‘Alienated young man’ with plans for ‘murderous vengeance’? Examining portrayals of misogynistic incel violence in the US news media

Abstract

Since 2014, misogynistic incels have perpetrated several incidents of public mass violence. While much attention has been directed at understanding the motives behind the violence and the workings of the misogynistic incel community, there has been little focus on how misogynistic incel violence is understood. Analysing the portrayal of misogynistic incel violence in US newspapers, this study asks how misogynistic incel violence is made sense of within public discourse. It focuses on whether these portrayals recognise the gendered aspects of the violence and whether it necessitates political attention. Despite misogynistic incels’ explicitly gendered worldview, misogynistic motivations and the public character of the violence, this study indicates a remarkable absence of gender in the reporting of misogynistic incel violence. Instead, portrayals of misogynistic incel violence focus on the individual perpetrators and their life experiences, while the misogynistic nature of the violence and socio-political contexts are overlooked. This contributes to an overall individualisation and depoliticisation of misogynistic incel violence, which this paper argues ultimately conforms to and confirms established tropes of gendered violence. Thereby obscuring how deeply embedded such violences are within broader society.