Men Who Hate Women: A Review

“I would fight in the front lines of the bloodiest battle the world has ever seen and come back with no limbs if it meant that it would guarantee me an ugly fat chick for life”- “Advanced”, Shy Boys IRL by Sara Gardephe

These words were part of my first introduction to the incel community. Shy Boys IRL, is the name of a student documentary that details the experiences of four men who are entrenched in this world. Throughout, they try (unsuccessfully) to chat up women, swap dating advice, and attempt to bond with one another. During the documentary they, unintentionally, highlight the black hole at the centre of the world for incels and members of the manosphere.

“They possess a clear hatred for women despite their being at the crux of their worldview”

They possess a clear hatred for women despite their being at the crux of their worldview. It’s like complaining about a rotting smell in your fridge but still not taking anything out. Sooner or later the mould is going to prevent you from being able to use the fridge at all. As you watch them, there is an uncertainty, should you berate these men for the obscenities that spill out of their mouths, or should you pity them for the clear sadness that underpins their outlook?

However, Gardephe’s documentary was made in 2011. In terms of internet subcultures, that is equivalent to the Middle Ages. Whilst the thesis at the centre of the documentary is crucial, there needs to be some form of update and whilst there have been a handful of articles and YouTube videos about this, there is nothing as thorough in their exploration than in Laura Bates’s exceptional Men Who Hate Women. Prior to the release of this book, Bates was best known for her books Everyday Sexism and Girl Up, however in Men Who Hate Women she delves into the world of the manosphere and tries to understand both these online communities and how their ideology spills out into more mainstream rhetoric when discussing feminism.

The first part of the book takes great detail towards exploring the different aspects of the manosphere – Incels, Pick Up Artists, Men’s Rights Activists, Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW). Whilst they are all part of the same overarching group, each subsection has their own ideas and behaviours. For example, both incels and MGTOW are often ‘unable’ to date women, but for an incel it is because of how they are, supposedly so repugnant they can’t date, whereas MGTOW decides it consciously and opts out of engaging with women at all. The complex webs of ideology they weave through abbreviations and code speak often comes across as jargon to the casual observer, so dense that there is an Incel Wiki detailing their ideas, and from the articles I’ve read, it is exactly what you expect it to be.

“However, there is a slight flaw that becomes clear in these sections – the communities that Bates analyses are continually evolving.”

However, there is a slight flaw that becomes clear in these sections – the communities that Bates analyses are continually evolving. Terminology that was at the core of the eco-system can be discarded on a whim, new things can come up and radically transform the community (recent examples of this could include the rise of figures like Andrew Tate, the impact of events like the COVID-19 outbreak, and the rise of terms like “looksmaxing” and “doomer” within the manosphere community which are becoming increasingly nonsensical to anyone who is not already deeply invested in the subculture). It is almost impossible that a traditionally published text like Bates’s, which took months to research, write, and publish, could provide a detailed analysis of all these things. So, instead of leaving herself tied to the manosphere, the second part of the book explores how elements of this culture have festered within the mainstream, sometimes due to the impact of manosphere individuals but sometimes of their own accord.

Bates’s argument in this regard becomes apparent in the chapter ‘Men Who Hurt Women,’ which explores domestic violence and how the ideologies that lead to these crimes being committed are not too dissimilar from the views of a member of the manosphere. There is the fundamental belief that the person who the violence is being exacted against is somewhat deserving of it, that they are somewhat below the person inflicting violence towards them.

“It is pertinent to understand the way that sexist rhetoric has bled through the world around us”

Of course, it is not always a conscious behaviour, it would be reductive to assume it as such, but it is pertinent to understand the way that sexist rhetoric has bled through the world around us. Linguists like Zimmerman and West (1983) have found that “females are a class of speakers whose rights to speak appear to be casually infringed in by males” and there is work by writers like Caroline Criado-Perez who look at the way sexism has seeped through into countless systems. Not everyone who works to perpetuate these systems is an incel, but they are involved in the continual undermining of the autonomy of women. To speak somewhat personally, I’ve lost count of the number of times I, or women I know closely, have been undermined by bigoted individuals, talked at or over, creepily followed home, sexually assaulted, harassed, or just violated and reduced to a possession, an object to hang on the wall. I would like to believe that at their core all of these men are good, but it doesn’t stop their actions being painful.

Which, I suppose, is the conclusion that Bates has arrived at. But instead of wallowing in this sadness, she tries to find some glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Whilst she still has an underlying level of scepticism that one is likely to possess when you are coming in contact with the levels of bigotry she has as a prominent figure, or even the amounts that average women experience, there is the hope that the underlying sexism can be fought. For every figure of the manosphere she comes into contact with, there is one who left it, who recognises the dark place they were in and can move past it into a better, more equal world.