Incels, #Metoo’s alter ego
Being single can be a disaster, but when a feminist movement like #Metoo arises it gets even more terrible and the fear of not having someone to share with and waking up the next day after a big party can be worse. A group of men named as Incel (involuntary celibacy) is becoming the counterpart of #Metoo movement and is getting more and more followers. The philosophy of those guys consists in the longing for a social order that allows them to have relations with the women of their choice. On the other hand, experts say that the Incels are the overview of a set of ideologies and resentments of the social imaginary of men in Western societies, many of whom refuse to women’s liberation.
This masculine movement opposes the growth of feminism and, therefore, #Metoo. They believe their privileges are a universal right and by birth are over women. The Incels stipulate that it does not matter the social or economic status of man, but rather his power over women. Although men still enjoy most social privileges, several groups see the growing empowerment of women in different sectors of society as a danger.
Precisely #MeToo has shaken the patriarchy or at least the status that today have the powerful men of society. The most recent of the events was the fall of Bill Cosby, who despite his fame and money was prosecuted. Hence, the search for equity between both genders is a threat to the Incels.
Social networks, heroes and anti-heroes
If on one hand social networks have served to concert and unite ideologies throughout the world and have even contributed to the fall of tyrannies, technology has also led these extremist groups to strengthen. Year age, distance was a issue, but now, through social networks, people can congregate other people to create groups with the same ideology and even coordinate actions in unison to gain recognition, protest or make chaos.
According to analysts, currently, the feeling of being disconnected and being a lone wolf regarding believes had disappeared. If before bars and bowling centers were the only places to meet people and, over a few beers, agreed on the same position, now through social networks the many existent movements gather and powerfully emerge. This is what happened with #Metoo, but also with the Incels. Michael Kimmel, a sociologist at Stony Brook University, points out that "people encourage you to feel more and more intensely, and then they value what you say that it feels more and is more intense".
Several studies have concluded that involuntary celibates are only the tip of the iceberg of a new stream that is emerging at a social level called the "mansphere". According to academics, it is made up of a set of in-line ideologies that have as their common goal to "safeguard" the rights of men, including sexual ones.
The most questionable thing is that these people are getting extremer and more radical in their positions. Even, several sociologists agree that they will go violent to continue radicalizing. Other disturbing thing is the organizational capacity of “mansphere” that, like #Metoo, uses social networks to group and organize their members.
Lilliana Mason, a social scientist at the University of Maryland who studies group and political identity, believes that these people are a danger since they can claim their right to copulation in a violent way. According to Mason, from their point of view, "they have the power and have to claim it." Hence, rape is not a crime, but a way to get their rights fulfilled.
In addition, there is the false “alpha male” idea sold to these groups that promulgate to comply with certain rules of life such as manipulating or exerting pressure against women to have sex with them.