Incels are not only sexist, they are also racist, says researcher Dal
A team of researchers from Dalhousie University is tackling hateful online communities in their latest study, published Wednesday.
Michael Halpin, assistant professor of sociology at Dalhousie, has been collecting online data from an involuntary celibate community for the past 42 months. The team analyzed more than 3.6 million posts and comments to assess participant behavior.
“It’s a community that’s just filled with prolific, ubiquitous misogyny and misogyny that’s much more serious and substantial than I think a lot of people imagine,” Halpin said in an interview.
Involuntary celibacy, or incel for short, is a term used to describe men who feel they are unable to find a romantic partner. They often blame women or societal norms for their celibacy.
With their latest research, Halpin and his team set out to analyze the language of these online communities, looking for trends in vocabulary and jargon.
The study found that incels were 2.4 times more likely to use a misogynistic term than a neutral term to refer to women, and that about one-fifth of all comments on the website contained a misogynistic term.
An example of slang among incels is the term foid, a portmanteau of female and android, which proves to be the most popular term in the community. It is meant to dehumanize and characterize women as cold and unfeeling.
Halpin’s research also found that while incels proudly declare that they hate all women, women of color are even more discriminated against and belittled.
“White women are still considered to have some kind of ideal of beauty, the most desirable, and women of color are considered less than that or inferior,” Halpin said.
Online incel communities came under the spotlight in 2018 after a Toronto man carried out an attack with a rented van, which left 10 dead and 16 injured.
According to Halpin, the online communities celebrate and encourage acts of violence, which could potentially lead to more attacks against women.
The recent attack on the University of Waterloo, in which a former student stabbed two students and a professor, was celebrated on the bulletin board, with some users disappointed to learn that the victims had survived.
Halpin hopes his research can shed some light on how the incel community functions and hopes to prevent further violence against women.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, 74.1 percent of self-identified incels say they experience long-term anxiety, stress, or emotional distress.
“It’s unacceptable how they talk about women. . . but related to that, a lot of these guys are in a lot of trouble psychologically, and we’re not doing a good job of reaching these people,” Halpin said.
The new study is available online for free New media and society.
