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I think a big part of the problem is that, among younger Americans especially, both men and women that refer to themselves as feminists conflate it with benevolent sexism, and not the same sets of social rules for both genders.

Benevolent sexism is a tough concept to swallow for men. It means respecting and practicing the old mores men practiced with women, with none of the toxic expectations. Things like expectations of men being the breadwinners, running to get the door, etc aren't compatible with a desire for equality, especially when correctly rejecting the trade-offs those perks used to be tied to.

The first waves of feminism cleared the way, but in having done so, the newest generation of women are asking "but why don't I get these cool perks I heard about" and men are answering "because we no longer get the social power that facilitated that cool stuff."

Everything is trade offs.

I find the internet is super good at locking people into echo chambers. For some reason, I feel especially keen on this when I was super into reddit over the last decade. I could FEEL just how a community would shift into just saying the same 10 things on repeat and any deviation would result in downvotes and messages in my inbox.

But it's not just reddit. Modern video feed algorithms and other social media just need to feed you the same stuff you've engaged with previously.

So what ends up happening is young boys only see the videos of angry purple haired stereotype liberal feminist first year college student get SLAMMED/DESTROYED by Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson or a woman who is clearly saying something sarcastic with sad sigma male music in the background and all the comments are calling for her to be put in prison or death.

And that's not to say people don't experience these types IRL and it morphs their opinions, my sister is this stereotype and is pretty fucking stupid and she will get into heated debates on Facebook about stuff she has no idea about. She'll read a headline and form a whole mindset of bullshit around it and never verify if it was just a click bait article posted to Facebook to get ad revenue with no concept of journalist integrity. It's really difficult talking to her about anything political because even though I'm pretty liberal/progressive myself, she'll just say things that are factually wrong and when I try to talk to her about it she takes it as me disagreeing and won't listen to reason or logic outside of her preconceived image of reality. Very difficult person

I often have to look at her and remind myself that people like her are a very small portion of the population and aren't really indicative of the masses.

Should we start referring to them as Gen incel?

Feminism has a branding problem. The name itself makes it sound like it's about putting women above men. People who don't know better—the kind of people who are disproportionately young—will judge feminism based on the name.

Calling it feminism made sense when everyone "knew" women were generally inferior to men, but since gender equality has become the mainstream view, the name had lost the context that made it work. Combined with the scope creep of feminism that causes it to encompass issues like disability rights and economic inequality, I think feminism is becoming indistinguishable from leftism.