what is a femcel & why is it not equivalent to incel?

on the weaponization of language against women and feminism.

Recently, there was a school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. We have become desensitized to reading about these incidents but there was something different about this one, the shooter was a 15 year old girl. This information led to immediate speculation online about her motives, mindset, and according to right-wingers, whether or not she was trans. The absurdity of this transvestigating aside, information has come out that indicate an obsession with school shooters and neo-nazi rhetoric. Her tumblr (now deleted) shows reblogged gifs of the columbine shooting, photos of past school shooters, and a fascination with firearms. Photos found on her father’s Facebook page show her at a shooting range.

Aside from that, screenshots are floating around of an alleged manifesto, leaked by an unknown account on twitter, that contained themes of white supremacy and expressed a hatred for men. It was reported by the local authorities that while it appears she posted a possible manifesto, it was inaccessible to outside readers. Despite this, the unknown writing spread through X and was taken at face value. This information led to some reporting that she must have been a radfem man-hating femcel. I’m going to immediately debunk this, and then I will provide you with some education on the history of femcels.

the account that posted the manifesto admitting that they lied, note the use of “foid” which is a slur for women created by incels.

It is no surprise that upon hearing of a female mass shooter, people swarmed to blame feminism. The discourse surrounding feminism has exploded in the past few years, much of it boiling down to reducing feminism to man-hating and pretending misandry is real. There has been an increase of attention on the manosphere and incels. Naturally, people feel the need to create an opposite, and they have landed on the term “femcel.”

In order to understand why these terms are not opposites, one has to understand what an incel is. Once upon a time, incel meant someone who could not find a romantic relationship or sexual partners. It was very simple, if you were trying to have sex but couldn’t find suitors, you were an incel. The term was coined by a woman in order to find community with others struggling to succeed in relationships. This is no longer a valid definition of inceldom; words evolve over time, and the evolution of incel has been one worth noting. The key factor of inceldom is a deep loathing of women. There is no kind way to put it, in order to be an incel one must hate women and view us as no more than an object created for their pleasure. Any man who identifies as an incel should be treated as a threat. Recent research highlights the similarities between the way incels behave in groups to the way terrorist cells operate. Many people dismiss inceldom as men who don’t leave their rooms, or losers who can’t function in society, but they are much more dangerous than that. We have already seen violence from incels, and for many of them inflicting terror upon women is an end goal.

tw:

a small collection of posts from the incel forum incel.is, these are only a few of the hundreds of posts every day.

Can you think of a group of women who behave in this way and spend their lives fantasizing of ways to harm men? Can you point towards a movement of women who believe men should be kept in breeding barns and raped until they’re no longer useful? Can you show even one statement from a woman that sounds anywhere near as vile as this?

No you can’t, because it doesn’t exist.

A femcel is typically a young woman who suffers from insecurities and has trouble finding a relationship. If we want to define it, a femcel would be what an incel was originally meant to be, a woman who can’t find a romantic relationship or sexual partner. The key difference between these women and incels is the target of their hatred is typically themselves. Spending time on femcel forums will show you posts about body image, social ineptitude, and self loathing. A common theme amongst these women is poor mental health, they often joke about “grippy sock vacations” and anxiety. You will see users expressing anger that men often do not view women as human beings (which is backed up by research), the statement “men are dogs,” and an overall frustration of dating as a woman feeling like objectification. None of these sentiments are new and are discussed often amongst women, virgin or not. The disdain for men on these forums has increased recently, possibly due to the spread of femcel being equated to man-hating and women seeking a sense of community. The use of the term “moid” appears occasionally, which is a reactionary term created because of the incel slur “foid” which means female humanoid or female android. The overarching theme of these forums is women trying to escape the patriarchal gaze and find meaningful love.

collection of images posted on the front page of a femcel subreddit

Men online began calling any woman who discussed women’s issues or engaged with feminism a femcel. You’ll often see femcel and misandrist in the same sentence, both terms being used to describe any woman deemed a feminist, therefore someone men want to silence. This is the danger of people incorrectly labeling the Wisconsin shooter a femcel. Evidence showcasing femcels as a threat for violence is non-existent, and equating the term to neo-nazi, terf, and/or man-hater is disingenuous and harmful. Being a femcel does not make someone a feminist, these words are not synonymous. There are plenty of self proclaimed femcels, but while they may exist, they do not exist as an equivalent to incels or a societal threat to men.

It is a tactic of the patriarchy to paint women as equal contributors to the violence and hatred we often see from men. Unsavory terms are wielded as weapons to validate misogynistic attacks against women and feminism. Manosphere propaganda has convinced many men that misogyny is actually a reaction to “misandry,” as opposed to the other way around. It is important that misinformation about these terms is corrected and misuse is not validated. There is no woman boogeyman lurking in the shadows waiting to cut men’s balls off, there is no equivalent to men’s violence and male supremacy from women. We cannot trust a society built by the patriarchy to consider the impact on women in their irresponsible reporting, and we cannot blindly trust what lonely men in tiktok comments claim words mean.

femcel ≠ nazi.

femcel ≠ terf.

femcel ≠ feminist or radfem.

femcel ≠ bitter or childfree woman.

Most importantly, femcel ≠ incel.