Men Who Hate Women: From incels to pickup artists, the truth about extreme misogyny and how it affects us all

by Laura Bates

Imagine a world in which millions of women are raped, beaten, mutilated, abused, or murdered every year because of the simple fact that they are women. Imagine a world in which the hatred of women is actively encouraged, with sprawling, purpose-built communities of men dedicated to fueling and inflaming the cause. Imagine a world in which such hatred blends seamlessly with racist rage: “whores” blamed for contaminating superior bloodlines; invading “savages,” conjured from hate-fueled imaginations, framed as plunderers of the dehumanized commodity of fragile, white women. Imagine a world in which thousands of men band together, united by a common code of vitriolic rage, demonizing and railing against evil, soulless, greedy women, graphically plotting their rape and destruction in a glorious, bigoted uprising. Imagine a world in which some men actually enact such fantasies, killing women in mass murders, leaving behind manifestos explaining the ideology that drove them to commit these acts of terrorism. Imagine a world in which vulnerable men, lost boys, and confused, scared teenagers are swept up and preyed upon by such communities, which feed on their fears and push them toward hatred, violence, and self-destruction. You don’t have to imagine that world. You already live in it. But perhaps you didn’t know, because we don’t like to talk about it.