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 at 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 the ways in which individuals work to successfully negotiate their stated master identities and presentation through surgical interventions.