2026/07/10 by S. Lucy · 1 voice
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology
paper · doi:10.1177/14647001261453913
Involuntary celibates, or ‘incels’, continue to receive increasing attention from a variety of academic positions. While most scholarship has added important contributions to the field, critical feminism has noted that certain outputs have fallen short of necessary standards, demonstrating ontological, epistemological and methodological limitations. In particular, evolutionary psychology's (EP) investigation of incels draws on a narrow set of assumptions and theory embedded in sexual economics theory, a biologically deterministic understanding of gender relations essentialising human behaviour within sexual marketplaces, leading to the dehumanisation of women through bodily commodification. Worryingly, incels draw on this strain of EP and the field in general to understand the social world and justify their worldview. What results is an uncritical acceptance of incels’ claims of victimisation due to an inability to move beyond the confines of a theoretical and discursive base that mirrors the community. EP research also often employs an empirical framework which allows incels to participate in impression management, generating sympathy within academic research used to support their ideological vision of change. This article outlines the problems of using such narrow frameworks through critical discussion of an emerging body of EP incel research, highlighting the meta-theoretical blindness of this work serving as a conduit for incels’ metapolitical vision of social change. Channelling bell hooks’ notion of feminism as a ubiquitously potent tool for all, it is also argued that feminist theory can work to remedy some of these limitations and to support meaningful interventions to reduce the harm produced in and by the incel community.