Biography

Joselyne Quiroz is a Ph.D. student and Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellow at UCLA. Joselyne received a BA degree in Sociology from UC Davis and an MA in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Her previous research at UC Davis sought to understand emotional distress and anger among members of the involuntary celibate (“incel”) on-line community. At UChicago, she expanded on this work by exploring the ways in which members of a virtual incel community cope with prolonged experiences of failure in pursuing romantic relationships, particularly in relation to their expectations and beliefs about masculine gender performance. She found that participation in incel forums exacerbates users’ feelings of gender failure, which users describe as the sense of being trapped in the body of an unmasculine (or “beta”) man due to physical characteristics such as race, height, and facial structure. At the same time, the frequent presence of misogyny in online incel interactions serve to repudiate this sense of gender failure for users by temporarily alleviating their stigma as undesirable men through the ridicule of women.

Joselyne’s current project explores failure in achieving masculinity, as experienced by incels. If failing to achieve masculinity is socially discrediting, what do men do when they are unable to achieve it? How do they make sense of their failure, and how do they respond to it? She investigates these questions through a multi method approach consisting of content analysis, interviews, and virtual ethnography on incels. Her research demonstrates that upon realizing their persistent failure to “do” masculinity appropriately, incels develop intuitive theories (e.g. folk science) to account for their failures. She argues that their theorizing brings forth adverse consequences, including fatalistic tendencies, a propensity toward self-harm, and emotional distress.

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