Misogyny will not get you a girlfriend

Content Warning: The following article discusses rape and other forms of sexual violence.

The incel subculture was described by writer Naama Kates, in her article “What the Media Gets Wrong About Incels,” as a “fatalistic, misogynistic echo-chamber in which misery and failure are celebrated.”

This subculture has, according to a 2020 study titled “Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence,” led to over 50 deaths.

According to a 2022 study titled “Involuntary Celibacy: A Review of Incel Ideology and Experiences with Dating, Rejection, and Associated Mental Health and Emotional Sequelae,” a core tenet of the incel belief is that, in terms of romantic and sexual relationships, people are split into three groups: “Alphas,” people who are extremely, conventionally physically attractive, and therefore, supposedly have more success in finding romantic and sexual partners, “normies,” who have moderate success in finding romantic and sexual partners, and “incels,” who are unable to find romantic and sexual partners.

Most incels believe only men can be incels. According to a 2023 study titled “The Mating Psychology of Incels (Involuntary Celibates): Misfortunes, Misperceptions and Misrepresentations,” incels, as well as single men who are not incels, “significantly overestimated the importance of physical-attractiveness and financial prospects to women, and underestimated the importance of intelligence, kindness and understanding, loyalty and dependability, and humor.”

Around 10% of incels engage in “misogynistic online hostility” against women. Incels, in addition to harassing women, often speak with each other online. According to the 2023 study, estimates of vocal incels on the internet range from 40,000 to hundreds of thousands.

There are several factors that are prevalent in incels, according to “The Mating Psychology of Incels (Involuntary Celibates): Misfortunes, Misperceptions and Misrepresentations.”

Oftentimes, incels blame external factors, such as their height or physical appearance, for their lack of ability to find romantic and sexual partners. However, as discussed earlier in this article, women who seek out sexual or romantic encounters with men, overwhelmingly care more about personality traits that can be developed, such as intelligence, kindness, dependability and humor.

Men, according to a 2021 study titled “Curvilinear Sexism and Its Links to Men's Perceived Mate Value,” often tend to be more misogynistic when they doubt their attractiveness to women, and when they are involuntarily celibate. However, exhibiting misogyny or overly focusing on their physical appearance is not the way for men to develop healthy romantic or sexual relationships with women. If a man who is interested in developing a romantic relationship with a woman were to want to change something about himself in order to become more attractive to women, he should, rather than focusing on his height or physical appearance, focus on his character. He should focus on honing his intelligence and becoming kinder.

According to the BBC’s 2022 analysis of a popular, but unnamed in order to avoid giving it publicity, incel forum with 2.6 million visits a month, which is detailed in the article, “Rape posts every half-hour found on online incel forum,” posts mentioning mass murder due to incel ideology went up 59% between 2021 and 2022. In addition to posts about mass murder, the forum is also riddled with discussions of sexual violence. The report indicates that the “clear majority of posts about rape were supportive”, and that "discussions of paedophilia show 53% of posters are supportive."

One of the reasons incels simply blame their lack of attractiveness for their lack of romantic and sexual encounters with women, rather than focusing on improving their character in order to attract women, is because they do not view women as human. Instead, they view them as objects for their own sexual pleasure. This dehumanization and oversexualization of women leads to the acceptance of rape and other forms of sexual violence, which only serves to traumatize the women that incels claim to desire so greatly. According to RAINN, the effects of rape and sexual violence include, but are not limited to, depression, flashbacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, self-harm, the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, substance abuse, pregnancy, difficulty falling asleep, nightmares and suicide.

Incels must realize that holding misogynistic beliefs will not help them in any sphere of their lives, especially not in the sphere of dating. Men who know incels must do their best to encourage them to focus on building their character rather than their misogyny, both for the good of the women who will be forced to suffer from the consequences of incel misogyny and for the good of society as a whole.