The concept of the incel – a community of men embittered by their perception of rejection at the hands of women – has haunted the popular imagination since Elliot Rodger’s mass shooting ten years ago. The conventional view is that incels resent feminism for disempowering men – here, Filipa Melo Lopes argues that incels are instead motivated by a thwarted craving for feminine approval better understood by Simone de Beauvoir than contemporary feminist discourse.

Nearly a decade ago, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed 7 people, including himself, in Isla Vista, California. In his lengthy manifesto, “My Twisted World”, Rodger laid out an epic tale of rejection, isolation, resentment, and vitriolic misogyny which started a public conversation about ‘incel’ extremism — violence connected to online communities of self-proclaimed ‘involuntary celibate’ men.