Incel culture: where are we in 2026?
Date: Monday 30 November 2026
Time: 2pm to 4pm
Where: Online via Microsoft Teams
‘Incel’ culture within the ‘Manosphere’ has been growing over the last few years. It influences men and boys with extreme misogynist ideology. Its impacts can be felt at home, at school, in communities and in society.
It is crucial that professionals can recognise and understand its origins. They also need to stay up to date with the latest information and trends, so they can support boys and men who may be influenced by this extremist ideology.
This session builds on a webinar from the 16 Days campaign in 2025, ‘Online Misogyny, Incel Culture and Pornography’. Attendees will better understand:
- current trends in online gender extremism, affecting boys, men, girls and women
- the evolution of nihilistic violent extremism (NVE)
- ‘maxxing’: the obsessive improvement of traits, looks or lifestyles promoted by the Manosphere, such as ‘looks-maxxing’ and ‘testosterone-maxxing’
Dr Stu Lucy is providing this webinar. He is a lecturer in criminology and counterterrorism at the University of Portsmouth’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
His research focuses on the journey of young and adolescent men into the incel community and the possible interventions that can be used to reduce this trend.
His publications are listed below. His book ‘How to make an incel’ is now available through Emerald Publishing.
- Lucy, S. (2026). Feminism is for every (academic) body: A critical commentary of evolutionary psychology incel research. Feminist Theory, 0(0)
- Lucy, S., Heritage, F. and Sugiura, L. (2026). Researching Incels: A Critical Feminist Intervention. Emerald.
- Lucy, S., and Sugiura, L. (2026). Maladaptive Responses of the Failed Male: The Journey Towards Extreme Incel Ideology in M. Littler & E. Rodermond. (eds) The New Face of Online Extremism: Perspectives from an Interdisciplinary Field. Routledge, pp. 116-140.
How to sign up for this session
If you are a Council employee sign up on MyLearning Hub.
If you do not work for us sign up using Microsoft forms.