This research project presents empirical data tracking the emergence of incel/male supremacy-inspired attacks and how it relates to the ongoing social conflict between Incels, women, and the feminist movement. As such research adopts a thematic approach focusing on three key thematic categories: 1) Online radicalization and the facilitation of violence, 2) Dehumanization and femmephobia, and 3) Relative Deprivation and Group Conflict. Using conflict theories such as Galtung’s (1990) theories of violence, relative deprivation theory, Volkan’s (2001) theory on large group identity, and dehumanization theory; this study employs a qualitative analysis and literary review.

Femmephobia is the belief that women are less human than men and acts as justification for demonizing women based on biological, moral, and rational reasoning. The Incel Movement utilizes specific terms to identify women and perceived outgroups, in what this study refers to as "Incelspeak". 

There are three primary ways in which Incels dehumanize women. First, Incels believe that women are animalistic in nature, and thus should not be allowed to personal autonomy in dating or intimate affairs. Second, Incels swear by the femmephobic belief that women do not feel pain as a way to justify acts of violence and normalize sexual assault. Finally, Incels reduce women to purely 'emotional creatures' incapable of rational thought, which in turn leads to the sexual objectification of women in the Incel Movement. 

Relative Deprivation (RD) is best described as "a judgment that one or one’s ingroup is disadvantaged compared to a relevant referent, and that this judgment invokes feelings of anger, resentment, and entitlement" (Smith and Pettigrew, 2015). 

Relative deprivation in group conflict is composed of four main components: (1) Individuals first make cognitive comparisons, (2) individuals then make cognitive assertions that they or their ingroup are disadvantaged, (3) individuals perceive said disadvantages as unfair, and (4) resent grows for said unfair and undeserved disadvantages (Smith and Pettigrew, 2015). 

Incels experience relative deprivation in a variety of ways which often triggers intergroup conflict. One way in which RD triggers group conflict is that it generates resentment and violence towards women, which only reconfirms the prior fears women had about Incels in the first place. The second way in which RD triggers conflict is by fueling the Incel Movement's rejection of modern society and perceived outsider groups, such as feminists. Incels long for a return to traditional socio-political values which puts them in direct opposition with feminists who are fighting for a more equitable and safe society.