Stacys, Beckys, and Chads: the construction of femininity and hegemonic masculinity within incel rhetoric

This paper explores the discursive constructions of femininity and masculinity expressed by incels. Situated within a new wave of misogyny, incels blame feminism for disrupting a natural order whereby women and broader societal structures are organised around heterosexual, monogamous couplings. Using femmephobia as a lens, I consider how incels employ heteropatriarchal conceptions of emphasised femininity to both devalue women and describe pervasive social conditions that force them to remain celibate. Femmephobia casts feminine expressions as inherently performative and directed towards a masculine subject. Through an online ethnography of incel-identified subreddits and a deep-reading of Elliot Rodger’s manifesto, this paper situates incel discourse within contemporary work on critical femininity. It finds that incels use gendered actors to illustrate and explain their status as incels. Further, these actors all operate within heteropatriarchal understandings of gender, and operationalise femininity or hegemonic masculinity for social capital. Through the use of these actors, incels demonstrate how they view sexual access and relationships as a unique form of capital that they are denied. Taking gender as its starting point, this paper contributes to the emerging field of critical femininity through an understanding of the misogyny and femmephobia expressed by incels through the use of gendered actors.