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Metaphor and the Social World
Vol. 13:2 (2023) ► pp.178–196

Landwhales, femoids and sub-humans

Dehumanising metaphors in incel discourse

| Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
| Manchester Metropolitan University
| Lancaster University
| Birmingham City University

Incels, or involuntary celibates, are a community of typically heterosexual young men who wish to, but do not, have sexual and romantic relationships with women. As a community, they have previously been characterised by their hatred for women and violent acts against members of society who they believe prevent them from having relations with women. In this paper, we highlight the pervasiveness of metaphor in incel communication, so far unaddressed in the budding studies of incel language. Specifically, using a sample of circa 22,500 words from the banned incel Reddit forum r/Braincels, we focus on how members of this community use metaphoric expressions to dehumanise gendered social actors, both as individuals and as groups. We discuss our findings against the backdrop of metaphor approaches to language, gender, and sexuality, and the relevance of dehumanising metaphorical rhetoric for online misogynist groups.

Keywords: incels, online community, dehumanising metaphors, gender and sexuality, social actors
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Metaphor and dehumanisation
    • 2.1Dehumanising metaphor
    • 2.2Metaphor and gender
  • 3.Data collection and metaphor identification
    • 3.1Metaphor identification procedure
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Quantitative findings: Patterns of references to gendered social actors
    • 4.2Qualitative findings: Dehumanising metaphors and social actor representation
      • 4.2.1Metaphoric representations of social actors: Dominant source domains
        • Non-Human Being
        • Object
        • Substance
        • Value Scale
      • 4.2.2Beyond source domains: Metaphor scenarios
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Author contribution statement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 May 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/msw.23005.bog
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