Incels and outdated

Hello, lovelies. 

       For as long as history has been recorded the role of women has, for the vast majority, placed front and centre - in the background. They were the assigned home makers, housewives, mothers and wives. We hear thought snippets of recorded history that some women rebelled against the constraints of this yoked mantle. But it never ever ended well, just think of the medieval witch trials. Whilst other women kept to their places in the homes and the preverbal kitchen sink. Were they happy with their lives? Safe under the protection of their fathers and husbands? Was it safer for women, in actual living memory, to have mortgages and loans counter signed by their male representatives? Is it a myth that women have the right to their own life and body autonomy? What about their own reproductive rights? Who should have the final say about that? Is it the right of every man to have access to a women’s body, even if she does not consent? Are women only here to be wives and mothers? Or is it time to fight against the toxic patriarchy and tell the old-fashioned misogynistic males to grow up! 

      At the tender age of 17, I met and fell madly in love with my ex-husband. We were together for 23 years, married for 11 of those. And, as you may have deduced by the label of ex-husband, it wouldn’t be remiss to say that it was an unhappy marriage. Like most relationships, it started off full of protestations of love and happily ever after, but all too quickly, he began to show his true colours. But me, still believing myself to be madly in love, I overlooked every red flag. And there were many. By the time of my divorce I had so many red flags from him, that I could have sewn them all into a giant marque. But at the time I felt, or was told, that it was my job to do all the housework. As it wasn’t fair on him that after a long day at work that he would have to come home and start cleaning up my mess. It didn’t matter to him that I too worked full time, and that most of the mess was his. After work, I would go home, cook, clean and cater to my ‘loving’ partner. I did the shopping, cleaning, worked full time and when our first child came along, I did all the childcare. And I mean all of it. We had three children together, and during all those nappy years, you could count on one hand how many times he changed any of them. He was never there for the parents’ evenings, swimming lessons, gymnastic galas, doctor’s appointments, dentist visits, you name it, he was never there. But as he and his parents told me, that wasn’t what was expected from the man of the house. He was the bread winner not the help, as he liked to tell me.

       My friends would all try and tell me that it wasn’t ‘right’ for him to sit and watch me do all the work. That he should take on some of the childcare, seeing that they were his children too. He liked to take all the credit for their many achievements but didn’t want any of the day to day nonsense of rearing his children. Maybe using my ex-husband as an example isn’t the best idea, seeing as he really isn’t a nice person at all. But he was the product of this parent’s generation. The generation where the wives were to stay at home with a weekly shopping budget and run the house, as it was the norm to have a decent standard of living with only one wage packet. But in these modern times, it is far from practical to have only one wage to live on. Women entered the work force, and not only worked within it, they grew and changed it to what we have today. This is a very good thing. Well, when we have full equality in the working environment and an end to the pay gap. By and large, the world is a much better place for having women move from their former stay at home lives and move into the world where they can aspire to be whatever they want it to be. We have the rights to work, choose where we live and select our own partners in life. What could possibly go wrong?

     It’s with a very heavy heart that I heard the news coming from Plymouth this past weekend. Such a tragic waste of life. Across the news the questions were being asked. How could this have happened? Why did it happen? And what the heck is an Incel? How could one man be so disenfranchised with his life that he would go on to commit the very worst of crimes? An Incel, or involuntary celibate, is a member of an online subculture of people who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. Most of them are male and blame the opposite sex for their own sexual failings. But where did these incels come from? Are they a new phenomenon? Or have they always been around? And, most importantly, how dangerous can they be? 

      Well, incels refuse to accept responsibility for their circumstances in life, instead believing their inability to attract women makes them victims of oppression. They fall under the banner of online misogyny known as the manosphere. They believe in the ‘red pill’ conspiracy theory. They believe men are the true victims of gendered oppression, that male power has been usurped, and that feminism is a front to disguise men’s subjugation. Yikes. They feel that if they swallow the ‘black pill,’ then they would be forced to accept that this oppression is insurmountable, and their lives are totally hopeless. They believe that there is nothing they can ever do to improve their lives and are completely unable to accept responsibility for their lot in life, instead spinning themselves as victims of their own biology and societal oppression. Incels target and blame women for their own perceived low social standing. And want for all women to be stripped of their rights and be forced to serve as state-mandated girlfriends or held in concentration camps. Incels see themselves as the sexless victims of women and call for them to be contained or controlled accordingly. Yikes, and here was me thinking that we were just striving for equality.

      It would be very, very easy to condemn the gun man from Plymouth as being evil and full of hatred. And a very large part of me wants to do just that. But that won’t get us anywhere. Lamenting at the loss won’t guard against the future prospect of it happening again. And it must never happen again. We need to understand, educate and stop this toxic masculinity. Once, domestic violence was an almost excepted as mainstream, whereas now we are trying to irradiate it and our efforts are working. It worked for me. We need to teach that feminism isn’t about women being better then men, just that they are equal and deserve the same rights as men. We need to grow male allies that can question and challenge this outdated idea of who and what women are. I’m not sad that the gun man turned the gun on himself, but we need to do everything in our power to make sure that this never ever happens again. So light a candle, say a prayer for the wasted lives that were taken and fight for this end now. We must stand together and say that we're not taking it anymore.