If you have been on the internet nowadays, you are most likely familiar with the term “incels,” short for “involuntary celibates.” However, since their existence is more often than not treated like a hackneyed joke, most people are unaware of the fact that they are actually an organized subculture that would go so far as to murder people to quell their insecurities. Incels, which comprise a part of what is known to be the “manosphere,” are plagued by the feeling of loneliness and rejection they feel from women and believe that women flock to men who are not them (often labeled as “Chads”). This angers them as they feel like they are entitled to relationships, love, intimacy, sexual pleasure, etc. by those same women.
At first, most people are likely to sympathize with men who are lonely because of certain societal conventions that stem from heteronormativity and misogyny. For instance, we often root for male characters in romantic comedies and decide that they deserve a female character ,not because they’re “worthy” of her, but simply because of the male character’s desire for her. In real life, such behaviour would scare women away, but unfortunately, because media portrays such situations through the man’s eyes and not the woman’s, this behaviour framed as very romantic. These expectations about how women owe men love, even though they don’t, causes these men to delusionally view themselves as oppressed “nice guys.” Elliot Rodger, an active member of the online incel community who felt rejected by women, even went so far as to drive to a sorority house in Santa Barbara and kill 7 people. Even so, he still described himself as a “supreme gentleman” who is automatically entitled to kindness from women. Furthermore, this community’s existence is not about loneliness. It is solely a hate group of “men’s rights activists” based on dehumanizing women and blaming them for their own loneliness.
These “men’s rights activists” do not actually face any oppression from women. They function on an idea of biological differences that dehumanize women and a reaction to feminism that is not in support of equality but an excuse to undermine women’s rights. On the surface, they may almost seem progressive, but the group’s foundation is fundamentally flawed because men do not face systemic oppression. They act like women choosing not to be in a relationship with them is oppression, but it is not. The group functions on a feeling of entitlement and the want to create an echo chamber to give themselves an excuse to be casually misogynistic. Misogyny has always been the issue all across the board, especially on the internet where people are guarded by the armour of anonymity. But inceldom is making it worse not only because they are an organized hate group, but also because censoring them is tricky territory. Censoring them is most likely the only way to ameliorate this problem, but the fact that free speech and free association are much championed causes on the internet makes this task difficult. This is ultimately why misogyny is becoming all the more amplified the more these people are enabled by the internet.