It can be a bit of a vicious circle. Here’s my opinion on the matter and what I think the hardest parts are.
Incels don’t exactly attract women - and I mean even as friends, not just partners. But the best way for an incel to stop being an incel is to… Have female friends he can connect with.
We can’t force women to be friends with men who hate women, that would be… yeah, something. Best we can do is what we’re already doing: mixed gender classes in kindergarten and school, hoping that most kids will end up with a diverse set of friends. And at the very least, fewer boys grow up to be men for whom women are some sort of alien creatures or something.
But there will always be some who are less social than others and are then more likely to fall into the influence of the manosphere . And I don’t know what could be done to prevent that or help these people, because the desire to be helped at that point, needs to come from within. Can lead a horse to water, but not force it to drink and all that.
Media exposure is really difficult to combat. I have behaviors remediated, then a few days of exposure due to parental neglect, and its back to being called slurs and being SA’d by a five year old. Building a case based on these things to help just one person….but there are so many growing up on media that is too mature, without context or collaboration from instructors….they are being filled with awful opinions they just uncritically accept as universally true. I know it going to get worse before it gets better. I know it took me so much work to get my on to explain his every opinion with supporting details, to make him stop parroting. And that was limited exposure from school and other boys.
It can be a bit of a vicious circle. Here’s my opinion on the matter and what I think the hardest parts are.
Incels don’t exactly attract women - and I mean even as friends, not just partners. But the best way for an incel to stop being an incel is to… Have female friends he can connect with.
We can’t force women to be friends with men who hate women, that would be… yeah, something. Best we can do is what we’re already doing: mixed gender classes in kindergarten and school, hoping that most kids will end up with a diverse set of friends. And at the very least, fewer boys grow up to be men for whom women are some sort of alien creatures or something.
But there will always be some who are less social than others and are then more likely to fall into the influence of the manosphere . And I don’t know what could be done to prevent that or help these people, because the desire to be helped at that point, needs to come from within. Can lead a horse to water, but not force it to drink and all that.
Media exposure is really difficult to combat. I have behaviors remediated, then a few days of exposure due to parental neglect, and its back to being called slurs and being SA’d by a five year old. Building a case based on these things to help just one person….but there are so many growing up on media that is too mature, without context or collaboration from instructors….they are being filled with awful opinions they just uncritically accept as universally true. I know it going to get worse before it gets better. I know it took me so much work to get my on to explain his every opinion with supporting details, to make him stop parroting. And that was limited exposure from school and other boys.