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"Why can't we hate men?"

I was not under the impression that people think any guy who can’t get a date is an incel. Kind of like I don’t think anyone believes any student who doesn’t like authoritarianism is antifa. It’s a self-applied label with its own connotations and that’s why it’s significantly different to use it as a basis for prejudice than race etc. It’s probably still nobler to wait and see what this particular incel or antifa’s personality is like, but I’m not super troubled by the idea of anyone jumping to conclusions either. What would bother me is if they did the same to people in the demographic who don’t self identify; guys without dates, student protesters.
 
The thing about "speaking up" to distinguish yourself from a crazy minority might be valid in situations where people could actually be confused about which is which. But this case is about the accusation that if you don't believe that women really want nice guys, that somehow equals you thinking they're obligated to have sex with you for acting nice. And there's nobody who is confused about that and needs clarification. The complete lack of any possible connection between those two things is patently obvious, so people like Luchog are simply lying when they lie that lie, and that's all there is to it. It's not up to the targets of lies to "clarify" the truth to people who've already demonstrated that they simply don't care about it.
 
Delvo said:
The complete lack of any possible connection between those two things is patently obvious, so people like Luchog are simply lying when they lie that lie, and that's all there is to it. It's not up to the targets of lies to "clarify" the truth to people who've already demonstrated that they simply don't care about it.
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Amazing what you can "prove" when you take things out of context. Perhaps you should go and read what I actually wrote before accusing me of lying. Of course, maybe I should accuse you of lying about what I've claimed, since that's clearly what you're doing here.
 
Sabrina said:
Strictly speaking, the "disdain" for a woman who can't find a partner is part of the culture to the point that we've essentially normalized it and don't see it as an issue. Otherwise why would one of the first questions to a working woman usually be "So when are you going to have kids?", implying that a woman's only worth is in her ability to perpetuate the species. As a single, working woman myself, I've been asked that question any number of times, despite indicating that I am currently happily single and am approaching the age when child-bearing becomes dangerous for my health. It's becoming less of an issue as women's rights become more normalized in the culture, but it's still a problem. I would be willing to bet every single woman I work with who is not in a committed relationship gets asked about it at least once a year by male coworkers.
I still am a nerd, and happily so, thank you, despite it being cooler now to be one, but I can recall when I was still in middle and high school when I was derided for my intellect; I was lucky in that I was able to come to the realization that having a few good friends and doing well in school was more rewarding for me than being popular or involved in the more stereotypical activities for my gender (didn't become a cheerleader or homecoming queen because I didn't want to bother, for instance). So yes, I can imagine being able to speak up against those individuals who were lumped into the same group I was but were doing things I didn't agree with. I'm probably the exception to the rule, however; that I will grant you. Regardless, I don't see why this prevents them from speaking out. As I said to JoeMorgue, you may not bear responsibility for what others say or do, but you can't argue that you DO bear responsibility for what YOU say or do, so if you are associated wtih the toxic elements of your grouping because you didn't speak up, you really only have yourself to blame.
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This doesn't surprise me though I would be surprised if it was only men who asked. Based solely on my personal experience it tends to be the mothers and fathers of a single woman that express concern over this

Hellbound said:
Just to add in some nuance, I agree, partly, with both sides.

On the one hand, groups you've self-selected to be in, by using and applying the label to yourself (or accepting it when applied by others), you absolutely have a responsibility to speak out against the extremists in it.

On the other hand, groups you're a part of simply because of who you are: gender, race, etc, this smacks a bit much of "guilty until proven innocent" for me to feel comfortable with.

I think drawing that distinction is important.
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This is more or less my view
 
sadhatter said:
You didn't finish your sentence, kinda seemed like you wanted the person reading to make your point for you instead of you actually explaining how and when simple anger is the best response.
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Anger is an evolutionary adaptation.

Shouldn't take too much imagination to guess why.
 
Sabrina said:
And yes, you may not be responsible for what other people say or do, but you ARE responsible for what YOU say or do, and if you say or do NOTHING against the people who are the toxic elements of your group, then how exactly are you supposed to be differentiated from them, may I ask?
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I'm a little unclear about the lack of action on the part of men that you are pointing out here. We are all human. The "toxic elements of your group" are toxic elements of the group called "humans". I don't really see that men have a greater responsibility to speak out against ******** than do women. But you may be saying that women are speaking out, but men aren't, and in situations where they ought to. If so, I can see some validity to what you're saying, but assuming that they aren't speaking out because they are sexist is fallacious.

If, for instance, you're in an office environment and a man is sexually harassing a coworker, and other men are witness to it but do nothing, then they certainly share some complicity in the act. It doesn't, to me, show that they have some ideological solidarity with the harasser: they may simply be afraid of the consequences to themselves of speaking out. That may also be something that we can see as morally wrong, but it's different from being sexist.

I really don't think there's any good argument that we should judge people based on whether or not they share superficial characteristics with other people who do bad things. I think it's much better to judge each individual on the actual content of their character.
 
luchog said:
There may be some hypothetical person out there who doesn't mean the former when he says the latter, but I've yet to hear one. It also presupposes that the person whinging about not getting attention from women he thinks he deserves one of the "good" or "nice" guys, which is rarely ever the case. At best, they're passive-aggressive whiners who insist on treating women as sex vending machines rather than people.
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It's not only the "passive-aggressive whiners" who treat women as sex-vending machines. I have some friends who do the same thing, only women happen to like them enough that they find plenty of women who are also happy to treat them as sex-vending machines.

Is that attitude over-represented in the so called "incels"? I have no idea, but I really don't think you have the data on that either.
 
Roboramma said:
ItIs that attitude over-represented in the so called "incels"? I have no idea, but I really don't think you have the data on that either.
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Erm what? Of course I have "data" on that. The entire point of the "Incel" movement is treating women like sex vending machines. The belief that they're entitled to sex, and the fact that they cannot get laid is a great cosmic tragedy that is never their fault, never due to the fact that they're unpleasant whiners at best, and vicious misogynists at worst, but it's always the fault of women who are either to "stuck up" or "brainwashed" into not seeing how desirable and deserving the "Incel" is. That's the reason that misogynistic violence is so popular with "Incel" types. Hang around their Reddit group or read some of their blogs.

"Incel" is just a PR term for a bunch of entitled, self-absorbed, mostly-white, often violently misogynistic, jackasses; the same way that "Alt.Right" is a PR term for neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.
 
luchog said:
Erm what? Of course I have "data" on that.
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Maybe you could present that data then?

Or do I have to go read thousands of pages of reddit in order to confirm for myself the assertions that you're making?

I admit that I'm not very familiar with "Incels". Maybe you're right, but I find the way you are characterising them to be so extreme that I'm doubtful that it's accurate. My doubt isn't worth much, of course, and it's certainly possible that you're right, but given that this is a skeptics site I'd expect more than just an assertion to be necessary.
 
Roboramma said:
Maybe you could present that data then?

Or do I have to go read thousands of pages of reddit in order to confirm for myself the assertions that you're making?
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Given that's how most of get the data, actually doing the research...

Not everything is available in convenient little sound bites and Twitter tweets. Sometimes you have to put in the work if you truly want to understand a thing, instead of just trying to score Internet points.

I admit that I'm not very familiar with "Incels". Maybe you're right, but I find the way you are characterising them to be so extreme that I'm doubtful that it's accurate.
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That's because "Incel" is, in fact, an extreme position. It's an extreme of entitlement attitudes and objectification, and in many cases, an extreme of misogyny. It's very hard to create a stereotype of an Incel more extreme than their own documented words and actions.
 
This is the problem I was speaking of earlier. Incel means "involuntarily celibate". Only a fraction (probably <10%) of those who are incel in practice adopt or are even aware of the label. Some of those who adopt the label (half? I have no idea) ARE hateful. Some of them do feel entitled. Some of them are just lonely people who live a perpetually lonely life. Loneliness is terrible for humans and it's not just due to being a crappy person that one is lonely. Extreme ugliness, disease, homelessness, etc. can all lead to this, and I refuse to throw all of them under the bus.

Now when those people hear "incels are misogynists with terrible attitudes and entitlement issues" how are they supposed to feel?
 
I want to reiterate here that “incel” is not a general term for dateless guys in the way that “jock” is a general term for sporty guys. There are lots of lovely dudes out there who are just not very good at talking to girls they like. There are a bunch whose main problem is that they can’t achieve enough presentability due to depression or other problems, and they’re just working on it and not blaming anyone for not liking them as-is. Incels are people who intentionally seek out a community that takes that rejection/loneliness energy and channels it into being first class ****os.

There are women out there that like aggressive guys but for goodness sake there are also women out there who like actual nice guys. It’s absolutely anti-reality to assert that all the nice guys lose all the women to all the ********.
 
pharphis said:
This is the problem I was speaking of earlier. Incel means "involuntarily celibate". Only a fraction (probably <10%) of those who are incel in practice adopt or are even aware of the label. Some of those who adopt the label (half? I have no idea) ARE hateful.
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Lithrael said:
I want to reiterate here that “incel” is not a general term for dateless guys in the way that “jock” is a general term for sporty guys.
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Mumbles said:
Well, no, since "SJW" is a meaningless attempt to insult, while "incel" is a voluntary self-label. It's actually much closer to "skeptic", actually.
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This. "Incel" was a term deliberately coined by a small group of jackasses specifically in order to blame women for their own lack of sexual success, and to promote their fundamentally misogynistic and male supremacist viewpoints. It was picked up by a whole lot of "involuntarily celibate" guys who were happy to find a convenient scapegoat for their inability to get laid rather than have to confront and address their own personal shortcomings. While not directly linked, the "Incel" community is overwhelmingly white and involved with or sympathetic to the "Alt.Right".

"SJW", aka "Social Justice Warrior" was (as I recall) coined by the Atheism+ community/Freethought Blogs crowd, to describe their own ostensible activism (which generally amount to little more than whinging on the Internet). It was picked up by conservative/right wing types, and used to ridicule or dismiss anyone who dared call them out on their bigotry.
 
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luchog said:
"SJW", aka "Social Justice Warrior" was (as I recall) coined by the Atheism+ community/Freethought Blogs crowd, to describe their own ostensible activism (which generally amount to little more than whinging on the Internet). It was picked up by conservative/right wing types, and used to ridicule or dismiss anyone who dared call them out on their bigotry.
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No, that is not correct. It may have been picked up by the Atheism+ community/Freethought Blogs crowd, but it didn't start with them. And it became an effective insult because the people who used it to describe themselves were ridiculous. Absent that mockery-worthy behavior, the term wouldn't have caught on as an insult, even if (like all insults) it's now used too broadly.
 
luchog said:
Given that's how most of get the data, actually doing the research...
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You said you had the data. If so you already did the research. I don't believe you did. I think you have an impression formed by reading those reddit posts and blogs, but that's susceptible to all sorts of biases.

If you want to support your assertion you'll have to actually give the evidence. What percentage of incels have made statements that are in-line with what you say? I'm not attributing dishonesty to your position, if you present that collection of your data I'll accept it, though I may think there is room for bias (for instance I may want to compare the statements that you attribute to a certain mindset to the mindset to see if they actually map to each other.)

Not everything is available in convenient little sound bites and Twitter tweets. Sometimes you have to put in the work if you truly want to understand a thing, instead of just trying to score Internet points.
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See, that's not what I asked for.

Let's say someone tried to publish a scientific paper and said "I read a bunch of reddit forums and came to the conclusion that..." without even an analysis of the things read. No one would take it seriously, and for good reason.
 
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