Involuntary Celibates: An Exploratory Research of Incels By: Carolyn Reichert 480644 Brno, Czech Republic 13/8/2020 Masaryk University Faculty of Social Studies Department of Political Science European Politics Supervisor: Monika Gabriela Bartoszewicz, PhD. ​ Reichert 1 Abstract: Incels, a portmanteau of Involuntary Celibate, are a group of men that came from the ​ Men’s Rights Movement, which itself is a direct pushback against feminism and the rights that women were obtaining throughout the second and third waves of feminism. This has led to attacks against women by men for virtue of them being women and gaining steps closer to equality. The invention of the internet gave rise to websites where men could share like-minded ideas and in some cases, fan the fires of hate that they felt for women, leading to more violence against women, sometimes on very grand scales. Looking at the websites owned by incels, specifically, an attempt to draw common themes in lines of thought will be employed as they are given an exploratory study and examination of why they feel this way, how they became radicalized in their hatred against women, and what, if anything, can be done to rehabilitate these men and possibly prevent further violence against women in the future. Key words: incel, redpill, bluepill, blackpill, Stacy, Chad, Becky ​ Reichert 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Literature Review 3. Methodological Approach 4. Findings and Analysis a. Incels.co Findings i. Blackpill ii. RageFuel iii. JFL iv. LifeFuel v. Venting b. Incels.net Findings 5. Discussion 6. Conclusion 7. References 8. Appendix Reichert 3 Introduction The Men’s Rights Movement is something that started out of a response to the second wave of feminism. As women were starting to gain more rights and freedoms over their bodily autonomy, finances, and freedoms for divorce, backlash was almost inevitable as men fought for custodial rights and against alimony and child support payments. The movement, while stemming from backlash, in its early days did have good counter points, such as the rights of fathers to see their children in shared custody and the right for men not to be circumcised against their will. From the start, the fight against feminism has created violent men who wish to cause harm to women simply for existing. A great example of this is the École Polytechnique ​ massacre, which occurred on the sixth of December, 1989 in Montreal. In this attack, Marc Lépine killed fourteen (14) women in the span of twenty minutes before turning the gun on ​ ​ himself before police arrived; his own manifesto and survivors saying that he did it because he felt that feminism was ruining his life as women were able to keep the advantages of being women, while grabbing for the advantages of men1. It was recognized as an attack against feminists and women only just last year2. Books and articles written by men that have felt life shifted and unfairly treated them as women gained more freedoms were published and able to be found by others who fell in line with agreement, but the movement lacked any real sort of bearing on a larger scale until the creation of the internet. With the internet came websites, chat services, and message boards 1 Staff, News. “CityNews Rewind: The Montreal Massacre.” CityNews Toronto, December 6, 2006. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2006/12/06/citynews-rewind-the-montreal-massacre/. 2 Blais , Mélissa, and Francis Dupuis-Déri. “The Montréal Massacre Is Finally Recognized as an Anti-Feminist Attack.” The Conversation, January 27, 2020. https://theconversation.com/the-montreal-massacre-is-finally-recognized-as-an-anti-feminist-attack-128450. Reichert 4 where like minded men could get together and discuss the ways in which they felt that feminism, and the march for gender equality left them behind. While not inherently evil or otherwise objectionable, the creation of some of these websites, such as A Voice of Men, run by Paul Elam, and the Return of Kings which is headed by Roosh V (real name Dayrush Valizadeh). These sites contain various articles centered on slut and fat shaming women, the degeneracy of feminism3, how women play games and lie about rape and some tools at times for incels (A portmanteau of Involuntary Celibate)4. In addition to sites like these, the invention of websites such as Reddit gave like minded people a way to gather together and share ideas as well. Again, while like inherently a bad thing, in this case it led to the creation of boards where incels could gather and talk, and in some cases, radicalize each other before carrying out attacks against women. These attacks do pre-date the internet, but as more like minded men got together, the more that have occurred. There have been at least five large scale attacks carried out since the turn of the century, ones where misogyny was a motive for the perpetrators. Perhaps the first attack on a large scale against women and feminists, Lépine does not ​ ​ stand alone as these sorts of attacks have occurred multiple times. From the 1991 Luby’s shooting in Texas, where perpetrator George Hennard avoided shooting men in order to kill women, successfully taking the lives of twenty-three (23) people screaming about how the women of Killeen had wronged him5 to the 2009 Collier Township shooting during a fitness class at a gym where George Sodini, a man who had chronicled, on the internet, his inability to 3 Valizadeh, Dayrush. “About.” Return Of Kings, October 1, 2018. https://www.returnofkings.com/author/roosh. 4 Elam, Paul. A Voice for Men, 2009. https://avoiceformen.com/. 5 Chin, Paula. “A Texas Massacre,” PEOPLE.com, November 4, 1991, https://people.com/archive/a-texas-massacre-vol-36-no-17/. Reichert 5 find a woman killed three innocent people and injured nine others before turning the gun on himself6. 2015 saw the Umpqua Community College shooting in which student Chris Harper-Mercer shot and killed an assistant professor, eight students, and injured eight other before taking his own life in a shootout with the police7, after modelling his attack after the 2014 Isla Vista shooting by Elliot Rodger, a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara who murdered six and injured fourteen (14) before killing himself8, and the 2018 Toronto van attack by Alek Minassian where ten (10) people were killed and another sixteen (16) injured before he was successfully apprehended by the police9. The last two are of particular importance as there is clear and concise evidence that a hatred of women, or a denial of ability to access women, were the motives behind the attacks. After the Toronto attack there was one more attack, by Scott Paul Beierle, where he went into a hot yoga studio posing as a customer and opened fire with no warning. He killed two women, injured six others, and turned the gun on himself. He was a self-described misogynist and also identified as an incel10. 6 Tatton, Abby. “Pennsylvania Gym Shooter Described as Quiet, Studious,” CNN (Cable News Network, August 7, ​ 2009), http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/07/pennsylvania.gym.shooting/index.html. 7 Anderson, Rick. “'Here I Am, 26, with No Friends, No Job, No Girlfriend': Shooter's Manifesto Offers Clues to ​ 2015 Oregon College Rampage,” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2017), https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-school-shootings-2017-story.html. 8 BBC, “Elliot Rodger: How Misogynist Killer Became 'Incel Hero',” BBC News (BBC, April 26, 2018), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189. 9 Cecco, Leyland. “Toronto Van Attack Suspect Says He Was 'Radicalized' Online by 'Incels',” The Guardian ​ (Guardian News and Media, September 27, 2019), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/27/alek-minassian-toronto-van-attack-interview-incels. 10 Burlew, Jeff. “Scott Beierle, Gunman in Tallahassee Yoga Studio Shooting, Remembered as 'Really Creepy',” Tallahassee Democrat (Tallahassee Democrat, November 4, 2018), https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/11/03/gunman-had-history-arrests-grabbing-women/1871941002/. Reichert 6 Incels, as previously discussed, are men that are not having sex, but not by choice. For whatever reason, whether social or personal, they cannot seem to attract a partner. This does not always mean something is wrong about them, for some it just takes time, and just because a man is not able to find a partner, that does not mean that he would classify himself as an incel (no matter how fitting a descriptor it might be). Those who fall under the incel umbrella, by and large, see sex as a human right, or an inalienable right as it is necessary to carry on the species. These men believe that society has wronged them by denying them access to sex, or that feminism ruined their chances at finding a woman. In many cases, these men think that women cannot help but go for the best, most superior genetics, but still hold true that feminism gave them unrealistic and unfair expectations. These men believe sex is something that cannot be lived without, ignoring that the prevalence of asexuality (defined in this case as people who do not have sex), is about 1% worldwide, amounting to about 70 million people who feel no sexual desire and do not have it11, aiding in showing it is not necessary in order for a single person to have and live, and the amount of entitlement these self-described group members have towards women. As was seen with the attacks that have been carried out within the past few decades, most from the past ten years, this entitlement and rage does not stop just at the message boards, but the gathering of like minded men has resulted in a radicalization, sometimes turned extremism, where women’s lives are endangered and taken because these men feel they are entitled to sex.