Over the last few days many have already heard of the tragic incident in Toronto, Ontario. A white rental van plowed through pedestrians who were going on their daily grind. Unfortunately, 10 people lost their lives due to something most of us are not even aware of. We know of terrorist acts that are preformed by extremist religious groups, or neo Nazi groups, but have you ever heard of Incel? I did not until today.
According to the Urban dictionary
Incel, aka "involuntarily celibate", a person (usually male) who has a horrible personality and treats women like sexual objects and thinks his lack of a sex life comes from being "ugly" when its really just his blatant sexism and terrible attitude. incels have little to no self awareness; even when they see other "ugly" men with girlfriends, they consider these men to be tricksters who have somehow beat the system and can get women despite being cursed with unattractiveness (in other words, theyre respectful to women and women are attracted to their personalities, but incels cant comprehend such a phenomenon). they believe that women owe them sex, and many of the more extreme incels like to spend time in incel communities on the internet coming up with ways to make women have sex with them (often involving genocide of people of color, genocide of "Chads" (men who have sex), taking rights away from women, raping them, having sex with women's dead bodies, and other horrid, disgusting things. they cant understand that that is PRECISELY why women want nothing to do with them). https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=incel
There seems to be a growing online presence of "incel" men who are supporting each other in different forums. The Toronto attacker Alek Minassian had posted several violent intended posts. The Incel movement have been praising this act and inciting more incidences are needed. Reddit banned the Incel forum in November but there are others out there.
According the Vox article 4chan is where you see most of the forums for the Incel Rebellion.
I don't know if I should feel sorry for these men or to tell them to get a life. I question whether this is a violent reaction to the Feminist movement or just the nature of these men. Have we created a large group of disenfranchised men in our pursuit for independence and equality? Yes, there has always been misogyny towards women in many ways over the centuries. But what if in our pushing back we have created monsters because the change is too fast for them, we have neglected to address the feelings of these men in our pursuit for our voice? This might be the push back. So what are we going to do about it?
I don't really have the answers, but I do know that we can't alienate men either.
Sources : Vox
Urban Dictionary
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Society is partially responsible for the 'incel rebellion' by making up false constructs like virginity and stigmatizing it.
Agreed depending on where you live. However, how do we counter act this without disempowering the rest of society.
The same way you would counter stigma against same sex attraction or prejudice against the mentallly ill. People absorb the conventions of their society unless they have another source of information that contradicts it.