: feminism left young men behind and as much as one might want to say “don’t blame women” the feminist movement has given power to women over the years and that power comes with responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to collaboratively carve out a space for men as we strive for an egalitarian society.
You know that if you say what what I just said you’re blaming women again, while if you ask how men can take part in feminism you’re making women’s struggles all about men, again.
Can’t win.
How can we have an equitable society if one side is never to blame for anything and the other is ‘whining or attention’ when they ask to be included in the changes?
The simple fact is that feminism has been an incredible source for good but it has focused solely on women. That has been a mistake because as one side changes, the other too just reshape itself.
I’m middle aged and I know so many men who my age and even some younger who thrash about daily trying to make sense of society with no role models and no standards to aspire to. No wonder some become angry.
Imagine being the youngest in generations of men who have been raised according to macho ideals. Be the breadwinner, protect women and children. Hunt. Gather. Kill or be killed… and now act with kindness and empathy to a changing world. I’m not defending or apologising for incels but it is time for young boys and young men to be considered and included in feminism. I’m a dad to two girls and a feminist, and I don’t want my daughters partners to be a couple of ornery jackasses.
There. I said it.
BTW: this is one of the ideas being addressed on the brilliant Barbie movie. “Maybe every night didn’t have to be a girls night.”
You misunderstood the Barbie movie... And everything else. Your entire post proves that when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
Feminism isn't just about women; it's about everybody. You mention a macho upbringing - that's one of the many things that feminism is trying to fight. Telling boys that they have to be "strong," be the breadwinner, can't have emotions - these things are actively harmful to the boys. Everyone needs feminism - it's about letting everyone be anything.
You may have heard the term "toxic masculinity" at some point. If not, I recommend doing some reading on it.
Who the hell has been telling men to hunt, gather and kill or be killed? What society are you living in? And no, i do not have a responsibility to carve aout a space for men (between my legs perhaps?). What the fuck are you on about? If men so desparately need role models and someone to look up too that's their problem. They could try just being good people but i guess that's too confusing.
I believe it is appearance, the sample size is like 2~3 tho. At least I myself is suffering heavily from this.
Ah no worries it's not only appearance! Gotta believe in yourself
I see, I did hear from multiple places (including from girls ofc) that appearance is the most important though.
Maybe I live in a place where appearance is nearly everything, or something.
An incel is someone who has been rejected by all women. They are undesirable and are not intelligent enough or wealthy enough to be attractive.
Usually this person is hateful with little or no emotional intelligence. They could be self absorbed or narcissistic. They blame everyone (mostly women) but themselves for all their faults and mistakes.
Classic examples from pop culture include:
Hal Stewart (Tighten) from Megamind
The Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera
Agent 47 from the Hitman series
Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants
Claude Frollo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame
Richard III from Shakespeare
Lord Farquaad from Shrek
Jacob from twilight
Agent 47, I think he's just asexual.
I hope you understand what happen when you hate yourself and you think everyone hates you and reject you?
You wrote all of that but forgot to answer the question.
It's not about upbringing; it is about personality.