Journal
FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES
Volume 22, Issue 2, Pages 254-270Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2020.1804976
Keywords
Online misogyny; incels; dehumanisation; monstrous-feminine; Reddit
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This study investigates the discourses on /r/Braincels, a Reddit forum for self-proclaimed incels, and reveals the dehumanizing attitudes towards women, exemplified by the term "femoid" used to demean them. The research finds that the misogyny expressed on /r/Braincels is not isolated to online spaces, but is connected to broader societal practices that reinforce the inferior status of women. It highlights the deeply misogynistic nature of our society.
This article presents a study of the discourses circulating /r/Braincels, the (now-defunct) forum on Reddit for self-proclaimed incels, that bolster the belief in the structural victimisation of men under a purported gynocentric order. Particularly, it uses feminist critical discourse analysis to explore perceptions created by the term femoid, a pejorative generated by incels to refer to women. It examines the dehumanising characteristics of femoid that construct women as an abject Other-a monstrous-feminine-thereby justifying the violence enacted on them. I demonstrate how, rather than being unique to online spaces, the misogyny expressed on /r/Braincels is linked to and enabled by broader social practices that similarly position women as inferior Others; these attitudes are symptomatic of, not anomalous to, the deeply misogynistic society we live in.
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