At the risk of sidetracking into a broader off-topic discussion, IMHO, a lot of reason for this phenomenon is that for decades there has been a cultural movement in Western media and entertainment that tells women that they are always right no matter what. This has bled over heavily into dating and dating attitudes. And even before this, there was the “If you won’t accept me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best” attitude - an attitude that would never be tolerated if it were a man saying it.
There is a term “femcel” but it’s not clear to me whether any significant number of women self-identifies like that, or if it’s just a backlash slur against feminists by misogynists who are tired of being called incels. Little of both, I think. But from what little I’ve scanned of the “femcel” community, they mirror a lot of the language of entitled bitterness of the incel community, minus the overt hatred of the opposite sex.
Honestly as a man I have trouble parsing the whole incel mindset, like how can you be so desperate for a woman that you hold an entire ideology about it, yet simultaneously hate women so bitterly. That’s what seems different about the femcel concept to me, the femcels don’t loathe men. They resent other women for stealing all the men, and they also have some self-loathing, while incels tend to hate pretty much everyone.
Certainly there is asymmetry in the reproductive biology, where the man’s contribution to making a baby can take mere minutes. And evolutionary psychologists has claimed that this has led to the evolution of very different instincts and attitudes toward mating in males vs. females.
This attitude certainly exists, although it seems far from universal to me. And I think it seems reasonable to suggest that it may have come about in the first place as a response to, and a radical rejection of, the earlier prevalent idea that women were around as a sidepiece to and subservient to men, and that they should conform their thoughts, appearance, and actions to those of the man they were with.
Please note I make no claim that it is exactly the same in both directions.
You may be interested in looking through this recent thread.
Of course reality is complicated, and it depends on any individual’s specific SES and other factors.
The circumstance of a highly educated financially well compensated woman frustrated that there are many women competing for the pool of men who are either at least as well financially compensated or educated as they are, is different than that of a lower SES woman frustrated that there is tough competition for men in their … acquaintance… who are financially and otherwise secure enough to establish a long term relationship with. Neither of those is the just a hook up question either.
I suppose I could be taken for a femcel, except that my celibacy is completely my choice. How I got this way is due to religious indoctrination and negative experiences with the ingrained nature of misogyny in American culture. To put it in less lah-di-dah terms, my choice of lifelong celibacy is because my fundamentalist background decreed that I be subservient to my husband and men in general, and all the males I knew beyond an acquaintanceship were sexist abusive assholes of various degrees.
I decided when very young, around eleven or so, that if my only choice was to submit to men, then I could very well do without men in my life. Celibacy was my only path to true autonomy.
I was not going to let sexist abusive assholes rule my life.
Now I am in my sixties, and I can say that I have never once regretted my decision. It helps that I have a naturally low libido, and have never desired children. Being alone at last feels natural and serene to me. It’s a little dull, admittedly, but I can remedy that with writing and books.
Yes, I am aware that there are plenty of men who are not sexist abusive assholes. But my full autonomy is more important to me than a companion would ever be.
I would not describe you as a “femcel.” Assuming femcels are the same as incels (but female) then the important bit is the “involuntary” part.
You have chosen your path and you are content with it. Which is great. Doing your own thing.
I have a friend (I may have mentioned her before) who just got divorced. She has nothing but terrible things to say about the patriarchy and her ex as the most obnoxiously frustrating and horrible example of the patriarchy. (Note: I also know her ex reasonably well, and although I’m perfectly willing to believe that he’s got various issues, he’s also not the devil incarnate that you would think if you just listened to her.) She has also posted on social media what she wants from a man, which boils down to (1) extremely physically attractive and (2) able to anticipate her needs before she has communicated them. Which, uh… I think (1) was a bit tongue-in-cheek, actually, but I don’t think (2) was.
I think there are social media groups for women who are like this, though I suspect they may not get as much traction as men’s groups, perhaps partially because women also do a lot more in the way of in-person socializing, so they’re not invested in the online groups as much as the men might be.
I’m pretty sure that admitting that not all men are evil disqualifies a woman as a “femcel”, if that’s taken to mean the feminine version of an incel. Their rabid hatred of women is a core aspect of the group.
A femcel, if the opposite gender version of an incel would be a woman with an obsession with sex with men, who isn’t getting it because of a mix of her standards and her personality driving men away, who is intensely jealous of other women getting the sex she “deserves”, and who considers men all monstrous subhumans who should be forced into servitude sexual and otherwise for her benefit.
I’m pretty sure it’s very rare for a woman to have all those traits in combination.
FWIW that the discussion was not intended to be limited to that exact beat for beat by different gender but more interested in how similar (not exact same) frustrations may play out differently in gender related ways.
I think you’re right, but it’s sad. Originally of course it just meant men that were unable to start a serious or casual relationship. Which could include perfectly fine guys who just lack certain social skills and opportunities to meet people.
I’ll accept though that that ship has largely sailed; and certainly terms like “incel” tends to only mean the misogynist far-right types.
In terms of the female equivalent I would agree that whichever version of “incel” we are using, it’s not the same. I think the closest IME is women who, want to have a relationship, but due to past trauma / negative relationships, find it very hard to trust and feel safe around men.
In time they hopefully get into more positive relationship(s), but life is short, and a big chunk of someone’s life can pass by before that happens.
You made a life choice, you own it, you describe yourself as content with it. Although your choice is partially a reaction to trauma, and you could easily blame your life choices on others, you’re not doing that. So that’s about as far from being a femcel/incel as you can get. (Not that it matters but I’m glad & proud for you).
What’s their definition of ‘femcels’? As this thread illustrates, it doesn’t have a well-established definition. I skimmed the article but didn’t see any place where they defined it for their purposes.
That was not my experience for most of my late teens and twenties. Just saying.
Maybe if you know what you’re doing, it’s not hard to find, and I suspect that if I was suddenly single now, I’d have a much easier time of that than I did fifty years ago. But there is a learning curve there, and some people get well along it pretty early. But not everyone does.
More than once, when I was a 1980s 20-something, I was told that if I wanted to have a baby, I should go to bars and pick up men until I found myself pregnant, and never tell him. Great way to get raped, get AIDS, get a kid with alcoholism genes, etc. and years later, some OB nurses told me, “You do not get the cream of the crop of the gene pool when you do that.” (In case you’re wondering if they’re the same OB nurses who told me that the heel stick done on newborn babies to test for PKU and other metabolic disease is not actually the implantation of a microchip, you are correct.)
I suspect I’d still have a hard time. Good thing my wife is younger than I am.
This is different, I think, from what an incel is.
Incels feel they are owed sex and companionship.
At least from my vantage point, the whole "middle-aged man turns in his wife for a newer model) thing does not happen as much as many people think it does. I cannot think of ANYONE who did that, just for the younger woman; certainly I have known couples who divorced, or one partner died, and the man remarried to a younger woman or the woman picked an older man (by this age, I would consider 10 years enough of a gap) but it wasn’t BECAUSE they were younger/older.
Maybe I lead a sheltered life; if that’s true, I’m thankful for it.
Having grown up and had too many experiences of “friends” who earned my trust just so they could betray it, or people who were only using me, why, of course I would have trust issues.
From a previous thread - stats are that divorced women often stay single from there, divorced men more often remarry, and likely remarry a bit younger. It wasn’t the motivation of the divorce, to get a new model, but it was the net impact.
Because sex is easier for women to get vs for men to get, the definitions may be different.
My impression is that a femcel is someone who can’t find a safe, quality partner who provides good sex. But also they can’t find a safe, quality partner for a relationship either. Some women can’t get sex at all (for whatever reason). Some women can get sex but its bad quality sex. Some women can get sex, but they can’t get a relationship. I don’t know the definition exactly.
If they want a guy to pump them for 5 minutes, then have him fall asleep after they can find that. But finding a guy who they feel safe with who can give them decent orgasms is not easy for a lot of women.