Incels and Daesh: lethal mysogynists

This month, so-called incels finally got the attention they have been craving so pathetically after Alek Minassian became their poster boy. Ten people were killed and 15 injured in an act of terrorism in Toronto - a van mowed people down as they went about their business and Alek Minassian was arrested for the atrocity.

It has since emerged that Minassian frequented white supremacist sites and praised racist murderer Elliot Rodger, who, aged 22, shot people at random and then killed himself. Minassian posted on Facebook: "The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!".

"Incel" is short for "involuntarily celibate" and in their hateful little subculture, "Chads" are the men who are getting laid and "Stacys" are the women who have sex with these men. 

Incels do not take responsibility for their romantic and sexual failures. They are not interested in personal change so they can become happier, better-adjusted men. They just want to blame others for their lives, and this extends to harming innocent people in vile acts of terrorism. 

These are the men who may seem harmless enough when they whine about constantly being "friend-zoned" but for these men, there is no value in friendships with women if they refuse to have sex with them. Instead of viewing healthy platonic friendships as part of a normal adult life, these men view women as gratification machines and if they drop in enough friendship tokens, sex will eventually come out.  

If incels actually cultivated healthy friendships with women, they might learn that sometimes we don't have sex as much as we'd like either. Women get dumped, women get friend-zoned, women's partners may lose interest in sex - being "involuntarily celibate" isn't just for men. Sorry, guys, you're not special. And when this happens to a woman, it can hurt, it can be embarrassing, it can crush self-esteem and it can lead to feelings of worthlessness. But it's not women who are reacting to romantic and sexual disappointment by plotting cowardly acts of violence because a man wasn't interested. 

When women aren't getting laid, we might get together and whine about men over a bottle of wine or a tub of ice cream, but you're not going to find us organising to kill innocent people. Sure, not every woman will handle being rejected in an entirely rational manner but the murderous bunny boiler of Fatal Attraction is a rare exception, rather than the rule, as crime statistics will bear out. 

Like Daesh, the incels have started a deadly movement and the parallels are chilling. Incels and Daesh prey on vulnerable, lonely young men, men who feel disenfranchised, men who are yearning to feel powerful and important, men for whom the ability to control women to the point of rape and murder is appealing, men who get very angry when they are referred to as losers. And now, with the Toronto attack, it is clear that incels and Daesh are both planning to kill more innocent people in the name of hateful and perverse ideologies. 

Incels and Daesh both hate women. They do not like to see women empowered or educated. They feel entitled to women's bodies, whether it is for their own selfish gratification (can anyone seriously imagine either an incel or a Daesh recruit giving a damn about female pleasure during sex?) or to breed a new generation of haters. 

There is no respect for women in incel chat rooms or Daesh training camps. They both hold juvenile, reductive views of women, they want to control us but they are also disgusted by us. They are the very worst examples of toxic masculinity. Their murderous foot soldiers might be dismissed as lone wolves but they are the useful idiots for the leaders of horrific ideologies. They are both terrorist organisations. They both need to be stopped.

Photography by cocoparisienne

Thoughts on today's anti-semitism protest

Today, I know quite a few people who are attending the protest outside the Labour Party's headquarters in London. The protest is about inaction on anti-semitism within the Labour Party. Among the people protesting are those who feel politically homeless because anti-semitic abuse has been tolerated and not properly dealt with by the Labour Party. 

These people are routinely slagged off as "Red Tory scum" by certain elements of the Labour Party even though they support a such principles as a strong NHS, the welfare state, ending austerity, and a taxation system that does not favour the wealthy at the expense of the working class. These people are not natural conservatives, they have spoken out against Conservative Party policy, in many cases for decades. Some of these people are now voting for other parties, some now spoil their ballots, some have stopped voting, sometimes for the first time in their politically active lives.

Absolutely disgusting things have been said to Jewish people within the Labour Party, including threats, the dragging up of vile stereotypes that would not be out of place in the appalling propaganda of Nazi Germany, and calling Jewish female MPs, such as the eloquent Louise Ellman, "sluts" and "bitches" for daring to speak out. Ruth Smeeth MP has received 25,000 abusive messages and is now under police protection. It has to stop if the Labour Party is at all serious about being in government. 

When these people say they have been subjected to ugly anti-semitic abuse, I believe them. I have seen the awful evidence. I am not Jewish so I am not going to presume to tell Jewish people that their anti-semitic experiences within the Labour Party are invalid or not serious or do not warrant serious investigation and disciplinary action. The people who are responsible for the abuse would probably, quite rightly, not minimise reports of abuse towards Muslim people so why are they incapable of respecting Jewish people in the same way or taking their concerns equally seriously?

I suspect that a lot of anti-semitic abuse is excused as criticism of wealth and greed, of the Rothschilds as shorthand for all Jews, even though that is clearly wrong and ridiculous. Just as Muslims are tired of telling people that they are not terrorists, and black people are tired of telling people they are not in violent gangs, and women are tired of having to explain pretty much every life choice we make to someone, Jewish people are pretty damn sick of this stupid, offensive stereotype being perpetuated, complete with the horrendous rich-Jews-with-big-noses trope in the hideous mural Jeremy Corbyn claimed he didn't look at properly before defending it. 

Indeed, the motion which has been put forward by the Bristol West Labour Party in opposition to their MP, Thangam Debbonaire, attending last month's Enough Is Enough rally against anti-semitism doesn't so much contain a racist dog whistle as a honking great bullhorn - the motion actually said that "when people see inequality, ecological disaster and war alongside the accumulation of unprecedented wealth, in the private hands of a few, it is reasonable that they seek out explanations". If you can't see the problem with that, I can't help you. If those calling for Ms Debbonaire's deselection succeed, I hope they are proud of themselves for cutting down a talented female MP from an ethnic minority because she spoke out in support of people who are experiencing intolerance. This is an intelligent, compassionate woman who called to allow MPs to vote remotely in special circumstances after she juggled her parliamentary duties with breast cancer treatment. If that is the kind of person you want to remove from parliament, you really need to ask yourself who the real racists and haters are.

But the wealthy are an obvious target for the left and if Jewish people get scooped up in the criticism, that just seems to be viewed by many as mere collateral damage. It is possible to be critical of the morality of many wealthy people and big business without detouring down anti-semitic rabbit holes. I also suspect that criticism of Jews is seen as criticism not just of the wealthy and privileged but also of white people and that somehow makes it OK for many, even though it is racism on top of racism. Never mind that this is completely ignorant and flies in the face of the diversity of Jewish people who live in every continent. 

One of the defences has been "But there are anti-semitic Tories too!". Yes, this is true. And it should all be called out. Jacob Rees-Mogg should be held to account for rubbing shoulders with the dreadful Gregory Lauder-Frost just as the Labour Party was held to account for allowing holocaust denier Alan Bull to be a council candidate. But the argument that there are anti-semites in the Conservative Party as well is not really an argument at all - it just drags both parties into an awful race to the bottom where all forms of racism and intolerance become OK because the other lot are at it too. 

Jeremy Corbyn, the ball is in your court. Try not to hit it into the hands of those who are responsible for abusing Jewish people.

Photography of the Kindertransport statue by UggBoy♥UggGirl/Flickr