This summer, after a few of my girl friends and I began to accept our fates in taking GOV50, the Data Statistics course from hell, we did the natural thing: made group chats. The first thing sent over the Instagram group chat was GOV50’s Insta profile. With 82 posts and 740 followers, @gov50data labels itself as a Community. Its bio states:
No course at Harvard does a better job of increasing your odds of achieving the future—the internship, job, graduate school, career—that you want.
The first thought that came to mind was, Of course this class has an active Instagram. Then, one of my friends texted that the account had posted “memes.” My second thought, Of course they make memes. As I scrolled through the account’s most recent posts, my third thought hit me, Oh f*ck that’s not a meme.
Three years ago, during my Women’s Studies and Use & Abuse of Power courses, we spent a memorable amount of time studying hate groups. This “meme template” (as described in the caption) belongs to the incels, an online hate group of self-proclaimed “involuntary celibates.” Incels are men, mainly white, heterosexual men, who believe women (dehumanized as “roasties,” “Stacys,” and “femoids”) only have sex with other men called “Chads.” Incels believe women “owe incels sex.” I put that in quotes because it’s not possible to owe someone sex. This is called rape.
Incels believe they should have the right to rape women.
For those of you who may think I’m using “too strong” of language or misconstruing their beliefs, I urge you to find any published/exposed online thread and read their disturbing, pathetic words. They toss around rape as if it is some sort of sporting hobby, like golf.
Incels hate women. They blame women for their “loneliness.” They idolize and embrace murderers and terrorists like Alek Minassian, Greg Sodini, Chris Harper-Mercer, Sheldon Bentley, William Atchison, Nikolas Cruz, Scott Beierle, Stephen Paddock, Christopher Cleary, Armando Hernandez Jr., Tobias Rathjen, and Elliot Rodgers, their prophet, who released a 137-page incel manifesto before committing mass murder. There are many, many more murderers and terrorists like Elliot Rodgers who identify as incels or whom the incel community have embraced—most recently, Kyle Rittenhouse. Thousands of Americans have donated over $500,000 to the 17-year-old white supremacist through GiveSendGo, the “#1 Free Christian Fundraising Site.” Their reason? To “give back” to him.
These violent, misogynistic men are a consequence of a society poisoned with male supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and ignorance.
The number of incels and supporters of the “manosphere,” in general, are only growing, entering and gaining power in all spheres of life. They are everywhere—including Harvard—yet, in the minds of the majority, absolutely nowhere. What happens when our ignorance blinds us to extremist groups like incels? The unsurprising GOV50 Themed Meme Week.
The danger lies in the normalization of a blatantly misogynistic drawing that originated from a SPLC-recognized hate group. Even more so, it is disturbing that the owners of this account chose this “meme template” and knew how to adapt it properly so that it mimicked “incel memes.” The submissions the account received also perfectly mimicked “incel memes.” Even if these people are not incels, not only did they find these “memes” acceptable but had also seen them enough times to know how to make them. Normalising any part of “incel culture” as “memeable” ultimately empowers incels to act on their beliefs.
After the first lecture, a couple girl friends and I decided not to take GOV50. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. To have David Kane lecture me on how to achieve the future I want would be, well, self-destructive, as I am a woman of color.
All of these extremist hate groups feed off of one another. They cannot exist or be analyzed alone. I do not know who runs the GOV50 Insta account, but whether it is David Kane or current/past GOV50 students, it does not matter. As the Head and Professor of GOV50, Kane is still largely responsible for what is posted and the culture that allows a domestic terrorist group to be seen as funny. If he denies knowing about these “memes,” I would find that very difficult to believe. He has enough time, hate, and energy to anonymously post racially prejudiced blogs and invite Charles Murray, a white supremacist, to speak to his class, so he can definitely check the official Instagram account of his course, or as the account states, his community. Therefore, I am proud of the current GOV50 students taking initiative to remove David Kane from his position as Head and Professor of GOV50. Click this link to read and sign their petition: https://forms.gle/j9m8bjjeM2gxqWKK9.
I strongly condemn GOV50’s normalisation of “incel culture,” belittling it to something funny, brought by “popular demand.” The account owners should take down these posts, publicly acknowledge what they have done, and denounce the hate underlying GOV50. It’s time to hold ourselves accountable, and hopefully we can do a greater job of it, unlike our country’s favorite golf-enthusiast, Donald Trump.
Arsh Dhillon ‘23 (asekhon@college.harvard.edu) really doesn’t want to see any more of GOV50 this year.