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I decided to share my theory (if we can call it that) about the origin of the ‘incel’ slur. I’m not claiming it’s terribly original or anything but I welcome your feedback about it because it’s a pure culture war phenomenon in my view and I wonder if my theory is sound.
To start with the obvious, pretty much every human community that ever existed have had concepts of the feminine and masculine as collections of desirable traits. This entails that men and women who refuse to live up to these ideals are disadvantaged in various ways. One way is social shaming. Again, let’s leave it that here; I’m aware that I could go off on dozens of tangents here and add dozens of qualifiers and interpretations to make my argument nuanced and elaborate, but I want to keep this concise.
One way to shame unmasculine men is to use the slur ‘nerd’ on them. This was the norm for a long time in Anglo-Saxon societies, and it sort of made sense. After all, nerds are interested in things and machines, not humans, who are anything but machines. The traits that make you a nerd, especially a hard-working and employable one, are exactly the traits that are useless, detrimental even, if you want to be a socially savvy, sexually successful cool guy. If you’re too boneheaded to correctly read the carefully calculated, covert signals women send out to you to indicate sexual interest without coming off to their social circle as dirty sluts, you’re not a real man. Especially if you’re also not interested in playing team sports etc.
At some point though, the Third(?) Industrial Revolution happens, and the computerization of science and the economy is in full swing. The men most disposed to become computer scientists and programmers happen to be nerds. Before that, programming used to be seen a lowly, dull desk job, basically not different from being a secretary, and a significant chunk of programmers were single women as a result. But now, society starts believing that learning to code is a secure path to having a high-paying career and the American Dream. It seems that only the sky is the limit in the digital revolution and the booming online sector. Young women come to realize that calling undesirable men ‘nerds’ just comes across as dumb and baseless to most people.
However, none of this means, of course, that unattractive male traits just disappeared, or that society is open to abandoning social shaming as a tool of controlling men. In fact, due to an unfortunate combination of the unintended(?) long-term consequences of feminist messaging and socially harmful, pathological trends like online porn addiction, endocrine disruptors, sedentary lifestyles, social atomization, the disappearance of male rites of passage and male bonding rituals etc., it seems that a growing segment of men are socially illiterate, repulsive and dull skinnyfat manchildren. Women no longer want to dismiss them as nerds, but they definitely want to dismiss them as…something.
At this point, due to online trends, society discovers the ‘incel’ term, and just starts using it as a replacement of ‘nerd’, basically. Later, online journos discover that the term was actually invented by some Canadian female college student 20 years earlier who was a romantic failure and started a long-defunct online message board for other college women in the same situation, who applied the term to themselves, not as a slur, and definitely not as something that conveys anti-feminist views etc., but all this is long forgotten and nobody cares anymore, so it doesn’t matter. Fast forward a few years, and it becomes normal for leftist women and their male ‘allies’ to dismiss anyone and everyone as ‘incel’, even married men with children as long as they come across as sufficiently deplorable to the average feminist.
I think you're really mischaracterizing past societies. Before the post-war sexual revolution, it really wasn't that common for people to hook up for casual sex, or to select their mates based on who you found sexy. Especially not for women- their careers were so limited, so they were really dependent on marrying a good husband who could provide for them, it kind of swamped any other criteria like looks or social savvy. At least for commoners; the nobility and nuveau-riche could afford to be more sexually playful.
If anything, it was the men choosing women on the basis of looks and social skills, so it became really important for women to learn how to wear pretty clothes, dance, sing, etc. The men could get away with wearing the same basic clothes and being kind of socially inept, as long as they were "a good man" (follows the basic religious laws) and had decent earnings. In that light, it makes sense that "incel" was originally coined by a woman- it was a serious problem to be an older woman with no career, no husband, and fading looks! But nowadays things have shifted, and it's the men trying desperately to appeal to women with flamboyant peacocking and mating calls or whatever, and the whole thing just seems so unnatural. It's basically forcing heterosexual men to act like women and gay men, and it's no surprise that a lot of women just aren't into it and a lot of men just can't learn the act.
The social conditions where 'nerd' is no longer normalized as a slur are indeed very, very recent in historic terms, whereas the Sexual Revolution was more than 50 years ago.
Well... when did "nerd" first become a slur? I genuinely don't know, but I don't think it's all that old either. I feel like it came on pretty quickly in the 80s, along with the sudden rise in microcomputers, Sci-fi movies, and DnD.
1951, apparently, so it strictly speaking predates the sexual revolution.
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