Men Who Hate Women

Dang, it. I wanted to like this book. It's important to bring awareness to these incel groups and it's important to see how their “fringe” beliefs seep into prominent politics. That being said, the author's bias and anger dominate what should be a really important discussion.

She dumps all of this incredibly depressing information into your lap and then walks away. Throughout the book she points at the ways these groups let down people who need actual help, and yet she does the same thing. While awareness itself is important, there should be a step after it as well. I was waiting for a chapter on how to fight against these groups and support organizations that are doing genuinely good work to help men at risk of falling into these incels get the support and help they need... it never came.

It feels a bit like a news headline - she shares all these shocking quotes and facts about these groups and offers no solutions for this huge issue she's apparently spent years of her life investigating.

The book could have cut half of the content and used some of the extra space to address the men prone to these groups' “recruitment” tactics. The women reading this book know there are men who are awful, we have all experienced something like this before. There is no benefit to sharing, for the 100th time, that an incel member thinks all women deserve to be r@ped. The shocking quotes stop having the effect she desired, which I assume is outrage, and instead, it becomes repetitive and depressing.

The focus should have shifted toward calling on media, Hollywood, politicians, leaders, and anyone who has an effect on young men's lives to do what they can to educate people about the dangers of this line of thinking. Instead, it's more of a personal attack against figures like Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Jordan Peterson - while she may not agree with their politics, to blame them for the “manosphere” in any way actually cheapens her argument.

Address the fact that on 99% of websites, I can't even type the work r@pe without it getting flagged, which makes it hard to talk about in a serious way. Or that TikTok has endless pickup artist content on its platform. Talk about the lack of men's shelters for domestic violence or the staggering lack of reports of SA on men. All of these topics are skimmed over as a reason a man might fall into these groups, but the author does nothing to contribute to any productive ideas on how we can cut off the flow of members before they become radicalized.

I hope this book sparks more authors to approach this subject and I hope it sparks some change in the way media portrays these groups, but Bates just missed the mark.

All this being said - read the book - at least the first two chapters, and then consider ways to contribute toward a better culture.