IDENTIFYING INCEL: CONSTRUCTING GENDERED SOCIAL IDENTITIES IN THE MANOSPHERE

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Last Modified
  • March 2, 2021
Creator
  • Furl, Katherine
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology
Abstract
  • Katherine Furl: Identifying Incel: Constructing Gendered Social Identities in the Manosphere(Under the direction of Neal Caren) How do male supremacist online communities foster distinct social identities, even when members engage in intense self-derogation? This study employs qualitative and computational methods to examine the themes and gendered essentialist rhetoric leveraged in the development of distinct social identities in Involuntary Celibate (incel) and Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) online communities. Through adopting subordinate social identities (incel) prerequisite on membership in a broader, pre-existing social category (man)—and through proclaiming the inherent superiority of other men, often assigned different, mutually exclusive identities (alpha male or Chad)—incel rhetoric maintains a patriarchal social system through male supremacist dogma even while establishing in-group members as an inferior subset of the broader category of “men.” Supposedly essential gender differences are reified through appeals to the inherent logic of numbers and by adopting scientific terminology and detached, “objective” language. Findings suggest the importance of continued vigilance toward passive gender essentialism in and beyond apparently “niche” online communities, and of maintaining a critical eye toward the ways scientific and statistical knowledge are misconstrued to fit extremist narratives online.
Date of publication
Keyword
DOI
Resource type
Advisor
  • Caren, Neal
  • Weisshaar, Katherine
  • Pearce, Lisa
Degree
  • Master of Arts
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2020
Language

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details Furl_unc_0153M_19799.pdf 2021-02-03 Public Download
file details Furl_unc_0153M_19799_DATA.xml 2021-02-03 Public Download