A “real company”, taken for too long “lightly”. On Tuesday, Aurore Bergé, Minister for Women-Men Equality returned to TF1 on the project of a masculine attack thwarted in Saint-Etienne.
Timoty G. 18, was arrested near a public high school, then indicted and imprisoned, suspected of wanting to attack women with knives. He claimed to be the masculinist movement “Incel”, of the English “Celibate Involuntary” (involuntary singles). This is the first terrorist file exclusively linked in France to this ideology. The sign of a radicalization?
Laura Verquere, lecture teacher at the University of Lille, researcher in information and communication science, specialist in masculinities, replaces these violence in a broader context for 20 Minutes.
With this thwarted attack project, are we witnessing a radicalization of masculinist ideas and the Incel community?
Masculinism has a long history. It designates both anti -feminist, misogynist ideas and wrestling movements. The latter appeared in the 1980s in reaction to the second feminist wave of the 1970s. At that time, there was already terrorism like the killing of the Polytechnic of Montreal in 1989, where women were killed because they were women in places of power. The difference in the current context is perhaps that digital social networks make these ideas more visible, all the more with the election of Donald Trump and the reversals of Magnats de la Tech, such as Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, or Elon Musk, owner of X. All in a general context of radicalization of all speeches, polarization of debates and public spaces and rising populist extreme right. world.
After his arrest, the suspect said he consulted many masculinist videos, notably on Tiktok. What is the role of social networks in these acts?
The masculinist communities, which regroup for example around seduction coach like influencer Alex Hitchens, are not new. They were born in the United States and have been studied for a long time. Social networks do not exist or appear masculinist ideas. On the other hand, they federate them and catalyze them. We note that the profiles affected by these groups are also increasingly young. Be careful not to focus on the “ideal culprit”. Masculinism is old and it is expressed in a uninhibited way in political institutions, notably with presidents like Javier Milei, Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro. It is not just young people and social networks, just as there are not only the Incels community. In France, these ideas arrived by the divorced fathers movement for example. Online, there are masculinist ideas in communities around well-being, health or even ecology. And this is what makes the speech gain from the field.
Is it a surprise that this form of male violence arrives in France?
There is no reason why it does not happen everywhere. Masculinism is born in a patriarchal society which is ours, which remains sexist, with inequalities and gender stereotypes. In addition, the first attack in Montreal was qualified as a posteriori masculine attack. We are starting to seize these questions and adopt new glasses. Perhaps before, we did not read certain facts in this way, a little like feminicides that we described as “marital dramas”. It may be a turning point, taking this ideology into account, accompanied by the judiciary.
How could we limit the effects of this masculinist ideology, which can push up to violence towards women?
First with an education in emotional, sexual life and gender stereotypes from an early age. And associate it with media education: check the sources, understand the functioning of algorithms … We must learn that they are made to strengthen our ideologies, our convictions over our uses. There is also a regulatory issue at digital social media industries. Currently, we are rather in the opposite direction, that of a deregulation under cover of freedom of expression. Finally, may also be necessary to set up listening places. Incels, who are only one community among others within masculinists, often call on suicide. They see themselves as inferior beings, with a biological fatalism which prevent them from finding a solution. Without granting credit to their thesis, it is necessary to take suffering seriously.
