A Tale of Male Supremacy Disguised as Victimhood
Written by Jay C.
In the “Rage of the Incels,” Jia Tolentino, a Filipino-American author, speaks on the violent, unhinged misogyny of the incels against the backdrop of the progressive #MeToo movement. She also reveals the irony in the logic of these self-proclaimed ‘alpha males’: their sexual desires for pure and beautiful women become more unachievable because of their hate-driven convictions. Their vicious and hateful rhetoric lives on, whether in degrading and insensitive jokes casually thrown around or death threats on online bulletins. Her exploration and analysis of the situation, blunt without trivialization, forces readers like me to comprehend the weight of the incels’ beliefs and actions and how we should tackle the issue.
To shine a light on an emerging but obscure topic, Tolentino grounds her argument by contextualizing the incels’ beliefs and values. She describes the movement as a group of “mostly unattractive and socially inept” men who lament “the injustice of young, beautiful women refusing to have sex with them” (194). As Tolentino guides us through her essay, we realize this description only acknowledges a small portion of their objectives, barely scratching the surface of any other degenerate intentions.
Rather than simply sex, incels seek a world hierarchy in which they are the leaders and hold dominion over women and their bodies. Demonstrated by their view, which asserts that they want and deserve sex from females, the irony of their entitlement comes to light when we recognize how specific and harsh the type of women they seek pleasure is. They seek beautiful women who don’t wear any form of makeup; they seek beautiful women who don’t wear revealing clothing; they seek beautiful women who are virgins and avoid male interaction, except with them (194).
In other words, they seek on demand sex with any woman they see. They believe that they are entitled to that right. While women and other disgraced communities have sought body positivity and acceptance, incels struggle to cope. The sexual and feminist revolutions, cultural and ideological shifts that empowered women to seek autonomy from their traditional roles in the patriarchy, represent the ideas that the incels so actively resent. To communicate their message, the incels employ specific diction to define their perception of women. They tend to use terms that humiliate and demean women, in hopes that they downplay their value so that they marginalize themselves (194). I can recall moments when I’ve felt diminished hearing comments about my physical appearance or value. Shaming our physical attributes and bodily preferences degrades our self-esteem and confidence, leading us towards thoughts of self-doubt or of even more destructive types. We are left wondering whether we should change ourselves to others’ standards, or to preserve our own style and autonomy.
To conclude her essay, Tolentino leaves us with a thought-provoking insight: “In spite of everything, women are still more willing to look for humanity in the incels than they are in us. (196)”. I found myself at a meeting ground, cornered at an intersection of how to approach the issue. Should we seek sympathy for the incels and try to understand their lamentation, hoping they'll leave their path of misogyny? Or, on the other hand, should we demonize them, deeming them as unsavable? To begin exploring these questions, we must define ‘incel.’ The term has been so frivolously used in our conversations that we’ve lost track of when and how to use it. When I speak to a friend who makes a lighthearted joke about his despair because of women, is he an incel? Or rather, is ‘incel’ an adjective, used as a generic descriptor to describe a male misogynist?
These gaps in our collective understanding of the situation, which aren’t fully answered by Tolentino, should encourage us to seek our own investigations. The emergence of incels is representative of a broader pushback — systemic resistance that materialized after the liberation of women. Only when we can grasp the nuances of the grander situation can we begin to seek a solution.
If you’d like to read the original essay that Jay responds to, please click here.
