This article critically evaluates the Incel Radicalisation Scale (IRS) through a feminist lens, challenging dominant terrorism scholarship that risks legitimising misogynist narratives of male victimhood. The IRS is a quantitative tool developed to measure the degree to which individuals who identify with incel communities exhibit attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours associated with radicalisation, including endorsement of misogynistic ideologies and violence. Drawing on feminist theory and research on masculinity, male supremacy, and structural misogyny, the authors interrogate how concepts such as radicalisation, violence, and vulnerability are defined and operationalised in the IRS.
The article argues that the IRS relies excessively on incels’ self-representation, downplays broader harms including misogynist discursive violence, and risks pathologising individual mental health while ignoring structural patriarchy. It demonstrates how gender-blind methodologies can obscure systemic misogyny and white supremacist dynamics embedded within incel ideology.
The article concludes by cautioning against uncritical use of quantitative tools that fail to account for structural gendered power relations, and calls for feminist, structurally grounded approaches to analysing misogynist violent extremism.