Incels vs Femcels

What's more dangerous, misandry vs. misogyny? Examining the difference between femcels and incels. We've all heard of incels, the stereotypical idea of them is unattractive men in a basement hating on women behind their computer screen. But what do incels really look like, and where do these ideas come from? Now we are seeing an upswing of the new term femcel. What is a femcel? Who are these women? Is this the other side of the same coin or something completely different?

The term incel meaning involuntary celibate originated in the 1990s from a woman Alana who created the Involuntary Celibacy Project where she wrote about her experiences not having sexual or romantic relationships. She envisioned a community that was inclusive to other people who were going through the same thing, but it got side tracked into the highly sexist, male dominated, group it is now. The main ideology of this group is based on the sexual marketplace. Everyone has a sexual market value based on many different attributes, physical, wealth, social class, etc. and the idea that the top 80% of women are looking to date the top 20% of men creating a huge disproportion in the amount of women that are left for the majority of men. Not only is this not based on accuracy, it also doesn't bring in the nuance of attraction. Sexual market value doesn't make sense on the greater aspect of dating because many people value different things. If you ask 100 people to rate what's most important to them, it will be a very vast opinion. But it does help for bonding to create this fake idea that all these women are against you, and that's why you're not having success with dating, rather than taking a look inward and seeing what other reasons there could be. 

Stacie's and Chads, these are the two groups incels have created for men and women who are considered “normies' ' or people with high sexual market value. Because these people to them are basically interchangeable and don't need to be shown as individuals, they just refer to them as one of those two names. There are also Becky's and Tyrones, Becky has a mid-level sexual market value but is more attainable and Tyrone is Chad's black counterpart. This is just the beginning of seeing incels misogynistic ideology. Incel forums have also talked about a distribution process where each man is given a woman to counteract the 20/80 problem we discussed earlier. There has also been discussions about pedophilia because incels believe that the younger the women are the purer they are. They haven't been tainted with other sexual relationships, and they'd be easier to mold as someone who hasn't grown into an adult. We see a lot of misogyny all throughout incel forums and their ideology. Where the danger really comes in,is their discussions about violence. Not only do they want to be violent towards women, they also want to be violence towards themselves. This is showing how there is no one winning in the world of incel ideology. They discuss how the only option they really have is suicide and many prefer suicide after committing mass violence, so they can become a martyr like Elliot Rodgers. The infamous incel hero, who committed a spree shooting at a sorority house in California before committing suicide. Showing his dedication to the group and their ideals, he became their hero, many of them looking up to and idolizing Rodgers.

Is our society pink pilled? That's the question the femcels are arguing, pink pilled is referring to the belief that physically unattractive women will never be sexually or romantically desired. Femcel ideology revolves around the idea that our society is too focused on stereotypical beauty standards for women that if you do not meet those, you will be unsuccessful in the dating and romance world. Femcels take issue with the current dating pool and beauty standards, which differs from incels that believe that feminism is the root of the problem. They also discuss “pretty privilege ''. This idea is that conventionally attractive women move through the world easier and people treat them better than women that don't fit into conventional beauty standards. Thus, further alienating femcel women not only romantically but as people in society.  Femcels have been becoming more popularized on social media, specifically TikTok, but it seems they are more interested in femcelcore than actually being a femcel. They are rejecting traditional beauty expectations, and proudly identifying with toxic feminism which leans towards misandry. Femcels are a relatively newer term and group of people. Whereas we've been seeing and hearing about incels for 20+ years, which makes it harder to compare the two of them. But we have clearly seen thus far that incels are seen as having extremist ideology and have a pattern of violent attacks such as shootings and stabbings. Aside from the obviously disturbing violent attacks, there are also clearly physiological and self-destructive tendencies going on. Some incels have resorted to plastic surgery to try and become more attractive, although they don't think that will truly fix the problem, and a majority of them see suicide as the only option for them. It's clear that they are a danger to themselves and others in a way that femcels are not. 

There is an up spike in people talking about femcel ideas, but we need to make the distinction between actual femcels and femcelcore. Femcelcore is more what we are seeing people engage in on social media. Women adopting this hyper dominant, alpha female, “fuck the stereotypes” mindset. Femcelcore has brought up ideas of voluntary celibacy, claiming they want to take back their power that's been commodified for so long. This is not the same thing as being an actual femcel which we know is someone who is involuntarily celibate or struggles to get into romantic relationships. The distinction is important because of choice. Engaging in femcelcore is a choice, you aren't necessarily having the same struggles that real femcels have. Struggle being the center for femcels that people in femcelcore don't have to deal with is the root of the emotional problems and the feeling of alienation. If you are just a person who decided to adopt these ideals because you felt like it was something you related to rather than feeling forced into this because of your lack of connection with others in an intimate way, or because you don't feel like you're being valued in society. We can imagine the movement getting diluted or changed quite quickly with the narrative around femcels changed if people believe that femcels and femcel core are the same thing. Either way, within femcels and femcelcore we don't see the same allure towards violence or self harm the way we do with incels. Women historically also do not have the same systemic power that men have. If we put a man in charge who believes in incel ideology we are putting a ticking time bomb into place, but with women we don't often have the access to that much power. 

The common link between these two groups is the feeling of alienation. The groups differ in many ways due to their specific ideologies, but we can see how they are both on extreme opposite ends of the spectrum. Both of them are seeking community in their members to fight their feelings of loneliness, but that has just exacerbated the issue.Is misandry only adding fuel to the fire? Although it is not a womens job to fix the stability of alienated men, it does make me think that if these alienated men are invoking violence against women, is countering their extremist group with another extremist group going to end the cycle of violence? To solve the problem, it seems like we must unravel the thread till we get to the root of the problem. We can see that this is a result of living in a patriarchal society. Female beauty standards being the expectation that is causing harm to women who can't keep up, and for men who expect women to meet it are frustrated when we don't. The nonchalant rape culture is so ingrained into our society that when men believe women only exist for their sexual gratification and to obey them it isn't seen as a threat until they start acting out violence. Even when incels do act out violent attacks we do not see that as a huge consequence and change. We will continue to educate our generations of men to believe that women exist solely for them. To fix this problem you'd have to change the way our society views women, and we've witnessed since the beginning of time that we refuse to change the way we view women. This cycle will only continue or get exacerbated. We will see more men feeling disserviced by women, more women struggling to keep up with conventional beauty and harmed at the hands of incels.

Kassam, A. (2018, April 26). Woman behind “incel” says angry men hijacked her word “as a weapon of war.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/25/woman-who-invented-incel-movement-interview-toronto-attack

Misogynist Incels and Male Supremacism. (n.d.). New America. Retrieved May 23, 2023, from https://www.newamerica.org/political-reform/reports/misogynist-incels-and-male-supremacism/executive-summary/

Lanigan, R. (2022, June 16). Are you a femcel? I-D. https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/3adzn9/femcel