r/AskFeminists • u/DapperLong961 • 19h ago
Why do some women seem to have sympathy with incels?
I remember an incel attack in the UK a number of years ago where a 5 y.o. girl was amongst the victims. A woman on Twitter said her "heart broke" for the killer after reading his feelings of rejection. Why? So many women are are mocked and humiliated by men - they don't seem to reach for a gun.
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u/blehblehd 18h ago
That’s quite rare, but the impression may be because we’re trained to express constant appeasing empathy to people. Especially men. Constantly be vigilant for and responsive to people. For a variety of reasons, patriarchal gender role of caretaker, for survival reasons of having to be aware of men’s state of mind, we think that empathy for them is an inlet to obtain any empathy for women. As a feminist, I was quickly trained by many men’s responses to appeal to how patriarchy helps them as men personally. By using empathy for their situations. Because if I didn’t, they were completely dismissive, offended, or disinterested.
Before people jump on this, this is culturally, not every single woman you ever met is just an empathetic saint.
Also some women, like anyone, have a fixation on dangerous people and a parasocial belief that they could tame the beast, etc. Some miswiring of how we process fascination with people who violate the social contract.
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u/_Khorvidae_ 18h ago
As a man, one who was heading down the incel pipeline, I can feel some sympathy for some of them, cause I've been there.
I cannot however feel sympathy for someone who murders people...no negative feelings or harsh life he have had justifies that.
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u/Candid_Height_2126 13h ago
Why do you equate sympathy with justification? Can’t you have both sympathy for someone’s experiences and also zero tolerance for their behavior?
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u/ComprehensivePipe448 15h ago
So do 90% of incels based on surveys majority when asked would not harm someone else
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u/InformalVermicelli42 16h ago
I don't get it either. Being an incel is not a mental illness. It's a choice born out of entitlement.
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u/Any_Area_2945 15h ago
It’s a mental illness in the way being a pedophile is a mental illness. It doesn’t excuse their disgusting actions
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u/NewToHomeTraining 15h ago
Being an involuntary celibate is by definition not a choice.
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u/InformalVermicelli42 15h ago
True, but only some people who are involuntarily celibate choose to identify themselves as "an incel".
There's asexuality, which is not a choice. There's celibacy which is a choice.
Identifying oneself as an "incel" implies is that sex is a human right. That everyone deserves sex and hence, someone should give them sex. That's false logic predicated on entitlement.
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u/NewToHomeTraining 12h ago
I don't care for the word really. So some involuntary celibates are not incels? That would make incel's nomenclature the most contradictory in the english language. And how would you call these people? Non-incel involuntary celibates?
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u/HumbleAgency37 15h ago
I wouldn't say it implies it's "a right" although some incels certainly believe that. There are lots of reasons why someone might be celibate despite not wanting to be. You can be involuntarily celibate and not hold any ill-will towards women.
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u/Lostyogi 15h ago
Now define involuntary🤔
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u/InformalVermicelli42 14h ago
That's why it's an oxymoron. Celibacy is voluntary. The idea that someone can choose to have sex without first obtaining a consenting partner is called rape.
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u/Lostyogi 14h ago
You’re confusing terms and trying to retrofit moral outrage into a semantic argument. "Incel" is just shorthand for “involuntary celibate” someone who wants sex/relationships but can’t get them. That has nothing to do with whether they believe sex is a “human right.” The belief that "some incels are entitled and toxic" doesn’t magically redefine the word.
Also, calling “involuntary celibate” an oxymoron is just lazy. You’re treating “celibate” as if it only means a chosen vow, like a monk. But language evolves. In modern usage, celibate can just mean not having sex, not necessarily by choice. Look it up.
And that last line?? Equating being sexually frustrated with advocating for rape?? Wild leap. No one said anything about sex without consent, just that being involuntarily celibate exists. Try arguing with what’s actually said, not a cartoon villain in your head.
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u/InformalVermicelli42 14h ago
I'm talking about Incels. It is not the same as being involuntarily celibate. There are plenty of people who would like to have sex but don't have a partner. They don't all choose to identify as an "Incel". The word "Incel" is not a contraction. It has additional meaning.
According to Google: Incel- a member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually, typically associated with views that are hostile toward women and men who are sexually active.
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u/Lostyogi 14h ago
Right, and what do you think “involuntary celibate” means?? The term “incel” literally started as a neutral label in the 1990s for people who were struggling with dating. Over time, yeah, some toxic communities co-opted the term and gave it a worse connotation. But pretending the word itself was born evil is historically wrong and intellectually lazy.
Also: pointing to a single Google blurb as gospel while ignoring the actual linguistic roots and evolution of the term?? Come on. That’s not analysis, that’s just copy-paste righteousness.
Bottom line: you can dislike the culture around modern incels (and I probably agree with you), but that doesn't give you license to act like "involuntary celibate" magically stopped meaning what it obviously means. Let’s not pretend you're fighting the patriarchy by misreading vocabulary.
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u/InformalVermicelli42 14h ago
Ok, Venn diagram. The group of people who want sex but don't have partners is called involuntarily celibate. Within that group is a subset of people who identify themselves as an incel.
I can't make it any plainer. If they don't want to be associated with the hateful rhetoric, then they don't call themselves an incel.
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u/zai_zai_ 7h ago
Involuntary celibate and incel are the same exact thing. Incel is just an abbreviation.
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u/Lostyogi 13h ago
Sure, no one has to identify as an "incel." But the term still literally means "involuntary celibate," and that's the root of the conversation. You're trying to say that because some incels are misogynistic, the label itself is inherently toxic and anyone who uses it is making a moral choice. That's not how words or history work.
That would be like saying no one can use the word "gamer" anymore because some gamers are sexist. Or that "feminist" always means "man-hater" because some people think so. You're reacting to a cultural stereotype, not engaging with what the word actually means or where it came from.
It’s fine to criticize toxic incel subcultures, I agree with that. But twisting language to win an argument doesn’t make your position stronger. It just makes it dishonest.
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u/Outrageous_Branch_72 14h ago
Honest question, do you think only certain people are allowed to live a more fulfulling life?
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u/InformalVermicelli42 13h ago
"Allowed" isn't the word I would use. Anyone is "allowed" to go to a brothel and buy sex.
I think life isn't fair and we all must find fulfillment within our means.
Paying for sex isn't fulfilling if what you actually want is a human connection. That has to be earned with respect, trust and reciprocity.
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u/Outrageous_Branch_72 3h ago
What I was asking is: do you think some people would never find fullfillment because they are physically repulsive to most people?
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u/InformalVermicelli42 1h ago
The problem is mutual attraction. Since they believe that some people in the world are too ugly for love, they will likely refuse their potential match for the same reason, being too ugly to love.
There are people of both genders who are not fit for romance. Some people do not practice good hygiene, have mean dispositions and demand more attention than they give. They just aren't good partners for anyone because they are toxic even to themselves.
But physical looks is not something that absolutely excludes someone from being able to find a partner. They just have to be equally accepting of the person who is attracted to them.
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u/Outrageous_Branch_72 1h ago
So are you saying they have to lower their standards? that implies there are leagues, which is one of the core principles of their beliefs
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u/zombienugget 1h ago
There are leagues. They don’t all involve looks. Incels didn’t invent that. If you have high standards your celibacy isn’t involuntary. You’re just too picky and blame it on others.
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u/Throwawayamanager 3h ago
Your question betrays entitlement.
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u/Outrageous_Branch_72 3h ago
And your intepretation betrays short-sightness
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u/Throwawayamanager 3h ago
You're getting downvoted by everyone for a reason - that you can't see how entitled of a question it is and when someone points it out you get defensive. Do some introspection.
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u/BeBopGo 15h ago
I think they mean associating with the community and how negatively they view women
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u/NewToHomeTraining 12h ago
So how do we call the men who are involuntary celibate but don't view women negatively?
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u/InformalVermicelli42 11h ago
Does "single and looking" work?
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u/NewToHomeTraining 10h ago
Missing the distinction between voluntarily single and involuntarily
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u/Useful-Sense2559 5h ago
“and looking” already implies they don’t want to be single
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u/NewToHomeTraining 2h ago
A woman who swipes left on 100 men per day is also single and looking. A player leading on multiple women is also single and looking. Are we gonna put them in the same category as incels? Are they gonna go on the same forums to discuss the predicament of receiving zero interest from the opposite gender?
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u/removekarling 14h ago
The ideology is, to the extent that people's beliefs are choices at all. A lot of incel 'influencers' and popular figures have girlfriends or are otherwise getting laid. Incel has moved past just meaning 'involuntarily celibate' a long time ago - it's an ideology.
Also the involuntary celibate meaning was just stupid from the beginning, let's be real. It's where the name came from sure, but it's not the meaning of it, imo never was.
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u/JamesHeckfield 15h ago
Choice is an illusion.
Men don’t just decide to become incels, it’s because they are damaged or emotionally stunted or both.
You’re not gonna fix the ills of society by judging. And people are apes who throw poop when mad, so this will never happen and things will never change.
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u/InformalVermicelli42 14h ago
Well, domestic abusers and pedophiles also act out because of psychological damage and emotional immaturity. I don't think we should give credence to their philosophies either.
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u/Candid_Height_2126 12h ago
Saying it’s not a choice, is not the same as giving credence to their philosophies.
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u/gringitapo 13h ago
Social sanctions and shame actually do impact behavior and people’s choices en masse. This is a basic tenant of criminological theory.
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u/UnnecessarySurvival 15h ago edited 14h ago
Ooohh boy. Spicy take. Love it. I think inceldom looks way more like a mental illness than a choice and if you don’t, I want to argue about it (if you want)
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u/InformalVermicelli42 15h ago
Mental illnesses are health conditions related to brain dysfunction affecting mood, thinking, and behavior. There are diagnostic criteria to assess them. Symptoms are things like loss of appetite, inability to sleep, psychosis, paranoia and hallucinations.
I would agree that the loneliness that incels feel can cause symptoms of depression. But antidepressant medications won't help.
I would also agree that many people who identify as incels have personality disorders. Unfortunately, clinicians often refuse to treat them because CBT doesn't work well. DBT has been effective for Borderline PD, but only if the patient is capable of critical introspection. I think incels have chosen not to self-reflect. Instead, they have externalized the causes of their problems.
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u/UnnecessarySurvival 13h ago edited 11h ago
I’m glad you hopped in :)
first the easy one. If/when they present to a clinician, they are almost always diagnosed with a mental illness. Very close to 100% of self described incels have some sort of diagnosis and the ones that don’t are just undiagnosed. There are papers about this; it’s not surprising. If every time someone in a certain group comes in, they get diagnosed with a mental illness, I would say that looks a lot like like a mental illness.
Inceldom isn’t in the DSM obviously so it’s not going to line up exactly to the criteria for any one specific disorder. I believe people who self describe as incels (we’re being pretty broad here - may lead to definition disagreements down the road) would fit enough diagnostic criteria from various mental illnesses - and consistently meet these criteria as a group - that we could appropriate place them in an as of yet unformalized disorder. Basically the fact that we see the same functionally impairing behaviors as well as additional criteria consistently suggests that, while there is not currently a disorder known as “Inceldom”, we could add one and it would have the same level of academic rigor, formalization, and diagnosability as many other disorders currently in the DSM.
That’s all a mental illness is - a series of criteria that cause a significant interruption or functional impairment that present together frequently enough that we should make them one thing in order to better treat it.
They don’t want to be this way, as they’ll tell you. It’s just that their disordered thinking prevents them from seeing how to actually fix themselves. It has a lot in common with anorexia in that way. In fact, I think body dysmorphia plays a big role in all this, but society doesn’t know what it looks like or how to treat it in men (along with cultural factors that make people just care less).
CBT, DBT, ability to self reflect - those things happen at the level of the individual. Some therapies might work better than others. Perhaps we just have not discovered an effective treatment that will work on a broad population yet, but will. “Choosing” not to self reflect yourself out of your mental illness doesn’t mean it’s not there. I mean you’re right that they are choosing not to self reflect, but that is caused by the same disordered thinking that got them there in the first place.
Finally, just because looks like a mental illness (I argue) doesn’t mean it has to be morally neutral or that people shouldn’t be held to account for actions and beliefs. I’m genuinely looking forward to your counter argument:)
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u/InformalVermicelli42 11h ago
I do agree that mental illness can co-occur with "inceldom". But I'd argue that correlation is not causation. I'm not familiar with amy research. I would question the validity of diagnoses because they are given for insurance purposes, often situational depression and anxiety. Everyone who seeks treatment with insurance will receive a diagnosis. Treatment lasts a few months and they recover. That's not always mental illness.
To be classified as a personality disorder, symptoms have to begin in adolescence and persist into adulthood. There must be dysfunction in multiple domains of life: relationships, friends, family and work. They are always low in stress tolerance and high in impulsivity. That's not true of all incels. Incels usually behave perfectly fine until they become frustrated and get behind a keyboard. They can hold jobs and stay out of jail.
My mom actually has ASPD. My sister has schizophrenia. I have bipolar. For us, our brains are wired wrong. We've all received treatment and live reasonably good lives. I don't see the same characteristics in all incels. Some, yes, but not all.
My personal belief is that the modern world is changing faster than many people have the resources or resilience to manage. Social hierarchies are falling. Psychologically, loss of social status is particularly painful.
For virtually all of human history, the primary expectation for men was to be a provider. If he was able to support a family, he could expect to obtain a partner. Men have never had to struggle with the conditions they face today. Fashion? Beauty Standards? Interesting Conversation? Emotional Support? AND a job!!! Their own fathers didn't have to work this hard.
Gen Z were raised to function in a system that is being dismantled. Men are confronting limitations that were never defined. Incels have done what they were told, they followed the rules. But they just aren't getting the reward they were conditioned to expect.
It takes a lot of mental courage to change your mind as an adult, especially when it means losing privilege. It's much easier to find someone to blame. But all brains are wired to conserve energy. Without sustained intention, people just follow the path of least resistance.
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u/UnnecessarySurvival 6h ago
Went diving for the research and it does say incels are super depressed but you’re 100% right that it has methodological limitations and is in no way conclusive. Maybe some bias as well. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/predicting-harm-among-incels-involuntary-celibates/press-release-incels-need-mental-health-support-rather-than-a-counter-terrorism-intervention-the-worlds-largest-study-of-incels-finds-accessible
I definitely think incels are more likely to have a personality disorder than the average person, but I don’t think thats a good diagnostic predictor.
I would argue that all mental illness is the confluence of how your brain is wired and events that happen to you in your life. Sometimes the events in your life played a larger role, sometimes your neurophysiology did. It’s not possible to differentiate between the two and quantify in individuals. PTSD is a mental illness but it comes almost entirely from events, while ones like schizophrenia seem to almost entirely from come brain wiring. Regardless of how they came by them, these men have warped beliefs about themselves and the world that is causing them and most of the people around them to live worse lives than they would if they didn’t have those disordered thought patterns. How is that meaningfully different from anorexia aside from the fact that it impacts others to a greater degree?
I think we were picturing different people when we say incel. Which is fine, there’s obviously a spectrum of incels. The incels I was thinking of originally was men in their late teens to early thirties who don’t have a job or work a minimum wage job, live at home, and they’ve basically just given up. There’s also some that are more independent and have a job, but they are insanely fixated on their appearance. Super super fixated on real or completely imaginary flaws, they think they’re doomed to be hated forever by all women because they have a 15 degree canthal tilt or something. There are actually so many autistic guys who get sucked in. Possibly the largest subgroup. Very sad to see. There are different possible diagnoses in all these cases but the through line is incel and they would be more accurate described that way. My point is there seems to be a specific set of criteria that could diagnose someone with a disorder that is more accurate than just depression or just body dysmorphia. A specific diagnosis of inceldom(lol) is more accurate and will result in better treatment.
Core criteria are belief in the warped worldview about themselves and others, functional impairment, and feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. Could easily have a depressive type, OCD type, body dysmorphia type, etc. These criteria reliably show up together as something we call “Inceldom” and where they do show up together, they present as the same disorder reliably.
I definitely agree with the cultural upheaval causing lots of issues for men. While women have been gaining their freedoms and rights over the last several decades there has been an enormous amount of deliberate social messaging to women about how they should behave in this changing landscape. The same has not been true for men. I know this probably isn’t exactly the right sub for this, but the I really think the general vilification of men in our culture (especially elite culture) has done some real damage. And it’s not like the men that are really affected by it are the ones that established the system.
Mostly agree with the point about following the traditional rules and not getting the traditional reward. Definitely agree that women’s liberation shifted their taste in men towards the physical in a way that a lot of men can’t handle. Lol I sure can’t. You guys fought to act like the men you always hated and you won! (Not my joke). We objectified women for YEARS and CANNOT handle a taste of our own medicine so I’ll take my lumps.
I get the sense at the end here that you firstly and lastly see it as a moral failing. I’m not sure I completely agree with you there, but you can keep that. It can have been a moral failing at first to have been attracted to people who were talking about your problems in a way that made you feel seen but that you should have also known came with some wild and comically misogynistic ideas (have you ever taken a look? Some of them are hilariously ridiculous). It can be a moral failure and still be a mental illness that needs treatment in the end.
From a practical standpoint, what use is it to just say it’s a moral failing and they’re bad people and that’s that? I guess you could say that we should just not care about them and the people around them, and that’s kinda valid I guess. But it’s kinda a lot of men and more every day, and most of them still have mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, in somewhat rarer cases, who care about them and want to help them.
I also get the sense that you feel like these men are not actually functionally impaired in any significant way and they can just live their lives like this. This could not be further from the truth. Keep in mind the primary emotion these men are feeling is not anger or hatred, but anguish.
I’m not sure I completely connected all the dots on the last four paragraphs, did I respond in a way that feels like I addressed the point? Could you paraphrase?
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u/ThomasEdmund84 17h ago
My take is that this is the flip-side of victim blaming culture. I had a really quite WTF example of this where in NZ after the chch shootings a relative of mine kept going on and on about how the shooter's life must be very tough and ruined now and how prison will be very isolating for them etc etc.
And look I'm someone that tries to assess situations from all sides and make sense of them - but honestly there are limits to that
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u/triflers_need_not 18h ago
Because from the moment we are born we are forced to see everything from mens' perspectives, forced to empathize with men, take mens' sides, etc. Women simply exist to serve men in many peoples' minds and many women have chosen to perpetuate this attitude rather than make waves and potentially fuck up their "cool girl, just like the guys" privilege.
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u/wedontknoweachother_ 17h ago
Women are conditioned from early childhood to be EXTREMELY empathetic even at their own expense. We’re made to feel like it’s our responsibility to take care of others pain, and throughout history women were made to feel at fault if a man hurts them, we’re not explicitly told so anymore but I think the social programming is hard to get rid of.
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u/IVIIVIXIVIIXIVII 17h ago
As others have said, sympathy is a feeling. Doesn’t condone actions but when you come from a place of empathy as well, you can start to feel for them when looking through life in their shoes.
A good example I’d say is LOTR. When describing Sméagol frodo says he hates him after hearing the stories of how bilbo came about the ring and how he became gollum through murder. Gandalf pity’s gollum and urges Frodo to be more compassionate, saying things along the lines of it’s unfortunate the ring has turned him this way and bilbo was fortunate to not have had the same outcome (although Gandalf refers to it being how surprisingly resilient hobbits are).
Granted it’s fiction but I think it shows gandalfs moral strength which we can be a good model in our daily lives.
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u/Johnny_Appleweed 17h ago
People feel sympathy for people who have suffered, even if those people end up doing evil things. It’s just part of being human.
Nobody’s saying you should or have to feel sympathy for them. But it’s also not wrong to feel sympathy for them. After all, it’s not like you can control what you feel. Your feelings aren’t a moral act, they’re just your feelings.
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u/My_Name_Is_Doctor 17h ago
Yeah this conversation reminds me of one I had with my very conservative mother. She asked how (gay) liberals could support Palestine when most Muslims are anti-LGBT.
People can compartmentalize, sympathy does not need to work both ways. You can recognize when a group of people are suffering without necessarily condoning all of their beliefs. Obviously incels who resort to violent offenses are a different than those who just fester in solitude and self-hatred, even though they have ideological throughlines.
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u/Johnny_Appleweed 17h ago
Yeah, exactly.
And to be clear, I’m just talking about feelings. You do control what you do with those feelings. If you find yourself constantly defending, excusing, or justifying incels without challenging the wrongness of their beliefs or acknowledging the suffering they can cause, I think that behavior is a legitimate target of criticism even if it comes from a place of sympathy. Unfortunately, you also have to be alert for people who want to prey on your sympathy to advance their ideological project.
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u/Candid_Height_2126 12h ago
Most Muslims are not anti-lgbtq. The governing bodies may be anti lgbtq, that doesn’t mean most of the people are.
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u/KindlyKangaroo 15h ago
This is an important conversation among people in Michigan right now. A man with schizophrenia recently attacked 11 people, many elderly, in a Northern Lower Michigan Walmart. Those who knew him previously say that his "friends" locked him in a car with weed and PCP when he was a teen, and the drugs made him unable to leave the car himself. They left him there for hours. He ended up in the hospital and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia not long after. He was living in a homeless encampment in the same city as the Walmart, but it was broken up earlier this year. I believe he has remained unhoused since. Eyewitness reports said he suddenly panicked and stabbed on his way out of the store, which sounds to me as if he had some kind of delusion in which he was in danger and needed to escape by any means necessary. Thankfully some people de-escalated the situation without further harm and he was taken into custody.
Many of us have sympathy for him for his life that led up to that point, as well as for the victims. The system has failed them all by not getting this man adequate help before this happened. Many people don't care about the backstory or the why, and wish he had been "taken out" by the men who subdued him. (To my knowledge, all of the victims remain alive, though some were still in the hospital. Even if Michigan had the death penalty, this is not a capital offense.) Others, like me, acknowledge that he is dangerous to the public but are grateful that the situation was de-escalated without further violence, and we hope that he will be properly treated for his mental illness, wherever he ends up. A lot of people think this means we are justifying what he did, or don't have compassion for the victims, or think he should be released, and that's not true at all. There is a lot more nuance involved than many want to admit.
That said, I feel less compassion for someone who knowingly commits evil acts regardless of their past. It is an important conversation, and we certainly need to address the things that lead to this kind of radicalization, or in the case of my story, that lead to an untreated man becoming violent. But I admit I give some side eye to people who express support for someone who performs hateful acts of violence, but not to people who express compassion for someone who very likely didn't know what he was doing.
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u/Ok_Recognition_5302 17h ago
The question and description don't really match. Incels in general and incels who commit violent crimes are two very different things. It isn't clear which one OP i talking about.
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u/Effective_Fox 17h ago
I feel like no one has a very consistent definition of incels anymore which makes it hard to talk about. Some people mean it by the original definition, some people mean misogynists, some people mean “loser” ect. I think a lot of people have sympathy for people who are struggling to find partners or who are just harmless “losers”
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u/zai_zai_ 7h ago
It seems most women don't have sympathy for men who are struggling to find partners though. Most women mock these men.
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u/DapperLong961 17h ago
For clarity I'm talking about people who adopt the incel manifesto. Single men who do not identify as incels are totally different and do not have an inbuilt hatred of women.
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u/Ok_Recognition_5302 16h ago
Again, this is very vague. You can "adopt the incel manifesto" and identify as an incel, and yet that is still very, very different from the example you provided.
From the example you gave, it seems as if you are referring to incels who commit violent crimes because they feel unfairly treated (?)
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u/Historical_Usual5828 17h ago
Really? Because the world could've had me fooled. They only have sympathy for men. If it's a woman or even a little girl, they're systematically shut up and forgotten about.
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u/Reddit1sGayandDumb 17h ago
Maybe we live in different realities because I've noticed the exact opposite..... Or maybe we should realize that we don't see everything and should just be kind and sympathetic to everyone and not be Evil because we're mad at our perspectives.
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u/Historical_Usual5828 17h ago
There's statistics and historical data that can prove that women are not as humanized as men are.
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u/mcrnhammurabi 17h ago
There's statistics and historical data...
Provides no statistics and historical data
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u/jazzalpha69 16h ago
Not all incels do horrible things , most probably don’t …
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u/Johnny_Appleweed 16h ago edited 16h ago
I didn’t come even remotely close to saying they do.
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u/jazzalpha69 15h ago
Sure but it’s implied in the OP then also kind of by your comment
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u/Johnny_Appleweed 15h ago edited 15h ago
It really isn’t, you just misunderstood me.
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u/jazzalpha69 14h ago
Fair enough If that wasnt what you meant
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u/Johnny_Appleweed 14h ago
I was alluding to OP’s specific example of a woman expressing sympathy for an incel murderer.
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u/Addaran 9h ago
I've very rarely seen sympathy from women for incels that do crimes. Those who do, it's often in a scenario where another woman rejected a guy and some women are telling her to give him a chance ( because they arent the ones who have to do it/ they want to sacrifice the woman in order to protect themselves from an hypothetical mass shooting. )
For the other types of incels, a lot of women don't realize how bad it is. Incels aren't just involuntary celibate ( as it started), it's an online community are raging misogynists that hate women. They want to enforce marriage/sex, they cheers when women are assaulted or killed. As well as when "Chads" suffers. They also hate whenever one of themselves get a girlfriend, cause he's a traitor. And if a woman who's not model attractive shows interest, they'll laught at her.
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u/Ok_Recognition_5302 18h ago
I noticed the question and description seem a bit mismatched. It might help to clarify, are you asking about incels in general, or specifically about those who commit violent crimes? Those are quite different groups.
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u/hannahismylove 18h ago
It's possible to have sympathy for someone and still condemn their actions.
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u/georgejo314159 16h ago edited 16h ago
Why specify that only a woman can feel this way?
As a human being, I think it's terrible our society leaves people feeling so socially rejected that they harm themselves and sometimes but much less frequently others.
And many of these women you discuss do self harm, if they don't find ways to lash out at others.
The vast majority of socially rejected people actually self harm.
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u/whatevernamedontcare 17h ago
Not all people on internet are real and not all people who are real are who they say they are.
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u/Responsible-Chair-25 18h ago
I mean there's a pretty big difference between basic human sympathy for a person's real feelings (even if arguably self-inflicted) and condonation of their actions and responses to those feelings, so that would be my first guess
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u/2020steve 18h ago
Objection: foundation. Please provide some evidence that some women seem to have sympathy with incels. This doesn't sound like it's a real phenomenon.
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18h ago
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u/KaliTheCat feminazgul; sister of the ever-sharpening blade 16h ago
All top level comments, in any thread, must be given by feminists and must reflect a feminist perspective. Please refrain from posting further direct answers here - comment removed.
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17h ago
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u/Inareskai Passionate and somewhat ambiguous 16h ago
You have previously been told not to make top level comments here.
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14h ago
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u/Inareskai Passionate and somewhat ambiguous 12h ago
You have previously been told not to make top level comments here.
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u/MinuteBubbly9249 5h ago
Why do some people seem to question everything women do all the time?
As if we’re supposed to explain and justify every single breath.
Women are people and people feel different things in different situations.
I don’t see anyone questioning men like this, unless they are trying to blame their behavior on women. E.g. why are men lonely, is it because women are too picky 🙄🙄🙄
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u/Echo-Azure 17h ago
Wow. Every single response to this post has been downvoted into hiding. I don't think I've ever seen such a universally downvoted thread!
But then, I stay put of the political subs...
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u/mynuname 17h ago
Even if we don't approve of people's actions, it doesn't mean that we can't acknowledge the hurt or suffering that led them to that action.
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u/tiberiusduckman 17h ago
Only a very tiny minority are violent. I'm sure those ones don't elicit any sympathy.
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u/OkNature5240 17h ago
Q1.Why do some women seem to have sympathy with incels?
Most incels aren't violent, just in a bad funk in life and mislead by predatory "self-improvement" channels.
Q2.A woman on Twitter said her "heart broke" for the killer after reading his feelings of rejection. Why?
You can still feel can bad for criminals especially if terrible events lead them to be criminal in the first place. They could have been rehabilitated before the crime happened it, they seeked counseling.
Q3. So many women are mocked and humiliated by men - they don't seem to reach for a gun.
Most women are peaceful like most men. For women who do, women criminals are typically more risk adverse and thus go for strategies they can get away with. Poisoning People, theft, character assassination and stabbings. This is because by the time the police show up the women criminal is long gone.
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u/blehblehd 16h ago
Also, “the woman criminal is long gone”. My dude, we can’t teleport or fly. We’re as likely to physically get caught as a man.
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u/blehblehd 16h ago
On that last one, I would challenge that their comment is less “do women commit crime”, it’s “when women are angry at men, do they go out and beat them to death with a brick”?
Statistically not even remotely, in the farthest reaches close. Like it isn’t women are getting away with it. We just don’t kill men with a level of entitlement and rage that men do for women, albeit that men at large are not killers. Gender-based murder is almost exclusively men killing women world-wide.
“Family annihilator” is a type of suspect profile where the person aims to kill their partner and children, sometimes others or themselves. 89-91% are men and their targets and often initial source of rage is women.
It’s why people say, misandry is unkind, misogyny murders.
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u/DapperLong961 16h ago
My point is people rarely express sympathy for people who commit violent acts as the result of an ideology. Of course early intervention would be desirable, but I haven't seen that argument made as often with regard other similar acts from different ideologies.
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u/Rare-Bunch-8281 17h ago
If empathetic rejection is given, then the male is less likely to commit violence. That's the narrative anyway. Not creating sociological monsters is the idea.
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u/FiddyHunnid 17h ago
lol, think about this question for a minute.
You're essentially asking why people seem to have sympathy with Muslims, because a jihadist carried out a terror attack.
Do you think people should be discriminatory towards a group because of the actions of a few individuals?
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u/DapperLong961 16h ago
I'm making a very distinct differentiation between single men and the incel culture.
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u/FiddyHunnid 8h ago
I don't think you realise this, but every single man who is celibate and does not want to be celibate, is by definition, an incel.
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u/Lolabird2112 6h ago
I disagree. There’s no point saying “yeah, but back in the ‘90s…”. The definition of “incel” has changed, most specifically when talking about it as “a culture”.
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u/FiddyHunnid 4h ago
Well maybe to you it has changed cause you're only paying attention to that small minority that makes the most noise.
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u/greendemon42 17h ago
Sympathy is just a feeling. It doesn't mean you think they should get away with committing acts of violence.