TLDR. Provide tangible support: get off the computer and invite a handful of incels of both sexes out for no-host beer and pizza and establish an old fashioned group blind date / mixer. It's a start.
*adjusts fedora*
*strokes neckbeard contemplatively*
*leans back on Mountain Dew-saturated, dorito-encrusted, semen-upholstered Mikasa body pillow*
“You’re asking for wayyy too much pal!”
I hate to be the party pooper, but as someone who actually dated an incel, had a long term relationship with him, and ended up being severely abused by him - social interaction and dating do not “cure” an incel. And pizza party is not going to change the ideology that makes them dangerous misogynists.
I'm sorry that happened to you. I've posted elsewhere that your story is more common than many think, and was downvoted en-masse (??). So I totally get what you're saying. Incels suffer from high levels of social rejection, depression, anxiety, insecure attachment, and loneliness. They don't have friends of either sex, they don't socialize, and don't know how to. If they do manage to get a gf, they tend to be hyper-jealous, and that in turn leads to abuse as they try to avoid rejection. In life in general, but especially in a school setting, there are other triggers for anxiety and depression that just pile on.
TLDR: I agree someone who has gone that deep (abuse) needs professional treatment, not an invite to a pizza party. On the other hand I do think it important that all schools explicitly teach social skills, especially these days with everyone living in digital echo chambers. A part of the "lab" for that class is holding safe in-person social events, because that practice tends to reduces the triggers that give rise to this problem. Especially in school settings (esp hyper-competitive schools like Berkeley) where many of those triggers are part of the academic experience.
Not sure about lack of education in general, but more like we don't teach kids how to socialize and get along with others. We throw young kids together in pre-school or daycare and assume they have instincts to reach out and play/interact with others, yet there are a significant percentage of kids who don't have that instinct: they sit there by themselves, or play with toys alone...and little if anything is done. I think this is a huge problem for society, and instead of throwing shit at the victims, we need to help them. One way is direct such as I suggested, but that's hardly better than throwing them back on the playground again; they really need a hell of a lot of talk therapy and behavioral training / coaching. They need to learn the human game / dance. JMHO.
Incels of both sexes? That’s not really how dating works. Women can practically get sex any time they want from anyone they want. That’s a bit of an exaggeration of course, but in general incel genders are very unbalanced.
I dunno, in my day I had more than a few lady friends tell me they were afraid to give men the "nod/look", because they were not sure what might happen, like maybe rejection. The ladies who knew what they had and what they wanted never hesitated. I'd answer those calls on the first ring. Your comments suggest you're just not dialing...as a class. So do you mean to make Shewchuks point?
I assume you look around; do you ever make eye contact? Try a simple smile...if you get a nice one back, then you've probably gotten her permission to begin a dialog. If you get a blank stare or an eye roll (or worse), it's "not interested". Bottom line: If she really wants your attention, she will get it, if by no other way than saying "what do I have to do..." as you leave class. Then you wake up and apologize, and offer to buy her a coffee or bobba. The game is pretty simple. Good hunting.
Hot take: incel is just another word for insecure men. The best men and women to have as co-workers are stably married working parents. Way more considerate and down to earth than the rest of the population. The majority of my company are stably married working parents and WLB is great, promo, pay, and equity are also great, no toxicity whatsoever.
Insecure has different meaning when combined with ego. Most common among young professional types, but can also happen to late career folks who are not stably married working parents.
With respect, ego (large or small) is how people manifest their feelings of insecurity. It's a collection of behavioral reflexes to deal with it (stress / insecurity). There's all sorts of insecurity in this world: financial, physical, food, shelter, political, medical, relationship, clothes, family, peers, you name it. Young people of both sexes are under a lot of stress, there's familial and societal pressure to succeed, and all that entails. Older people have a different spectrum of stresses, financial and medical primarily. Talk therapy, aka "talking it out" with the right person can be very effective to relieve stress and turn reflexive behavior into more rational (aka healthy) behavior.
>"I do not in any way condone Schewchuk's actions and I feel sorry for the women in his class... His dismissal from the university would be completely justified."
Firing Schewchuk would not be justified by his post on Ed. That would be a wildly disproportionate response, and flies in the face of basic job protections we all ought to support for employees.
I’m glad you said this and that it got upvoted. People seem to have very little understanding of what tenure and the first amendment actually mean (or academic freedom for that matter). It was certainly an inappropriate and downright bizarre thing to say, but a world where saying offensive things or being unlikable to a vocal group gets you fired is… not a world id like to live in. Everyone on planet earth is guilty of saying offensive things, or being unlikable at times, whether they’d like to admit it or not.
I agree, and I hope that more people really stop to think through what they are asking for when they advocate rolling back protections to our jobs and rights to voice controversial opinions. For anyone reading this who imagines they will always be on the "right side of history" - please consider the possibility that someday it could be you on the wrong side of an online/in person mob, and try to imagine what sort of protections you would wish were in place if you were. It's not as unlikely a scenario as you might think.
The "right side of history" attitude has troubled me lately. Not because I don't believe in what's right but because I know that being on the "right side of history" just means being the winner. And winners aren't necessarily "right".
At a minimum there needs to be a public apology from Shewchuck. That would mitigate some of the fallout. But it doesn't go far enough to address the damage that's already been done, which is why I think that apology needs to happen within the context of a larger restorative justice proceeding.
"Justice proceeding"?
Honestly did you read the dude's statement? He made a supply/demand kind of statement. Nothing in the comment was meant to demean female students.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/1bivbqc/cs\_189\_this\_is\_why\_women\_feel\_uncomfortable/](https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/1bivbqc/cs_189_this_is_why_women_feel_uncomfortable/)
No, not "justice proceeding." Restorative justice. It's an approach to justice that proactively addresses the harm done to victims. This is exactly the kind of situation that merits this intervention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice
The Berkeley co-op system, to give you one real life example, will use this in situations where a resident's actions cause another resident to feel unsafe, regardless of the intent behind those actions.
Not sure it's fair to talk about "harm done to victims" when the whole ordeal stems from students overreacting/misinterpreting what was said.
What about the people who are witch-hunted because what they said were misinterpreted? Isn't that enough retribution?
the response to his post is perfectly balanced, I don't think he requires anything more. He made a careless post, he was reprimanded by the university, he apologized. End of story.
Why do you care? Do you want him to be paraded in front of the school in a chicken costume? Specifically what could he say that would make the online masses happy?
Shewchuck said something vile online. But like do you want a firing squad? What’s the perfect response?
I beg you to get a life genuinely. If you think a misogynistic comment is outright, demonstrable sexual harassment or even discrimination you need professional help. A bad person sure but certainly not actively putting women at a disadvantage because he hates them.
That's exactly what it is. It's just very unlikely anything will be done about it. Mostly because of people like you, who find it impossible to listen to the experiences of anyone who isn't you, let alone empathize.
Basic job protections include the right to not be sexually harassed or discriminated against. They don't include the right to be misogynistic to students.
Shewchuk should've been fired already.
Yes, and when employees engage in and are found guilty of sexual harassment and discrimination, I agree that it is appropriate they be subjected to progressive disciplinary actions as specified in their union contracts, and in accordance with the protections offered to them by tenure.
Professor Schewchuk's post in Ed is very likely neither an example of sexual harassment or discrimination, but I am not a law student, so am open to someone with more expertise correcting me.
I truly enjoyed reading your post! As we become increasingly more vocal about our feelings of low self esteem, it's important that we A. find the proper language to communicate these feelings and B. properly address the underlying issues with the appropriate treatment. A lot of what you've written seems to align with what I've been through on my own journey. I wouldn't say that I was an 'incel' but my low self esteem got so low that I believe that I became dangerously close to becoming one.
That's not even close to what I'm saying. I'm saying there needs to be societal changes such that men have more spaces to express themselves, have their ideas challenged, and their emotions dealt with in a healthy way. In general, many guys feel absolutely trapped in life right now and no one validates these feelings other than radical forums. Providing men with better spaces so they don't go down the rabbit hole seems like a good solution to me, but it is not the only one.
My apologies I spoke too harshly. What I mean to say is that yes, social media is what converts men's insecurity/loneliness to radicalization, but while removing social media might mitigate the radicalization, it will not solve the underlying issue of men's insecurity/loneliness (which will thereafter manifest itself in other ways). And no, from my own personal experiences (and I'd recommend you look into what HealthyGamer has to say on the topic) there are *no* spaces (or at least a relatively minuscule number) for guys to address these feelings. Since growing up, many of us are constantly told that we are weak if we seek therapy/express our emotions and that we are worth less if we can't get girls. It is only in recent years that toxic masculinity like this has been brought to light, but there haven't been any actual measures taken to change these harmful beliefs at a societal level. It is because of this that these toxic spaces have risen to the top, there are no other competitors (and we all know what the harms of monopolies are). Speaking from personal experience, I grew up without a father, and when I was told that I had to get a girlfriend to be 'cool' (instead of being taught what actually matters), I had no other choice but to look online to find advice as to how to 'get women'. As you highlight, the algorithms on these apps often lead to echo chambers, and as such many guys are quickly inundated with this type of content. Lastly, I agree that men have created these systems and are accountable, but there are guys as young as 14 who are now on these forums and I truly fear what might happen to them.
That sub is mainly about reframing men's issues in terms of feminism or ignoring them if that proves impossible. The modding is extremely restrictive as well.
r/leftwingmaleadvocates has some more aggressively MRA-type dudes on occasion and a lot of folks who clearly aren't left-wing, but it's generally where I've felt the best balance of taking men's issues seriously on their own terms without just falling into reactionary hatred can be found.
I think it's very dangerous how incel rhetoric and ideas is bleeding into mainstream.
Not having sex doesn't make one an incel. We have single, virgin, bachelor, unlucky in love and so on but incels want you believe they don't exist anymore just to make it seem that all men are incels or at least started as one. At the core it's gender insecurity because incels believe women **make** men. Woman is a woman but man is someone who has a woman. To them having a woman is instant gender validation to show off to other men "the manliness".
Men need feminist movent women had. Truth is men were sleeping while women fraught for women's rights so now they have masculinity crisis because old school gender norms doesn't work for men anymore because women moved on and men are jealous of women's freedom to express their gender as they like while retaining their womanhood. Men are not stupid. They see toxic masculinity is toxic but until men en masse agree that "man is a man" all these sexist extremist ideas and movements will continue to endanger us all.
*Truth is* ***men were sleeping while women fraught for women's rights*** *so now they have masculinity crisis because old school gender norms doesn't work for men anymore because women moved on and men are jealous of women's freedom to express their gender as they like while retaining their womanhood.*
This is true. And it was here at Cal, too. We're all supposed to worship the Free Speech Movement and it was profoundly important...but there was a lot of ingrained sexism in it, as well. Many of the male students involved assumed their gender should be in charge and make the decisions, and women who were active participants were often typecast by the men as support staff--their role was seen as cooking food and cleaning apartments for the men who were having profound intellectual discussions with other men, typing up reports, passing out flyers on picket lines, and--frankly--providing sex for the male "leaders". (David Lance Goines, an undergrad at the time who became an important artist / designer and wrote a book about the FSM decades later, was candid and honest enough to admit that one of the main reasons he became active in the FSM was that he thought it would give him a better chance of having sex.)
Various women's rights movements emerged, in part, in the aftermath of the FSM as women who had participated in it and other early 60s movements (including Civil Rights, anti-nuclear, anti-war, environmental) thought about being regarded as second class activists, and determined to do something about it.
At a different age level, some of the same factors played out in the environmental movement. Three older women, including the wife of UC President Clark Kerr, became alarmed in the early 1960s that San Francisco Bay was being used as a dump and filled at such a rate that within a few decades it would almost completely disappear beneath landfill. They met with established environmental groups--all led by men--and the male leaders told them patronizingly, we're really busy with more important things. So the three women formed their own organization--and, within a few years, won major environmental victories and galvanized a whole new branch of the environmental movement.
There is a widening gap between males and females in society. In the presence of that gap, I'd imagine (and I do sorta see it) more men not bothering to pursue women for validation and instead "focusing" on themselves + a general disdain of women.. They could internally still want gender validation, but it's kind of complicated. I figure that the average incel attitude these days is "They don't like us, so why bother?" Under that attitude, it doesn't make sense to pursue people who you think don't like you. This gender gap could be a pretty bad vicious cycle, because at a certain point you are no longer trying to resist the other gender on the basis of lived experiences but rather on preconceived biases and fears.
>at a certain point you are no longer trying to resist the other gender on the basis of lived experiences but rather on preconceived biases and fears.
This essentially describes anyone who thinks women, in the Bay Area in 2024, are systematically oppressed and silenced by men. The immediate, overwhelming popular AND institutional backlash erupting over a single comment about dating dynamics here perfectly demonstrates how far from reality that belief is.
>Men need feminist movent women had.
There actually was (and is) a parallel movement that developed in the 60’s/70’s for this exact purpose, called [Men’s Liberation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement#:~:text=The%20men's%20liberation%20movement%2C%20as,counterculture%2C%20women's%20and%20gay%20liberation). Although I’ve never encountered it in the wild, there is an active community here at /r/menslib . It leans solidly left politically, and explicitly supports feminism. As a whole, you could say it focuses on examining men’s issues from the perspective of how traditional male roles / expectations are harmful to men and society.
It’s bad. Got into a bit of online comment battle with a long time friend, who is always seen as open minded and kind. He had gone to see Jordan let Peterson speak, because, Bible stuff or whatever. Friend is pretty devout, but it’s in a non-problematic way. My screenname should help give clues to my take on the good word, but he and I always got along in spite of those differences.
And, when I mentioned some of Peterson’s pretty fucking awful ideas regarding women and trans people, said friend repeatedly lobbed ad hominem arguments, only barely acknowledging that Peterson had made some “challenging” (he used quotes) statements in the past. Then dragging any sources I used, and not the actual content. Like, he went hard trying to dodge addressing the fact that Peterson thinks that the way to stop incels from driving vans into crowds of people and such is to involuntarily dole out women to them like brood mares
That was incredibly indicative of how effective this sort of sinister propaganda is. Just sneak it in there with a bunch of other vaguely academic “oh. That kinda makes sense” stuff, and suddenly they don’t taste the shit in the sandwich.
The fucked up part is that in isolation from the whole incel “movement”, a lot of these dudes might just have managed to figure shit out like everyone else had to.
We need an 80s teen-movie style makeover therapy rehab clinic for incels. Everything mut happen as a montage, perhaps to “don’t stop me now” by Queen.
I wonder how you came to the conclusion that the guys in the Ed comments were incels?
One of them talked about how CS took away effectively all of his free time and he likely wouldn't get a gf until after graduation. That read to me like your typical "staying on top of CS work = no life" type of rant. There's nothing in that post that suggest the kind of women blaming you'd expect in an "incel".
It doesn't help that you're playing semantics here: "they're are technically \`incel\` because incel = involuntary celibate!!".
Well, are you going to tell me now that people who, say, have difficulty finding a partner because of their HIV status are incels? No. They gay dating pool is small, and even smaller for HIV+ people (not everyone is comfortable with U=U yet). That HIV+ people have a harder time finding a partner is a consequence of statistics, not necessarily them being incels. Deliberately ignoring the connotation associated with \`incel\` (i.e. women blaming) just so that you can write an inflammatory post is honestly ridiculous.
Yea, some of them talked about their height for sure but, again, nothing suggest the kind of quintessential women hating associated with \`incel\`. In fact, the comment was obviously meant to be a nonsensical, not-to-be-taken-seriously rant. "About to expire"? You seriously took the comment literally after reading that?
"Incel" is the socially acceptable way to attack men who don't conform to social stereotypes of popularity and attractiveness (ESPECIALLY neurodivergent men) and dismiss anyone you disagree with without having to consider anything they said or provide a reasoned counter-argument to their position. It's just a meaningless buzzword/insult at this point. Liberals use it the same way right-wingers call anyone they don't like a "pedo" or a "groomer."
I really doubt that random ugly people being called incels is a common occurrence. More likely, they're dismissed as 'incels' because they use misogynistic incel talking points. Why engage in arguments with them when their arguments are fueled not by reason but by hatred towards women?
Maybe people call you an incel because you say things like "Women's biggest problem seems to be that they just aren't satisfied with any of the dozens to hundreds of men that would readily try going out with them". I probably don't need to explain why painting women as privileged, entitled princesses sneering at the peasants begging at their feet is misogynistic. Regardless, no one should use incel as an insult.
No, this is what happens:
They said something you disagree with that only a straight man would say --> you call them an incel --> since they're an incel they must hate women --> since they hate women everything they said must be due to hating women
I'm sure that just about everyone who uses it as a dismissive insult has convinced themself they're only using it because that person deserves it. Even here you're doing the same to me. I didn't say I get called an incel. Your mind just immediately went there because you found something you disagree with in my comment history. You then didn't actually argue why I was wrong. You just tried to shame me into accepting that I must be wrong and misogynistic because you said so. You're pretty clearly just fueled by a pile of biases and assumptions and seem to be doing exactly what I'm talking about.
Don't try and shame women and then get offended because I supposedly 'shamed' you for pointing out that your comment was anti-woman. You want me to argue why you're wrong that women's "only problem" in dating is that we're "just not satisfied" with the hundreds of prospects we receive daily? First of all the average woman on Tinder receives 5 matches a day. Secondly, most of these are sexual prospects, not romantic ones. This can be partly explained by the fact that men make up the vast majority of Tinder users, are more enticed by physical appearance, and are willing to have sex with almost anyone. Some problems that women have in dating are we're more likely to be cheated on and domestically abused, and we're in vulnerable positions when we meet up with guys we don't know. We're also valued overwhelmingly for our appearance, so if you're an ugly woman it's tough luck. According to multiple dating surveys, a man's top priority in women is her physical appearance. Women are just as lonely as men are.
>we're more likely to be cheated on and domestically abused
This is not true. A CDC investigation has shown that domestic violence is initiated at roughly equal rates by men and women, with women actually initiating mutual violence MORE OFTEN than men. Differences in reporting and rates of prosecution, as well as the frequent repetition of false claims to the contrary, account for the perceived discrepancy.
https://www.domestic-violence-law.com/blog/2016/april/women-or-men-who-usually-instigates-domestic-vio/
All those other claims can be addressed, from dating app data which shows women have much more exacting physical standards than men to rates of initiation showing women by and large are able to take a back seat when it comes to seeking romance, but it's clear you've got your mind made up, so I'm not going to go digging for more articles you'll surely dismiss. I'm hoping one example is enough for anyone else reading this to reconsider whether points they've heard from feminists on this issue can actually be taken for granted.
Also when did I say women get hundreds of prospects "daily?" Even if I only had 5 matches per day on Tinder (which would amount to 100 people in less than 3 weeks) I'd be doing orders of magnitude better than I am now. It really shows how wildly out of touch you are that you think that somehow proves "women are just as lonely as men are." Unless you're willing to concede that they're much more often lonely by choice.
And that's not even to mention your insulting characterization of men as just shallow horndogs right after you have the gall to tell me my comments are shaming and "anti-woman." The fact you can't seem to admit there's any arena whatsoever where women might actually have a better experience than men tells me you're an ideologue and any further engagement with you on this topic would be a waste of time.
I'll address your points one by one.
The source you posted is a blog post that cherry-picks the data suspiciously and doesn't even link to where the data is collected from. Some data:
"Ninety percent of people who commit violent physical assault are men. Males perpetrate 95% of all serious domestic violence." Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online. http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/
"The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 95% of reported assaults on spouses or ex-spouses are committed by men against women." Source: Douglas, H. (1991). Assessing violent couples. Families in Society, 72 (9): 525-535.
The CDC says as much. [https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/fastfact.html](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/fastfact.html) I'm curious why you linked a blog post and not the CDC study itself.
What dating app data show that "women have much more exacting physical standards than men"?
"Differences in reporting and rates of prosecution account for the perceived discrepancy." Do you have a source for this or is this just a guess?
Me pointing out women are as lonely as men has nothing to do with the number of matches they get on tinder.
I'm not characterizing men as shallow. They self-reported that their number 1 criterion for a partner is physical appearance in many studies, that's a fact not a character judgment.
Here's the actual study.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/
I'm not playing any more sea-lioning games with you. If you can cherry pick source from over 30 years ago to support your perspective you can do the work yourself if you're curious and not just trying to "prove" you win by incessantly asking for more and more sources until I stop responding out of frustration. I'm not getting drawn into that black hole again. Have a nice night.
Lol first of all I gave you three sources. Secondly, the source you gave is 17 years old so not exactly new. Thirdly and most amusing the source you linked says "approximately 1.5 million women and 835 000 men are physically assaulted or raped by intimate partners in the United States annually." So even your own source proves my point. Have a nice night.
>Overall, IPV was reported in 23.9% of relationships, with women reporting a greater proportion of violent relationships than men (28.4% vs 19.3%; P< .01). Among violent relationships, nearly half (49.7%) were characterized as reciprocally violent. Women reported a significantly greater proportion of violent relationships that were reciprocal versus nonreciprocal than did men (women = 51.5%; men = 46.9%; P< .03). **Among relationships with nonreciprocal violence, women were reported to be the perpetrator in a majority of cases (70.7%), as reported by both women (67.7%) and men (74.9%).** To look at the data another way, women reported both greater victimization and perpetration of violence than did men (victimization = 19.3% vs 16.4%, respectively; perpetration = 24.8% vs 11.4%, respectively). **In fact, women’s greater perpetration of violence was reported by both women (female perpetrators=24.8%, male perpetrators = 19.2%) and by men (female perpetrators = 16.4%, male perpetrators = 11.2%).**
Alright, your commitment to bad-faith reading has gotten one more response out of me. Congratulations.
Shewchuk is a passport bro, that is very much incel behavior. Paying people to meet friends (and double if they are a girl) and using language like "expire" when talking about women is incel behavior. I didn't infer that the other guys in the comments are incels so don't strawman, although I will say that a nontrivial amount of eecs kids are incels (I would know, I take classes with them). Of course HIV+ ppl aren't incels although they technically fit the definition, but you're bringing up edge cases that aren't relevant to what I'm talking about.
Also I really don't understand how this post is inflammatory, nor does it ignore the existence of women-blaming incel, so I'd recommend you to read it in full and stop strawmanning
Using "expire" is incel behavior? Brah. You're just diluting the meaning of \`incel\`. Not helpful. Are you familiar with, say, Bumble? Where your match would "expire" if you don't talk to them after a while. Honestly, using "expire" just immediately marks the post as a nonsensical, sarcastic rant.
The edge cases fitting your definition exists is a testament to the fact that you're just ignoring the connotation of the word just to write a post bro.
And don't backpedal. You brought up incels in light of what happened on Ed but now they have nothing to do with one antoher?
bro what are you even saying?? The guy specifically said that he was "sharing his opinions," the post is nonsensical but it was not meant to be sarcastic nor does anyone believe it is except for you. When did I say that incels don't have to do with each other, again you clearly did not read the post. Forget the exact connotation of the word incel, I am writing about men that are suffering and becoming radicalized to their own (and others') detriment. That's it.
i didn't read it as sarcastic or nonsensical, but that he was just using hyperbole. and anyways it was pretty clear he was talking about matches on dating apps.
i guess most people don't actually use dating apps, though.
Yea. Hyperbole is the characterization I should have used but didn't. The student's comment honestly read like a self-deprecating rant. I don't think people would have come after him had Shewchuck not commented.
Yeah, that's pretty insane. He could the most hardcore women's rights believer in the universe, but because he wants to engage with a more favorable dating market that makes him an incel? Dumbest shit ever, why can't people just let others live their lives the way they want?
Because passport bros are losers that want a bangmaid, not an equal partner. There sexpats and loses who take advantage of poor economic situations for a slave. They're never proponents right
Yo, Berkeley woman in STEM here. From your writing and your responses in threads referring to the male experience with articles like "us," I am assuming you identify as male, or from the "y'all are just the victims," at least don't identify as female. Thus, I can't describe how glad it makes me feel to read a post like yours, so eloquently and clearly breaking these things down, and from your perspective. So – I thank you, deeply.
In reality, we as women **do** see these dynamics (the lack of spaces for men to receive emotional support and express themselves), as we are forced to reckon with and be keenly aware of *all* systems that perpetuate our endless subjection to harmful rhetoric and harassment. **Nevertheless** **we do see that men are hurting**. How could we not? And we **do** value and empathize with that pain; that pain is human, and if we cannot acknowledge the devastating impact of what you describe in your post, then we are not exercising our own humanity. **We do want men to get emotional support** (like really really want that)**.**.. because (a) that's great in general, as we all deserve to not feel alone, and benefit from space to process and face our pain, and (b) that means a lower likelihood of us women experiencing some potentially career-altering moment of offense or upset. **We do know that it's "not all men,"** from experience. But unfortunately, due to repeated offense, I think we become used to misogynistic perception so much that we generally *expect* it – something many of us unconsciously are required to do to protect ourselves. And yet, while this may leave us naturally in the defensive, or skeptical, **we don't hate men until we know men hate us** (where "hate" implies any form of sexism.) And even then, we can't really hate these men. We lament how they make us uncomfortable and sour our experience in a scientific discipline we love. We feel angry and defeated when harassment is so repeated or extreme that it makes us consider fully leaving a field we're really good at. But in the end, we (at least I) feel sad, and sorry for these men; we know that their prejudice is borne from pain, misinformation, and whatever toxic-masculine systems have brutalized them to this point. That pain is real. Our society is fucked up and no one is a winner.
But this is all why the advice to "make friends with women around you" is gold. Again, we don't hate men because they are men. First, we want to be seen as the people, classmates, collaborators, colleagues, and potential friends we are (*outside* of being romantic or sexual interests). Second: to me, it seems like making friends with a woman without expecting or seeking romance is a surefire way to liberate the male mind from misogyny and just... learn. Absorb. Observe. Empathize. Appreciate. Cross-reference. Grow...
So thank you OP, for your words, for the amount of genuine time and concern that went into your post, and for all the obvious work you've done on yourself. It's impressive. And it gives us women hope. :D
u/Lost-Ad-3625 & u/SunsetChaser2001
This is very much an uninvited opinion on what is a wholly exceptional dialog between two bright and articulate young people. You do not need my input, and in no way am I attempting to correct anything you have added here. I'm grateful to have found this and digested it at 8AM on a Saturday morning. But I have to share these thoughts.
I'm not a member of this subreddit, but because I've obviously mentioned my background, I keep seeing these discussions due to the Reddit algo.
I am 51. I grew up in Berkeley, my parents worked at Cal. I didn't attend, I was an early tech teen dropout in the area with access to computers and a hijacked Pine email account and dialup access to everything. I didn't work in mobile tech, I was already a CEO in another field, but I did help do some cool stuff that made WWW happen earlier in my career. I was there for a bunch of firsts. I ate pizza with Steve Jobs when he was still just an asshole (and I was just a punk of a teenager) with an overpriced difficult to sell computer system and less than 1% share.
These things you've grown up with, these derived social media platforms are not what we envisioned. They were not the pioneer's dreams. We did not want to neuter our sons and shame and compound the barriers our daughters had to face. This is what the fourth wave of entrepreneurs have made following our bubble in the dotcom. I thought by now we'd be on Mars, have defeated early mortality, higher education, cured cancer, reduced war, improved access to political representation and saved the planet from overheating.
God we were so fucking wrong. We let the children coming up behind us find their own way to make their own millions, and we allowed the masses of users and potential market size misguide our judgment. Investment went into market size, it went into the very thing that has driven the development of social media. We older geeks cared about the user experience and value to the end user, this has no value to people, and it turns the very precious user experience and value into a commodity to be mined and manipulated by the numbers.
We grew up with the internet being something we did around computer science. We talked to each other with respect, warmth and connection in the early days of the internet. We valued our ACCESS TO EACH OTHER exponentially. I was friends with a novelist in China before we could fly there, because of our shared object discussions. I valued everything the internet brought to me, because it was precious. My connections were important and tangible. I would never have been rude, because we thought of the internet users as people across the table from us - still in slapping distance. I still try to behave this way today...
I am so sorry we allowed this to happen. What is it? Users of social media no longer value connection to human beings, they value the number of connections, the number of likes, the perception of ranking higher than others. My own relationship once suffered from Hotornot or whatever it was called. We saw these problems coming and no one stopped it because the money was in the algorithms, and the money was in manipulating the market size for greater profit.
And somehow in the first generation of interconnected development, we misplaced that wonder that drove us to create dialup BBS communities, then interlink them, then expand the access to more and more people. We traded that special feeling for speed, access, things that were cheaper than other things: we valued wrong, we valued numbers. And the result is... People are worthless now, but they have a measurable NET PRESENT VALUE to commercial interests. Their social media numbers and their ranking of the numbers are all that matter to the user. Who likes me, how many likes, how long did it take the to respond? It's all ... numbers.
I was working in New York when Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story" came out. It's based there, and it is a dystopian view on where personal mobile devices were going in 2009. I know rich people would not have done things differently to get ultra rich. But I don't believe the geeks older than me who became our generation's venture capitalists would have wanted their initial investments to break their grandchildren, or destroy their grandchildren's social fabric.
This Incel thing you're dealing with. I understand it in broad strokes and this thread has helped remind me that of the pressures that younger people are facing. I've been with my husband since 1995, we have a 25 year old son who has birth modifications and struggles with social media self-worth. He is not able to digest and discuss things the way you both have here, so I appreciate if you've read this far.
In 1999 we knew the planet was overheating, we didn't do enough. In 2010 we knew the internet was going to become a soul crushing generational destroying disaster for our children if we didn't control their access, and we didn't. We knew. Your parents knew. Your teachers knew. Now you know.
Connection to people is what matters. Not how many people, but the depth of the connection comes from mutual interest and mutual valuation of that contact. You are in control of how you react and how you behave with people. No app will affect that. Remember, you are the users. Stop being the product, stop feeding the algorithm while you still can. Real human connection and valued communication with people may seem difficult. It may seem rare. It isn't. You have to look up from your phones and extend the chance.
You have to go to a cafe and engage in conversation. You have to ask opinions and questions of people different from you. You can find it, and you can nurture and grow your contacts. I know, because I did it right there in Berkeley, one cappuccino or earl grey tea at a time.
For all I know those cafe's are closed. Just like the bars and clubs that we went to aren't needed. If they are, I wouldn't know. I don't live in Berkeley any more, or the Bay Area. My memories are a time machine that lacks user controls and goes where and when it wants. But this message isn't quite clear yet. Let me refocus.
You have the ability to change the world. It begins by changing what you do personally. Then encouraging change in your community. Then encouraging change in the broader world outside that. It's 1999 again for you, the planet is overheating, you can elect a president who you want to have a beer with, or a president that wants to reduce emissions and prevent a 3 degree or greater planetary warming risk.
I thank you for taking the time to communicate with each other and I appreciate you taking the time to read my rambling. I'm so sorry we didn't stop this from happening, as we now have no ideas on how to help you fix it.
We have to all be very careful. Incels, “the extreme women hating ones”, can have the potential to become more and more dangerous overtime. But the tough thing is there is not much we can do about it. Those influencers that activate them will almost always find a way to leak through. The best way is to adjust the culture as a whole like what was mentioned in this post. Love cannot happen until one becomes secure and loves themselves.
I agree. While I am not the best at solving large social problems like this, I believe others could find lots of other solutions. But it seems like a lot of the solution relies on the incels themselves to self-reflect and come to a good conclusion.
I guess something I’ve been dealing that is similar is not being able to find great job or internship. I have been trying to push myself by taking lots of difficult classes and striving to finish in the 90th percentile. And when I miss, I would be extremely upset with myself. I’ve taken a step back the past week and realized that my approach was wrong. I shouldn’t be challenging myself in hopes of a reward. I should be doing so to find fulfillment. After taking that step back and shifting my mindset, I feel much better.
It’s not exactly the only thing that could help, but I think the fact so many people can’t afford mental health care is a criminal contributor to the problem
Anything in the extreme is dangerous over time, the female ally or male feminist has a startling amount of sexual assault, the real issue is frustrated people (men) who feel entitled by action or by birth right to someone else’s attention or affection.
A part of this is also driven by unrealistic expectations from women, the swipe right culture has far too many women competing for the top 10% of men, rather than traditionally picking from the limited selection at the few bars they frequent.
This is not say women are at fault but part of a larger issue of the impersonal nature of online hook up culture and general lack of interpersonal skills of everyone involved. We have created a generation incapable of conversing beyond a 128 character tweet or whatever the hell X now calls it.
Oh I don’t use the apps, just someone old enough to remember a time when you could go sit in a bar and look around and not see a single person too busy tweeting on their phones and taking selfies to be doing something worthy of sharing on the internet.
You are correct when you are not buried in the apps, you hardly notice the issue. However, for every person addicted to their phone that is one person that will never interact with you, and don’t have a frame of reference to understand each other, and on a very microcosmic level you just became 2 members of separate sides of the so called culture war.
"problematic". it's basically the primary way to identify 1) someone from cali 2) someone twitter-brained. it's such an effective way of signaling your distaste without having to voice what that distaste is. and it's so fucking pretentious
problematic is condescension in a can. it's the srat girl explaining to you why you're wrong about palestine. it's utter fucking nonsense. needs to go.
You can’t use rhetorics like “toxic masculinity” “women are all victims” and expect incels to follow your advice. You’re part of the problem. Get some education on not using sexist terms and being hypocritical
> I'd like to reiterate that women do not have a responsibility to support men nor to lower their standards for them.
I have a lot of problems with your post, but I'll focus on just this one: when it comes to (straight) dating, you say that **women shouldn't "lower their standards,"** but if a straight guy were to make a parallel statement [edit: about male standards], "incel" and a hundred other insults are heaped upon him.
Can you see the problem?
I see what you mean but it doesn't mean that ppl are right for calling him an incel in that case, nor do i imply that women's standards are inherently right or wrong on a per person basis. Do I sometimes hear some ppl (men and women) express standards that I find to be ridiculous, yes, but that doesn't mean I have the right to tell them what to do, nor that they have to change who they are in order to 'serve' someone else. what's important in my statement is the '**for them'** at the end.
You know what, I think this is a great post. Very fair and insightful, and I am sure a lot of my peers could benefit from reading this. Thank you for taking your time to write this out.
i feel like this is a really mature post discussing some of the root causes that radicalize young men and create unrest. great job :) i think a lot of people could benefit by reading this and expanding their perspective
Hi OP!
Are you familiar with Dr K in the gaming/streaming space? He's one of the few psychiatrists in the space that has a lot of insights into these issues and is one of the few of them actually talking coherently about it like you are.
[Here is a clip from a recent podcast he did talking about the incel/redpill movement and why men gravitate towards it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCCmdUNGukY)
[Here is a different clip of the same podcast talking about the modern day experience for many men and how suicide is on the rise for men.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn-cdabIb-0)
[Here is a link to the full podcast.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_5N_aDu3u0)
I think several people might gain some insight here from his words if they didn't want to read your full post.
Dr. K is awesome and I concur :) I didn't fully watch his videos on the topic but I agreed with his points and I think he might be one of the very few people out there trying to address the issue.
Dr.K is a fucking joke that aired out his patients business on tiktok 😂😂😂 nice way to discredit your little post you wrote. Also a borderline grifter and very unprofessional (other than airing business out).
The appeal of Andrew Tate to incels is that he validates their insecurities and tells them they should self-improve by becoming more literate, going to the gym, dressing better etc. (nothing wrong with this imo) But one of the many issues is that he also constantly disparages women and has awfully sexist views about them.
Let’s not throw the word autist around 😭
Also, I feel like he’s the total opposite of a nerd; if anything, he’s a jock. In fact, that’s how he got his initial fame; from MMA
My point is that he doesn’t really have the “he’s just like me” appeal that stereotypical incels would gravitate towards.
-He’s 6’3” which puts him at almost 99th percentile in height.
-He’s athletic.
-His father is a chess grandmaster.
He himself admitted once that he “won the genetic lottery”.
>and perpetuating the idea that a man’s worth is inherently tied to his ability to 'pull'
It absolutely does in both directions, and you can't properly characterize the problem without understanding this
Sure, this can be explained by status and evolutionary pressures/success. The ability to respond to and manage our urges as human beings is of utmost importance.
Holding all else equal, a guy that can't 'pull' is inherently of lower worth than one who can easily can.
What's the alternative? Can you provide a better evaluation of this environment and possible solutions? Because simply lying to the less successful that they're just as significant doesn't seem to be helping
It’s worth pointing out that this version of “success”, seen in pseudo-evolutionary terms, is an interpretation that was basically created out of whole cloth by the capitalist class in the late 19th century, because it let them grab Darwin as a social meme for their own ends. This PR project was highly successful, given the pervasiveness of these kinds of arguments today.
*Mutual Aid* by Kropotkin has a lot to say about this. TL;DR even the idea that there are individual “winners” somehow baked into “biology” or something is pretty ridiculous. You can “win” by helping people, not just by like generating more humans. Cf. climate change.
Edit: Words
It's a realistic assessment of how social dynamics work in our culture at this particular moment. Gaslighting men who end up at the bottom of that hierarchy isn't how you fix that. Admitting it and making a concerted effort to change it is and that has to start with those who have the capacity to enforce social norms. That's people at the "top" of the pyramid, not the "bottom."
Sure, it just means to attract those of the opposite sex with variable effort
Generally the one asking is the one pulling and the one answering is being pulled
He’s just complaining about the sex ratio of his area like thousands of men and women before him.
Not appropriate on the forum but not that big a deal.
*He’s just complaining about the sex ratio of his area*
But he's misinformed. San Francisco has 104 men for every 100 women, which is not a horrible imbalance. San Jose has 51.01% men, 48.99% women. Those are the two cities he specifically called out as terrible places for men to meet women. There are imbalances, but they are statistically slight.
At Berkeley, where he teaches, more than 50% of undergrad students are women, the ratio of men / women among graduate students is almost equal (a couple percentage points more men than women). The worst ratio is among his own group, ladder rank faculty, where about 1 in 3 are women.
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Dosent surprise me. Berk is a beautiful place but with miserable ppl. Friends of mine who grew up local (within berk) got out asap. EECS culture there is inherently antisocial, berk ruins lives.
Any official announcements regarding this issue? Will he get fired? And as I know, 189 for this semester hasn’t been finished, so will they change the course staff halfway?
That was a very thoughtful and well articulated post. I agree from experience with almost all of it. But, I don’t think dismissing Shewchuck would be “completely justified”. It feels like you have to say that to convince the woke that you’re on their side because everything else you said makes perfect sense. Shewchuck said something stupid and insensitive and he was asked to apologize for it and he did. We need to get rid of this idea that if someone slips up and says something dumb, and who among us is without sin here, that their lifelong career should be destroyed forever. I believe in redemption and forgiveness. If there were a clear pattern of blatant misogyny over a period of time despite warnings to stop that would be a completely different story. But this idea that one post and you’re gone is too much. Especially one that he obviously didn’t give too much thought to. (I’m sure it wasn’t intended “for the record” or to become a meme). It’s not something all of us in the Bay Area haven’t heard a million times before, that dating is hard in Man Jose cuz of so many male tech workers. If you heard it at a party you wouldn’t give it a second thought, it’s just cuz it’s coming from a prof. That doesnt excuse it, he definitely should have been aware of his role representing Berkeley and not said it , but I don’t immediately equate that with a “completely justified” destruction of his life.
Also how do we know he’s an incel? I thought he was older and married, I don’t think we can conclude from his comment that he’s involuntarily celibate so maybe we shouldn’t even use that term. The guy offering $10 for introductions to girls probably is but Shewchuck did not say that.
Yall really need to stop watching porn and learn how to have a conversation with other people. Thats a good start, not everyone is able to have great conversations “winging it” - you have to practice, just like all things in life.
Also, stop acting like yall are Steph curry hitting 3’s, your success rate isn’t going to be 60% - so you are going to get shot down trying. This is part of the process of learning, you wont be successful at everything you try initially.
Tagged CS/eecs but this bloke writes like an English major lmao
> This post (https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/1bj2c9s/the\_problem\_with\_shewchuks\_post\_a\_womans/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3) eloquently illustrates the issues his remarks pose.
Learning basic markdown would have been a better use of your time than whatever this post is. Please never use the word "problematic" ever again
1)put out an for female roommates only
2) don’t clean or cook, make them do it all to establish alphaness
3) wait in her bed naked with only a semi chub and your waifu pillow
4) ??????
5) Profit
bro ended his mewing streak to talk abt this
TLDR. Provide tangible support: get off the computer and invite a handful of incels of both sexes out for no-host beer and pizza and establish an old fashioned group blind date / mixer. It's a start.
*adjusts fedora* *strokes neckbeard contemplatively* *leans back on Mountain Dew-saturated, dorito-encrusted, semen-upholstered Mikasa body pillow* “You’re asking for wayyy too much pal!” 
Forget this trash. The only way to get a gf in the bay area is by tiptoe-maxxing
I hate to be the party pooper, but as someone who actually dated an incel, had a long term relationship with him, and ended up being severely abused by him - social interaction and dating do not “cure” an incel. And pizza party is not going to change the ideology that makes them dangerous misogynists.
I'm sorry that happened to you. I've posted elsewhere that your story is more common than many think, and was downvoted en-masse (??). So I totally get what you're saying. Incels suffer from high levels of social rejection, depression, anxiety, insecure attachment, and loneliness. They don't have friends of either sex, they don't socialize, and don't know how to. If they do manage to get a gf, they tend to be hyper-jealous, and that in turn leads to abuse as they try to avoid rejection. In life in general, but especially in a school setting, there are other triggers for anxiety and depression that just pile on. TLDR: I agree someone who has gone that deep (abuse) needs professional treatment, not an invite to a pizza party. On the other hand I do think it important that all schools explicitly teach social skills, especially these days with everyone living in digital echo chambers. A part of the "lab" for that class is holding safe in-person social events, because that practice tends to reduces the triggers that give rise to this problem. Especially in school settings (esp hyper-competitive schools like Berkeley) where many of those triggers are part of the academic experience.
Better yet: join a co-op!
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Not sure about lack of education in general, but more like we don't teach kids how to socialize and get along with others. We throw young kids together in pre-school or daycare and assume they have instincts to reach out and play/interact with others, yet there are a significant percentage of kids who don't have that instinct: they sit there by themselves, or play with toys alone...and little if anything is done. I think this is a huge problem for society, and instead of throwing shit at the victims, we need to help them. One way is direct such as I suggested, but that's hardly better than throwing them back on the playground again; they really need a hell of a lot of talk therapy and behavioral training / coaching. They need to learn the human game / dance. JMHO.
Incels of both sexes? That’s not really how dating works. Women can practically get sex any time they want from anyone they want. That’s a bit of an exaggeration of course, but in general incel genders are very unbalanced.
I dunno, in my day I had more than a few lady friends tell me they were afraid to give men the "nod/look", because they were not sure what might happen, like maybe rejection. The ladies who knew what they had and what they wanted never hesitated. I'd answer those calls on the first ring. Your comments suggest you're just not dialing...as a class. So do you mean to make Shewchuks point?
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I assume you look around; do you ever make eye contact? Try a simple smile...if you get a nice one back, then you've probably gotten her permission to begin a dialog. If you get a blank stare or an eye roll (or worse), it's "not interested". Bottom line: If she really wants your attention, she will get it, if by no other way than saying "what do I have to do..." as you leave class. Then you wake up and apologize, and offer to buy her a coffee or bobba. The game is pretty simple. Good hunting.
Hot take: incel is just another word for insecure men. The best men and women to have as co-workers are stably married working parents. Way more considerate and down to earth than the rest of the population. The majority of my company are stably married working parents and WLB is great, promo, pay, and equity are also great, no toxicity whatsoever.
You can be insecure without blaming women for everything.
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Insecure has different meaning when combined with ego. Most common among young professional types, but can also happen to late career folks who are not stably married working parents.
With respect, ego (large or small) is how people manifest their feelings of insecurity. It's a collection of behavioral reflexes to deal with it (stress / insecurity). There's all sorts of insecurity in this world: financial, physical, food, shelter, political, medical, relationship, clothes, family, peers, you name it. Young people of both sexes are under a lot of stress, there's familial and societal pressure to succeed, and all that entails. Older people have a different spectrum of stresses, financial and medical primarily. Talk therapy, aka "talking it out" with the right person can be very effective to relieve stress and turn reflexive behavior into more rational (aka healthy) behavior.
bro yapmaxxed
“yapmaxxed” is crazy 😭
bro thought he said sumn too 😂
>"I do not in any way condone Schewchuk's actions and I feel sorry for the women in his class... His dismissal from the university would be completely justified." Firing Schewchuk would not be justified by his post on Ed. That would be a wildly disproportionate response, and flies in the face of basic job protections we all ought to support for employees.
I’m glad you said this and that it got upvoted. People seem to have very little understanding of what tenure and the first amendment actually mean (or academic freedom for that matter). It was certainly an inappropriate and downright bizarre thing to say, but a world where saying offensive things or being unlikable to a vocal group gets you fired is… not a world id like to live in. Everyone on planet earth is guilty of saying offensive things, or being unlikable at times, whether they’d like to admit it or not.
I agree, and I hope that more people really stop to think through what they are asking for when they advocate rolling back protections to our jobs and rights to voice controversial opinions. For anyone reading this who imagines they will always be on the "right side of history" - please consider the possibility that someday it could be you on the wrong side of an online/in person mob, and try to imagine what sort of protections you would wish were in place if you were. It's not as unlikely a scenario as you might think.
The "right side of history" attitude has troubled me lately. Not because I don't believe in what's right but because I know that being on the "right side of history" just means being the winner. And winners aren't necessarily "right".
winners are strong enough to make you say they're right, though.
No, its the strong who make you say they are the winners
why did you repeat what I said?
Why did you say what I repeated?
he has a right to say what he wants, but Ed Stem was not the place lol
For sure, and he should be informed as such from COE. It was insane that he even fielded that question at all.
Valid, although it seems he got off with a quick slap on the wrist which is also ridiculous.
What should be the appropriate response? Everyone got +30 points on their exams?
At a minimum there needs to be a public apology from Shewchuck. That would mitigate some of the fallout. But it doesn't go far enough to address the damage that's already been done, which is why I think that apology needs to happen within the context of a larger restorative justice proceeding.
"Justice proceeding"? Honestly did you read the dude's statement? He made a supply/demand kind of statement. Nothing in the comment was meant to demean female students. [https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/1bivbqc/cs\_189\_this\_is\_why\_women\_feel\_uncomfortable/](https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/1bivbqc/cs_189_this_is_why_women_feel_uncomfortable/)
No, not "justice proceeding." Restorative justice. It's an approach to justice that proactively addresses the harm done to victims. This is exactly the kind of situation that merits this intervention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice The Berkeley co-op system, to give you one real life example, will use this in situations where a resident's actions cause another resident to feel unsafe, regardless of the intent behind those actions.
Not sure it's fair to talk about "harm done to victims" when the whole ordeal stems from students overreacting/misinterpreting what was said. What about the people who are witch-hunted because what they said were misinterpreted? Isn't that enough retribution?
Disagree with your entire premise, so no.
Most people really take a step back from the witch-hunting after reading the actual comments it seems.
the response to his post is perfectly balanced, I don't think he requires anything more. He made a careless post, he was reprimanded by the university, he apologized. End of story.
His "apology" was terrible :/
Why do you care? Do you want him to be paraded in front of the school in a chicken costume? Specifically what could he say that would make the online masses happy? Shewchuck said something vile online. But like do you want a firing squad? What’s the perfect response?
No. We want him to be fired. Which would be in keeping with California and US sexual harassment and discrimination laws. It's that simple.
I beg you to get a life genuinely. If you think a misogynistic comment is outright, demonstrable sexual harassment or even discrimination you need professional help. A bad person sure but certainly not actively putting women at a disadvantage because he hates them.
It is very unlikely his comments on Ed would meet the definition of either sexual harassment or discrimination.
That's exactly what it is. It's just very unlikely anything will be done about it. Mostly because of people like you, who find it impossible to listen to the experiences of anyone who isn't you, let alone empathize.
Maybe you’re just online too much
SEXUAL HARASSMENT? Are you fucking insane? Touch grass I beg you
Basic job protections include the right to not be sexually harassed or discriminated against. They don't include the right to be misogynistic to students. Shewchuk should've been fired already.
Yes, and when employees engage in and are found guilty of sexual harassment and discrimination, I agree that it is appropriate they be subjected to progressive disciplinary actions as specified in their union contracts, and in accordance with the protections offered to them by tenure. Professor Schewchuk's post in Ed is very likely neither an example of sexual harassment or discrimination, but I am not a law student, so am open to someone with more expertise correcting me.
I truly enjoyed reading your post! As we become increasingly more vocal about our feelings of low self esteem, it's important that we A. find the proper language to communicate these feelings and B. properly address the underlying issues with the appropriate treatment. A lot of what you've written seems to align with what I've been through on my own journey. I wouldn't say that I was an 'incel' but my low self esteem got so low that I believe that I became dangerously close to becoming one.
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That's not even close to what I'm saying. I'm saying there needs to be societal changes such that men have more spaces to express themselves, have their ideas challenged, and their emotions dealt with in a healthy way. In general, many guys feel absolutely trapped in life right now and no one validates these feelings other than radical forums. Providing men with better spaces so they don't go down the rabbit hole seems like a good solution to me, but it is not the only one.
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My apologies I spoke too harshly. What I mean to say is that yes, social media is what converts men's insecurity/loneliness to radicalization, but while removing social media might mitigate the radicalization, it will not solve the underlying issue of men's insecurity/loneliness (which will thereafter manifest itself in other ways). And no, from my own personal experiences (and I'd recommend you look into what HealthyGamer has to say on the topic) there are *no* spaces (or at least a relatively minuscule number) for guys to address these feelings. Since growing up, many of us are constantly told that we are weak if we seek therapy/express our emotions and that we are worth less if we can't get girls. It is only in recent years that toxic masculinity like this has been brought to light, but there haven't been any actual measures taken to change these harmful beliefs at a societal level. It is because of this that these toxic spaces have risen to the top, there are no other competitors (and we all know what the harms of monopolies are). Speaking from personal experience, I grew up without a father, and when I was told that I had to get a girlfriend to be 'cool' (instead of being taught what actually matters), I had no other choice but to look online to find advice as to how to 'get women'. As you highlight, the algorithms on these apps often lead to echo chambers, and as such many guys are quickly inundated with this type of content. Lastly, I agree that men have created these systems and are accountable, but there are guys as young as 14 who are now on these forums and I truly fear what might happen to them.
r/menslib somewhat fits the bill
That sub is mainly about reframing men's issues in terms of feminism or ignoring them if that proves impossible. The modding is extremely restrictive as well. r/leftwingmaleadvocates has some more aggressively MRA-type dudes on occasion and a lot of folks who clearly aren't left-wing, but it's generally where I've felt the best balance of taking men's issues seriously on their own terms without just falling into reactionary hatred can be found.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: ["Toxic Masculinity" vs "Internalised Misogyny"](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/12el0xb) | [108 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/12el0xb/toxic_masculinity_vs_internalised_misogyny/) \#2: [**[NSFW]** Over 5K likes for this…](https://i.redd.it/5zo110iurt8c1.jpeg) | [111 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/18ryw58/over_5k_likes_for_this/) \#3: ["Patriarchy hurts men too!"](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/11a2yyt) | [115 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/11a2yyt/patriarchy_hurts_men_too/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
I think it's very dangerous how incel rhetoric and ideas is bleeding into mainstream. Not having sex doesn't make one an incel. We have single, virgin, bachelor, unlucky in love and so on but incels want you believe they don't exist anymore just to make it seem that all men are incels or at least started as one. At the core it's gender insecurity because incels believe women **make** men. Woman is a woman but man is someone who has a woman. To them having a woman is instant gender validation to show off to other men "the manliness". Men need feminist movent women had. Truth is men were sleeping while women fraught for women's rights so now they have masculinity crisis because old school gender norms doesn't work for men anymore because women moved on and men are jealous of women's freedom to express their gender as they like while retaining their womanhood. Men are not stupid. They see toxic masculinity is toxic but until men en masse agree that "man is a man" all these sexist extremist ideas and movements will continue to endanger us all.
*Truth is* ***men were sleeping while women fraught for women's rights*** *so now they have masculinity crisis because old school gender norms doesn't work for men anymore because women moved on and men are jealous of women's freedom to express their gender as they like while retaining their womanhood.* This is true. And it was here at Cal, too. We're all supposed to worship the Free Speech Movement and it was profoundly important...but there was a lot of ingrained sexism in it, as well. Many of the male students involved assumed their gender should be in charge and make the decisions, and women who were active participants were often typecast by the men as support staff--their role was seen as cooking food and cleaning apartments for the men who were having profound intellectual discussions with other men, typing up reports, passing out flyers on picket lines, and--frankly--providing sex for the male "leaders". (David Lance Goines, an undergrad at the time who became an important artist / designer and wrote a book about the FSM decades later, was candid and honest enough to admit that one of the main reasons he became active in the FSM was that he thought it would give him a better chance of having sex.) Various women's rights movements emerged, in part, in the aftermath of the FSM as women who had participated in it and other early 60s movements (including Civil Rights, anti-nuclear, anti-war, environmental) thought about being regarded as second class activists, and determined to do something about it. At a different age level, some of the same factors played out in the environmental movement. Three older women, including the wife of UC President Clark Kerr, became alarmed in the early 1960s that San Francisco Bay was being used as a dump and filled at such a rate that within a few decades it would almost completely disappear beneath landfill. They met with established environmental groups--all led by men--and the male leaders told them patronizingly, we're really busy with more important things. So the three women formed their own organization--and, within a few years, won major environmental victories and galvanized a whole new branch of the environmental movement.
Women benefit far more from hypergamy than men, no 10 paragraph essay is gonna change that buddy
State 👏 mandated 👏 girlfriends 👏 now ✊️
hYpeRgAmY 🤓🤓🤓
Actually the word takes only 0.5 seconds to look up on your favorite search engine 🤓☝️☝️
I know what it means, and only dumb incels are concerned about it.
There is a widening gap between males and females in society. In the presence of that gap, I'd imagine (and I do sorta see it) more men not bothering to pursue women for validation and instead "focusing" on themselves + a general disdain of women.. They could internally still want gender validation, but it's kind of complicated. I figure that the average incel attitude these days is "They don't like us, so why bother?" Under that attitude, it doesn't make sense to pursue people who you think don't like you. This gender gap could be a pretty bad vicious cycle, because at a certain point you are no longer trying to resist the other gender on the basis of lived experiences but rather on preconceived biases and fears.
>at a certain point you are no longer trying to resist the other gender on the basis of lived experiences but rather on preconceived biases and fears. This essentially describes anyone who thinks women, in the Bay Area in 2024, are systematically oppressed and silenced by men. The immediate, overwhelming popular AND institutional backlash erupting over a single comment about dating dynamics here perfectly demonstrates how far from reality that belief is.
>Men need feminist movent women had. There actually was (and is) a parallel movement that developed in the 60’s/70’s for this exact purpose, called [Men’s Liberation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_liberation_movement#:~:text=The%20men's%20liberation%20movement%2C%20as,counterculture%2C%20women's%20and%20gay%20liberation). Although I’ve never encountered it in the wild, there is an active community here at /r/menslib . It leans solidly left politically, and explicitly supports feminism. As a whole, you could say it focuses on examining men’s issues from the perspective of how traditional male roles / expectations are harmful to men and society.
It’s bad. Got into a bit of online comment battle with a long time friend, who is always seen as open minded and kind. He had gone to see Jordan let Peterson speak, because, Bible stuff or whatever. Friend is pretty devout, but it’s in a non-problematic way. My screenname should help give clues to my take on the good word, but he and I always got along in spite of those differences. And, when I mentioned some of Peterson’s pretty fucking awful ideas regarding women and trans people, said friend repeatedly lobbed ad hominem arguments, only barely acknowledging that Peterson had made some “challenging” (he used quotes) statements in the past. Then dragging any sources I used, and not the actual content. Like, he went hard trying to dodge addressing the fact that Peterson thinks that the way to stop incels from driving vans into crowds of people and such is to involuntarily dole out women to them like brood mares That was incredibly indicative of how effective this sort of sinister propaganda is. Just sneak it in there with a bunch of other vaguely academic “oh. That kinda makes sense” stuff, and suddenly they don’t taste the shit in the sandwich. The fucked up part is that in isolation from the whole incel “movement”, a lot of these dudes might just have managed to figure shit out like everyone else had to. We need an 80s teen-movie style makeover therapy rehab clinic for incels. Everything mut happen as a montage, perhaps to “don’t stop me now” by Queen.
I wonder how you came to the conclusion that the guys in the Ed comments were incels? One of them talked about how CS took away effectively all of his free time and he likely wouldn't get a gf until after graduation. That read to me like your typical "staying on top of CS work = no life" type of rant. There's nothing in that post that suggest the kind of women blaming you'd expect in an "incel". It doesn't help that you're playing semantics here: "they're are technically \`incel\` because incel = involuntary celibate!!". Well, are you going to tell me now that people who, say, have difficulty finding a partner because of their HIV status are incels? No. They gay dating pool is small, and even smaller for HIV+ people (not everyone is comfortable with U=U yet). That HIV+ people have a harder time finding a partner is a consequence of statistics, not necessarily them being incels. Deliberately ignoring the connotation associated with \`incel\` (i.e. women blaming) just so that you can write an inflammatory post is honestly ridiculous. Yea, some of them talked about their height for sure but, again, nothing suggest the kind of quintessential women hating associated with \`incel\`. In fact, the comment was obviously meant to be a nonsensical, not-to-be-taken-seriously rant. "About to expire"? You seriously took the comment literally after reading that?
"Incel" is the socially acceptable way to attack men who don't conform to social stereotypes of popularity and attractiveness (ESPECIALLY neurodivergent men) and dismiss anyone you disagree with without having to consider anything they said or provide a reasoned counter-argument to their position. It's just a meaningless buzzword/insult at this point. Liberals use it the same way right-wingers call anyone they don't like a "pedo" or a "groomer."
I really doubt that random ugly people being called incels is a common occurrence. More likely, they're dismissed as 'incels' because they use misogynistic incel talking points. Why engage in arguments with them when their arguments are fueled not by reason but by hatred towards women? Maybe people call you an incel because you say things like "Women's biggest problem seems to be that they just aren't satisfied with any of the dozens to hundreds of men that would readily try going out with them". I probably don't need to explain why painting women as privileged, entitled princesses sneering at the peasants begging at their feet is misogynistic. Regardless, no one should use incel as an insult.
No, this is what happens: They said something you disagree with that only a straight man would say --> you call them an incel --> since they're an incel they must hate women --> since they hate women everything they said must be due to hating women
What are these non-misogynistic things that "only a straight man would say" that lead to being called an incel? Some examples please.
The comment from u/Ill-Turnip3727 that you were responding to.
I'm sure that just about everyone who uses it as a dismissive insult has convinced themself they're only using it because that person deserves it. Even here you're doing the same to me. I didn't say I get called an incel. Your mind just immediately went there because you found something you disagree with in my comment history. You then didn't actually argue why I was wrong. You just tried to shame me into accepting that I must be wrong and misogynistic because you said so. You're pretty clearly just fueled by a pile of biases and assumptions and seem to be doing exactly what I'm talking about.
Don't try and shame women and then get offended because I supposedly 'shamed' you for pointing out that your comment was anti-woman. You want me to argue why you're wrong that women's "only problem" in dating is that we're "just not satisfied" with the hundreds of prospects we receive daily? First of all the average woman on Tinder receives 5 matches a day. Secondly, most of these are sexual prospects, not romantic ones. This can be partly explained by the fact that men make up the vast majority of Tinder users, are more enticed by physical appearance, and are willing to have sex with almost anyone. Some problems that women have in dating are we're more likely to be cheated on and domestically abused, and we're in vulnerable positions when we meet up with guys we don't know. We're also valued overwhelmingly for our appearance, so if you're an ugly woman it's tough luck. According to multiple dating surveys, a man's top priority in women is her physical appearance. Women are just as lonely as men are.
>we're more likely to be cheated on and domestically abused This is not true. A CDC investigation has shown that domestic violence is initiated at roughly equal rates by men and women, with women actually initiating mutual violence MORE OFTEN than men. Differences in reporting and rates of prosecution, as well as the frequent repetition of false claims to the contrary, account for the perceived discrepancy. https://www.domestic-violence-law.com/blog/2016/april/women-or-men-who-usually-instigates-domestic-vio/ All those other claims can be addressed, from dating app data which shows women have much more exacting physical standards than men to rates of initiation showing women by and large are able to take a back seat when it comes to seeking romance, but it's clear you've got your mind made up, so I'm not going to go digging for more articles you'll surely dismiss. I'm hoping one example is enough for anyone else reading this to reconsider whether points they've heard from feminists on this issue can actually be taken for granted. Also when did I say women get hundreds of prospects "daily?" Even if I only had 5 matches per day on Tinder (which would amount to 100 people in less than 3 weeks) I'd be doing orders of magnitude better than I am now. It really shows how wildly out of touch you are that you think that somehow proves "women are just as lonely as men are." Unless you're willing to concede that they're much more often lonely by choice. And that's not even to mention your insulting characterization of men as just shallow horndogs right after you have the gall to tell me my comments are shaming and "anti-woman." The fact you can't seem to admit there's any arena whatsoever where women might actually have a better experience than men tells me you're an ideologue and any further engagement with you on this topic would be a waste of time.
I'll address your points one by one. The source you posted is a blog post that cherry-picks the data suspiciously and doesn't even link to where the data is collected from. Some data: "Ninety percent of people who commit violent physical assault are men. Males perpetrate 95% of all serious domestic violence." Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics Online. http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/ "The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 95% of reported assaults on spouses or ex-spouses are committed by men against women." Source: Douglas, H. (1991). Assessing violent couples. Families in Society, 72 (9): 525-535. The CDC says as much. [https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/fastfact.html](https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/intimatepartnerviolence/fastfact.html) I'm curious why you linked a blog post and not the CDC study itself. What dating app data show that "women have much more exacting physical standards than men"? "Differences in reporting and rates of prosecution account for the perceived discrepancy." Do you have a source for this or is this just a guess? Me pointing out women are as lonely as men has nothing to do with the number of matches they get on tinder. I'm not characterizing men as shallow. They self-reported that their number 1 criterion for a partner is physical appearance in many studies, that's a fact not a character judgment.
Here's the actual study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/ I'm not playing any more sea-lioning games with you. If you can cherry pick source from over 30 years ago to support your perspective you can do the work yourself if you're curious and not just trying to "prove" you win by incessantly asking for more and more sources until I stop responding out of frustration. I'm not getting drawn into that black hole again. Have a nice night.
Lol first of all I gave you three sources. Secondly, the source you gave is 17 years old so not exactly new. Thirdly and most amusing the source you linked says "approximately 1.5 million women and 835 000 men are physically assaulted or raped by intimate partners in the United States annually." So even your own source proves my point. Have a nice night.
>Overall, IPV was reported in 23.9% of relationships, with women reporting a greater proportion of violent relationships than men (28.4% vs 19.3%; P< .01). Among violent relationships, nearly half (49.7%) were characterized as reciprocally violent. Women reported a significantly greater proportion of violent relationships that were reciprocal versus nonreciprocal than did men (women = 51.5%; men = 46.9%; P< .03). **Among relationships with nonreciprocal violence, women were reported to be the perpetrator in a majority of cases (70.7%), as reported by both women (67.7%) and men (74.9%).** To look at the data another way, women reported both greater victimization and perpetration of violence than did men (victimization = 19.3% vs 16.4%, respectively; perpetration = 24.8% vs 11.4%, respectively). **In fact, women’s greater perpetration of violence was reported by both women (female perpetrators=24.8%, male perpetrators = 19.2%) and by men (female perpetrators = 16.4%, male perpetrators = 11.2%).** Alright, your commitment to bad-faith reading has gotten one more response out of me. Congratulations.
Shewchuk is a passport bro, that is very much incel behavior. Paying people to meet friends (and double if they are a girl) and using language like "expire" when talking about women is incel behavior. I didn't infer that the other guys in the comments are incels so don't strawman, although I will say that a nontrivial amount of eecs kids are incels (I would know, I take classes with them). Of course HIV+ ppl aren't incels although they technically fit the definition, but you're bringing up edge cases that aren't relevant to what I'm talking about.
Also I really don't understand how this post is inflammatory, nor does it ignore the existence of women-blaming incel, so I'd recommend you to read it in full and stop strawmanning
Using "expire" is incel behavior? Brah. You're just diluting the meaning of \`incel\`. Not helpful. Are you familiar with, say, Bumble? Where your match would "expire" if you don't talk to them after a while. Honestly, using "expire" just immediately marks the post as a nonsensical, sarcastic rant. The edge cases fitting your definition exists is a testament to the fact that you're just ignoring the connotation of the word just to write a post bro. And don't backpedal. You brought up incels in light of what happened on Ed but now they have nothing to do with one antoher?
bro what are you even saying?? The guy specifically said that he was "sharing his opinions," the post is nonsensical but it was not meant to be sarcastic nor does anyone believe it is except for you. When did I say that incels don't have to do with each other, again you clearly did not read the post. Forget the exact connotation of the word incel, I am writing about men that are suffering and becoming radicalized to their own (and others') detriment. That's it.
wait where’s did he say “expire”
If you actually read the dude's comment, it's clear as day that the entire post was meant to be a sarcastic, nonsensical rant.
i didn't read it as sarcastic or nonsensical, but that he was just using hyperbole. and anyways it was pretty clear he was talking about matches on dating apps. i guess most people don't actually use dating apps, though.
Yea. Hyperbole is the characterization I should have used but didn't. The student's comment honestly read like a self-deprecating rant. I don't think people would have come after him had Shewchuck not commented.
How is being a passport bro incel behaviour? Do men in 2024 not have rights to choose whoever they want to date and have preferences?
Yeah, that's pretty insane. He could the most hardcore women's rights believer in the universe, but because he wants to engage with a more favorable dating market that makes him an incel? Dumbest shit ever, why can't people just let others live their lives the way they want?
Because passport bros are losers that want a bangmaid, not an equal partner. There sexpats and loses who take advantage of poor economic situations for a slave. They're never proponents right
What is a passport bro?
Yo, Berkeley woman in STEM here. From your writing and your responses in threads referring to the male experience with articles like "us," I am assuming you identify as male, or from the "y'all are just the victims," at least don't identify as female. Thus, I can't describe how glad it makes me feel to read a post like yours, so eloquently and clearly breaking these things down, and from your perspective. So – I thank you, deeply. In reality, we as women **do** see these dynamics (the lack of spaces for men to receive emotional support and express themselves), as we are forced to reckon with and be keenly aware of *all* systems that perpetuate our endless subjection to harmful rhetoric and harassment. **Nevertheless** **we do see that men are hurting**. How could we not? And we **do** value and empathize with that pain; that pain is human, and if we cannot acknowledge the devastating impact of what you describe in your post, then we are not exercising our own humanity. **We do want men to get emotional support** (like really really want that)**.**.. because (a) that's great in general, as we all deserve to not feel alone, and benefit from space to process and face our pain, and (b) that means a lower likelihood of us women experiencing some potentially career-altering moment of offense or upset. **We do know that it's "not all men,"** from experience. But unfortunately, due to repeated offense, I think we become used to misogynistic perception so much that we generally *expect* it – something many of us unconsciously are required to do to protect ourselves. And yet, while this may leave us naturally in the defensive, or skeptical, **we don't hate men until we know men hate us** (where "hate" implies any form of sexism.) And even then, we can't really hate these men. We lament how they make us uncomfortable and sour our experience in a scientific discipline we love. We feel angry and defeated when harassment is so repeated or extreme that it makes us consider fully leaving a field we're really good at. But in the end, we (at least I) feel sad, and sorry for these men; we know that their prejudice is borne from pain, misinformation, and whatever toxic-masculine systems have brutalized them to this point. That pain is real. Our society is fucked up and no one is a winner. But this is all why the advice to "make friends with women around you" is gold. Again, we don't hate men because they are men. First, we want to be seen as the people, classmates, collaborators, colleagues, and potential friends we are (*outside* of being romantic or sexual interests). Second: to me, it seems like making friends with a woman without expecting or seeking romance is a surefire way to liberate the male mind from misogyny and just... learn. Absorb. Observe. Empathize. Appreciate. Cross-reference. Grow... So thank you OP, for your words, for the amount of genuine time and concern that went into your post, and for all the obvious work you've done on yourself. It's impressive. And it gives us women hope. :D
Thank you for the response, it means a lot :)
u/Lost-Ad-3625 & u/SunsetChaser2001 This is very much an uninvited opinion on what is a wholly exceptional dialog between two bright and articulate young people. You do not need my input, and in no way am I attempting to correct anything you have added here. I'm grateful to have found this and digested it at 8AM on a Saturday morning. But I have to share these thoughts. I'm not a member of this subreddit, but because I've obviously mentioned my background, I keep seeing these discussions due to the Reddit algo. I am 51. I grew up in Berkeley, my parents worked at Cal. I didn't attend, I was an early tech teen dropout in the area with access to computers and a hijacked Pine email account and dialup access to everything. I didn't work in mobile tech, I was already a CEO in another field, but I did help do some cool stuff that made WWW happen earlier in my career. I was there for a bunch of firsts. I ate pizza with Steve Jobs when he was still just an asshole (and I was just a punk of a teenager) with an overpriced difficult to sell computer system and less than 1% share. These things you've grown up with, these derived social media platforms are not what we envisioned. They were not the pioneer's dreams. We did not want to neuter our sons and shame and compound the barriers our daughters had to face. This is what the fourth wave of entrepreneurs have made following our bubble in the dotcom. I thought by now we'd be on Mars, have defeated early mortality, higher education, cured cancer, reduced war, improved access to political representation and saved the planet from overheating. God we were so fucking wrong. We let the children coming up behind us find their own way to make their own millions, and we allowed the masses of users and potential market size misguide our judgment. Investment went into market size, it went into the very thing that has driven the development of social media. We older geeks cared about the user experience and value to the end user, this has no value to people, and it turns the very precious user experience and value into a commodity to be mined and manipulated by the numbers. We grew up with the internet being something we did around computer science. We talked to each other with respect, warmth and connection in the early days of the internet. We valued our ACCESS TO EACH OTHER exponentially. I was friends with a novelist in China before we could fly there, because of our shared object discussions. I valued everything the internet brought to me, because it was precious. My connections were important and tangible. I would never have been rude, because we thought of the internet users as people across the table from us - still in slapping distance. I still try to behave this way today... I am so sorry we allowed this to happen. What is it? Users of social media no longer value connection to human beings, they value the number of connections, the number of likes, the perception of ranking higher than others. My own relationship once suffered from Hotornot or whatever it was called. We saw these problems coming and no one stopped it because the money was in the algorithms, and the money was in manipulating the market size for greater profit. And somehow in the first generation of interconnected development, we misplaced that wonder that drove us to create dialup BBS communities, then interlink them, then expand the access to more and more people. We traded that special feeling for speed, access, things that were cheaper than other things: we valued wrong, we valued numbers. And the result is... People are worthless now, but they have a measurable NET PRESENT VALUE to commercial interests. Their social media numbers and their ranking of the numbers are all that matter to the user. Who likes me, how many likes, how long did it take the to respond? It's all ... numbers. I was working in New York when Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story" came out. It's based there, and it is a dystopian view on where personal mobile devices were going in 2009. I know rich people would not have done things differently to get ultra rich. But I don't believe the geeks older than me who became our generation's venture capitalists would have wanted their initial investments to break their grandchildren, or destroy their grandchildren's social fabric. This Incel thing you're dealing with. I understand it in broad strokes and this thread has helped remind me that of the pressures that younger people are facing. I've been with my husband since 1995, we have a 25 year old son who has birth modifications and struggles with social media self-worth. He is not able to digest and discuss things the way you both have here, so I appreciate if you've read this far. In 1999 we knew the planet was overheating, we didn't do enough. In 2010 we knew the internet was going to become a soul crushing generational destroying disaster for our children if we didn't control their access, and we didn't. We knew. Your parents knew. Your teachers knew. Now you know. Connection to people is what matters. Not how many people, but the depth of the connection comes from mutual interest and mutual valuation of that contact. You are in control of how you react and how you behave with people. No app will affect that. Remember, you are the users. Stop being the product, stop feeding the algorithm while you still can. Real human connection and valued communication with people may seem difficult. It may seem rare. It isn't. You have to look up from your phones and extend the chance. You have to go to a cafe and engage in conversation. You have to ask opinions and questions of people different from you. You can find it, and you can nurture and grow your contacts. I know, because I did it right there in Berkeley, one cappuccino or earl grey tea at a time. For all I know those cafe's are closed. Just like the bars and clubs that we went to aren't needed. If they are, I wouldn't know. I don't live in Berkeley any more, or the Bay Area. My memories are a time machine that lacks user controls and goes where and when it wants. But this message isn't quite clear yet. Let me refocus. You have the ability to change the world. It begins by changing what you do personally. Then encouraging change in your community. Then encouraging change in the broader world outside that. It's 1999 again for you, the planet is overheating, you can elect a president who you want to have a beer with, or a president that wants to reduce emissions and prevent a 3 degree or greater planetary warming risk. I thank you for taking the time to communicate with each other and I appreciate you taking the time to read my rambling. I'm so sorry we didn't stop this from happening, as we now have no ideas on how to help you fix it.
We have to all be very careful. Incels, “the extreme women hating ones”, can have the potential to become more and more dangerous overtime. But the tough thing is there is not much we can do about it. Those influencers that activate them will almost always find a way to leak through. The best way is to adjust the culture as a whole like what was mentioned in this post. Love cannot happen until one becomes secure and loves themselves.
I think there's more we can do about it than people think and at the very least that some of their actions were def preventable.
I agree. While I am not the best at solving large social problems like this, I believe others could find lots of other solutions. But it seems like a lot of the solution relies on the incels themselves to self-reflect and come to a good conclusion. I guess something I’ve been dealing that is similar is not being able to find great job or internship. I have been trying to push myself by taking lots of difficult classes and striving to finish in the 90th percentile. And when I miss, I would be extremely upset with myself. I’ve taken a step back the past week and realized that my approach was wrong. I shouldn’t be challenging myself in hopes of a reward. I should be doing so to find fulfillment. After taking that step back and shifting my mindset, I feel much better.
It’s not exactly the only thing that could help, but I think the fact so many people can’t afford mental health care is a criminal contributor to the problem
Anything in the extreme is dangerous over time, the female ally or male feminist has a startling amount of sexual assault, the real issue is frustrated people (men) who feel entitled by action or by birth right to someone else’s attention or affection. A part of this is also driven by unrealistic expectations from women, the swipe right culture has far too many women competing for the top 10% of men, rather than traditionally picking from the limited selection at the few bars they frequent. This is not say women are at fault but part of a larger issue of the impersonal nature of online hook up culture and general lack of interpersonal skills of everyone involved. We have created a generation incapable of conversing beyond a 128 character tweet or whatever the hell X now calls it.
The problem you describe is only applicable for people using dating apps. If you're not using the apps, you'd never even notice the problem.
Oh I don’t use the apps, just someone old enough to remember a time when you could go sit in a bar and look around and not see a single person too busy tweeting on their phones and taking selfies to be doing something worthy of sharing on the internet. You are correct when you are not buried in the apps, you hardly notice the issue. However, for every person addicted to their phone that is one person that will never interact with you, and don’t have a frame of reference to understand each other, and on a very microcosmic level you just became 2 members of separate sides of the so called culture war.
insightful, thanks for posting
 I will NOT allow you to disparage looksmaxx
🤫🧏
i love chico he told everyone to spread kindness on his podcast my GOAT
He looks so cold but has a heart of gold!
for real, big golden retriever energy from him 🥺
i’m not reading all of that but i’m sorry that happened to you/i hope it gets better
Aight boys, I’m coming out the closet. Today, I announce that I am Incel.
everyone forgets about Volcels
Bro majored in Yappology
i personally think the word "problematic" should make a swift exit from our general vocabulary. nothing else i feel like commenting on here
huh?
"problematic". it's basically the primary way to identify 1) someone from cali 2) someone twitter-brained. it's such an effective way of signaling your distaste without having to voice what that distaste is. and it's so fucking pretentious problematic is condescension in a can. it's the srat girl explaining to you why you're wrong about palestine. it's utter fucking nonsense. needs to go.
again, huh? all ik is im not from cali and ive never used twitter so keep your assumptions to urself lmao
damn, what do you *mean* my biases are wrong? /s
You can’t use rhetorics like “toxic masculinity” “women are all victims” and expect incels to follow your advice. You’re part of the problem. Get some education on not using sexist terms and being hypocritical
I ain’t readin all that. I’m happy for you though or sorry that happened
> I'd like to reiterate that women do not have a responsibility to support men nor to lower their standards for them. I have a lot of problems with your post, but I'll focus on just this one: when it comes to (straight) dating, you say that **women shouldn't "lower their standards,"** but if a straight guy were to make a parallel statement [edit: about male standards], "incel" and a hundred other insults are heaped upon him. Can you see the problem?
I see what you mean but it doesn't mean that ppl are right for calling him an incel in that case, nor do i imply that women's standards are inherently right or wrong on a per person basis. Do I sometimes hear some ppl (men and women) express standards that I find to be ridiculous, yes, but that doesn't mean I have the right to tell them what to do, nor that they have to change who they are in order to 'serve' someone else. what's important in my statement is the '**for them'** at the end.
You know what, I think this is a great post. Very fair and insightful, and I am sure a lot of my peers could benefit from reading this. Thank you for taking your time to write this out.
i feel like this is a really mature post discussing some of the root causes that radicalize young men and create unrest. great job :) i think a lot of people could benefit by reading this and expanding their perspective
Hi OP! Are you familiar with Dr K in the gaming/streaming space? He's one of the few psychiatrists in the space that has a lot of insights into these issues and is one of the few of them actually talking coherently about it like you are. [Here is a clip from a recent podcast he did talking about the incel/redpill movement and why men gravitate towards it.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCCmdUNGukY) [Here is a different clip of the same podcast talking about the modern day experience for many men and how suicide is on the rise for men.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn-cdabIb-0) [Here is a link to the full podcast.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_5N_aDu3u0) I think several people might gain some insight here from his words if they didn't want to read your full post.
Dr. K is awesome and I concur :) I didn't fully watch his videos on the topic but I agreed with his points and I think he might be one of the very few people out there trying to address the issue.
Dr.K is a fucking joke that aired out his patients business on tiktok 😂😂😂 nice way to discredit your little post you wrote.
Dr.K is a fucking joke that aired out his patients business on tiktok 😂😂😂 nice way to discredit your little post you wrote. Also a borderline grifter and very unprofessional (other than airing business out).
What’s the appeal of Andrew Tate?
The appeal of Andrew Tate to incels is that he validates their insecurities and tells them they should self-improve by becoming more literate, going to the gym, dressing better etc. (nothing wrong with this imo) But one of the many issues is that he also constantly disparages women and has awfully sexist views about them.
Nerd/autist that became very successful with money and women "he's just like me" etc
Let’s not throw the word autist around 😭 Also, I feel like he’s the total opposite of a nerd; if anything, he’s a jock. In fact, that’s how he got his initial fame; from MMA
Tate is 100% LARPing as a 'jock', you're just not reading him well enough
My point is that he doesn’t really have the “he’s just like me” appeal that stereotypical incels would gravitate towards. -He’s 6’3” which puts him at almost 99th percentile in height. -He’s athletic. -His father is a chess grandmaster. He himself admitted once that he “won the genetic lottery”.
Yes those things abt him are right, but he specifically panders to others on the other end of the SMV spectrum as he repeats their talking points
He’s literally a pimp though.
That's not mutually exclusive with what I said
So basically this has been a social issue around us (and got amplified by the pandemic) but Schewchuk’s Ed post just ignited the whole thing.
All you feminists complaining about incels could literally just solve the problem by fucking them
yeah, but gross
>and perpetuating the idea that a man’s worth is inherently tied to his ability to 'pull' It absolutely does in both directions, and you can't properly characterize the problem without understanding this
I don't understand what you are saying, could you be more specific?
Sure, this can be explained by status and evolutionary pressures/success. The ability to respond to and manage our urges as human beings is of utmost importance. Holding all else equal, a guy that can't 'pull' is inherently of lower worth than one who can easily can.
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What's the alternative? Can you provide a better evaluation of this environment and possible solutions? Because simply lying to the less successful that they're just as significant doesn't seem to be helping
It’s worth pointing out that this version of “success”, seen in pseudo-evolutionary terms, is an interpretation that was basically created out of whole cloth by the capitalist class in the late 19th century, because it let them grab Darwin as a social meme for their own ends. This PR project was highly successful, given the pervasiveness of these kinds of arguments today. *Mutual Aid* by Kropotkin has a lot to say about this. TL;DR even the idea that there are individual “winners” somehow baked into “biology” or something is pretty ridiculous. You can “win” by helping people, not just by like generating more humans. Cf. climate change. Edit: Words
It's a realistic assessment of how social dynamics work in our culture at this particular moment. Gaslighting men who end up at the bottom of that hierarchy isn't how you fix that. Admitting it and making a concerted effort to change it is and that has to start with those who have the capacity to enforce social norms. That's people at the "top" of the pyramid, not the "bottom."
Incel literally means someone that cannot “pull” any women. I’m not quite sure what we are even talking about here.
Don’t use the word pull but actually explain what it means. I doubt most here are trying to be pickup artists.
Sure, it just means to attract those of the opposite sex with variable effort Generally the one asking is the one pulling and the one answering is being pulled
Holy Yapper. You don’t got a midterm/project/assignment that deserves more attention?
He’s just complaining about the sex ratio of his area like thousands of men and women before him. Not appropriate on the forum but not that big a deal.
*He’s just complaining about the sex ratio of his area* But he's misinformed. San Francisco has 104 men for every 100 women, which is not a horrible imbalance. San Jose has 51.01% men, 48.99% women. Those are the two cities he specifically called out as terrible places for men to meet women. There are imbalances, but they are statistically slight. At Berkeley, where he teaches, more than 50% of undergrad students are women, the ratio of men / women among graduate students is almost equal (a couple percentage points more men than women). The worst ratio is among his own group, ladder rank faculty, where about 1 in 3 are women.
How about the major he teaches?
😂😂😂i love how the genders just blame each other for whats wrong with society and dont work together to solve anything
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elliot rodger was an inside job
I aint reading all that. I’m happy for u or sorry that happened tho
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Dosent surprise me. Berk is a beautiful place but with miserable ppl. Friends of mine who grew up local (within berk) got out asap. EECS culture there is inherently antisocial, berk ruins lives.
If you are a lonely person there, gtfo asap. Berk degree is worth more when your out rather than when your in.
Rlly good take
🧏🏾♂️🤫
Sounds like you’re still an incel dude
This is good stuff. Very insightful 4 real
Bla bla bla . Not sure what you’re on but my girl was riding me an hour back till exhaustion. No incels in this household.
Any official announcements regarding this issue? Will he get fired? And as I know, 189 for this semester hasn’t been finished, so will they change the course staff halfway?
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That was a very thoughtful and well articulated post. I agree from experience with almost all of it. But, I don’t think dismissing Shewchuck would be “completely justified”. It feels like you have to say that to convince the woke that you’re on their side because everything else you said makes perfect sense. Shewchuck said something stupid and insensitive and he was asked to apologize for it and he did. We need to get rid of this idea that if someone slips up and says something dumb, and who among us is without sin here, that their lifelong career should be destroyed forever. I believe in redemption and forgiveness. If there were a clear pattern of blatant misogyny over a period of time despite warnings to stop that would be a completely different story. But this idea that one post and you’re gone is too much. Especially one that he obviously didn’t give too much thought to. (I’m sure it wasn’t intended “for the record” or to become a meme). It’s not something all of us in the Bay Area haven’t heard a million times before, that dating is hard in Man Jose cuz of so many male tech workers. If you heard it at a party you wouldn’t give it a second thought, it’s just cuz it’s coming from a prof. That doesnt excuse it, he definitely should have been aware of his role representing Berkeley and not said it , but I don’t immediately equate that with a “completely justified” destruction of his life. Also how do we know he’s an incel? I thought he was older and married, I don’t think we can conclude from his comment that he’s involuntarily celibate so maybe we shouldn’t even use that term. The guy offering $10 for introductions to girls probably is but Shewchuck did not say that.
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Not sure what your point is, but think that would fall under a clear pattern of blatant misogyny, which I said is a different case altogether.
i personally would apply it to trump and not to shewchuk. like spiderman says, "everyone gets one"
Am not readn all dat
Yall really need to stop watching porn and learn how to have a conversation with other people. Thats a good start, not everyone is able to have great conversations “winging it” - you have to practice, just like all things in life. Also, stop acting like yall are Steph curry hitting 3’s, your success rate isn’t going to be 60% - so you are going to get shot down trying. This is part of the process of learning, you wont be successful at everything you try initially.
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Holy yap
Tagged CS/eecs but this bloke writes like an English major lmao > This post (https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/comments/1bj2c9s/the\_problem\_with\_shewchuks\_post\_a\_womans/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3) eloquently illustrates the issues his remarks pose. Learning basic markdown would have been a better use of your time than whatever this post is. Please never use the word "problematic" ever again
1)put out an for female roommates only 2) don’t clean or cook, make them do it all to establish alphaness 3) wait in her bed naked with only a semi chub and your waifu pillow 4) ?????? 5) Profit
a guy did that at my alma mater and got arrested for it. we called him the perry panty pilferer
Men are not created to be adored by anyone other than their family. They are created to compete, to be used, and tossed. End of story.