Men who hate women online: A study of the internet as a new arena for the mobilisation of organised gender-based hate

This project seeks to analyse how organised forms of gender-based hate take shape online, in the Swedish digital context.

Specifically, we will analyse the rapidly emerging movement of so-called incels — a self-ascribed identity, used by men in ‘involuntary celibacy’, who express gender-based hate in male-separatist communities online.

There is a lack of research on Swedish incels even though there are relatively many of them and they rapidly are becoming more numerous, and more extremist in how they express themselves.

Therefore, there is a need to gain further insight into why incels are on the rise in a country like Sweden, where gender equality efforts have come so comparatively far.

Concretely, this project aims to map and analyse Swedish incels by exploring (a) how and to what degree Swedish incels are organised; (b) how Swedish incel discourse takes shape; and (c) how Swedish incels are understood by the surrounding society.

To answer these questions, we will use several large-scale textual datasets which we will analyse using methodological approaches that combine computational and qualitative elements. The project will be carried out over three years with two researchers employed at 75 and 20 percent, respectively.

The timeline and personnel costs are justified by the scope of collection, processing and analysis of data, as well as the output of these analyses in the form of eight articles, a special issue, and a report with policy suggestions.