Failure to thrive: incels, boys and feminism

ABSTRACT

The group known as ‘incels’ (involuntary celibates, usually men) has become a spectacle for feminism as well as for mass media. Both popular and academic feminisms have condemned the incel for his involvement in many examples of misogyny and of violence. He is, in many ways, an unredeemable figure. I consider the incel beyond these denunciatory terms and in particular examine how the incel is represented as a ‘boy’; that is, as a man who cannot grow up. I also reflect on the reasons incels give for this arrested development – feminism, loss, and crisis, among them – and grapple with how boys like the incel are living in a world already changed by feminism. The incel is not a ‘good boy’, but this essay argues that ‘bad objects’ can disrupt the surface of our political projects in new, generative ways and that thinking with and through the incel in these terms is made possible by an affirmative feminist framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Incel
• boyhood
• crisis
• feminism

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their feedback as well as Jaya Keaney, Sean Fuller and Liam Grealy.

Disclosure Statement

No financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of this research.

Notes

1. Debate in Incels Wiki lists some instances in which a woman can be an incel, including cases of sexual ‘dysfunction’ or disability (however problematic we may find this).

2. I have chosen not to ground this argument using the concept postfeminism. This essay shares with postfeminist scholarship the recognition that the world has been significantly changed by feminism and that this is a core concern for any feminist theory or politics. See Angela McRobbie (2004) and Rosalind Gill (2007, 2008, 2016).

3. The original site this information was housed is no longer available but an archive can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/19970525065344/http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~ad097/invcel.html.

4. ‘Lookism’ is a term often found in incel spaces online, with three major incel forums – Puahate.com, Sluthate.com, and Lookism.net – focused on lookism and the futility of pick-up artistry. It is believed Elliot Rodger used Puahate.com (https://incels.wiki/w/PSL).

Additional information

Funding

This research is an output of the Australia Research Council Special Research Initiative project, ‘Australian Boys: Beyond the Boy Problem’;Australian Research Council [SR200200605];

Notes on contributors

Grace Sharkey

Dr Grace Sharkey is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. Her research interests are situated in feminist and queer theory, popular culture, and youth.