To Örebro University

The incel movement, consisting of men who feel unable to initiate romantic and sexual relationships with women, is an internet-based community that has received increased attention from both the public and researchers in recent years, especially after several serious acts of violence were linked to it. Previous research on incels has shown that their ideas are formed by misogyny, white supremacy and traditional masculinity norms, but research on how they develop their beliefs is still limited. Using feminist standpoint theory, researchers have demonstrated how incels use their experiences of marginalization to legitimize their worldview, but this theory does not fully address how incels’ knowledge claims also reproduce patriarchal structures and power relations. The aim of this essay is therefore to examine the knowledge claims of the incel movement by adopting a radical feminist perspective on how the movement justifies and motivates its knowledge of gender and gender relations. Based on the purpose of the study, the questions “How do incels construct and legitimize their knowledge claims about gender?”, “What types of ‘evidence’ do incels use to justify their knowledge claims about gender and how do these ‘evidences’ work as a way of legitimizing male supremacy?” and “In what way do incels’ knowledge claims reflect (or challenge) broader societal gender power structures?” has been formulated. In order to be able to answer the study’s research questions, thematic analysis has been used, where the empirical material consisted of posts and comments on the largest international incel forum incels.is. The essay’s findings show that incels constructs and legitimize their knowledge claims about gender by distorting science, resisting societal changes and highlighting their own negative experiences with women. The radical feminist analysis shows that the ‘evidence’ and the presented arguments serve, among other things, to establish and defend male supremacy by portraying it as natural and by reducing women to passive objects for men’s needs and desires. The analysis also shows that the knowledge claims strongly reflect existing societal gender power structures, especially when it comes to men’s violence against women.