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How the Resurgence of the Word 'Simp' Is a Nod to Incel Culture and Ancient Misogyny
An Opinion Piece
Jen MFollow
a11y-light·January 23, 2023 (Updated: January 23, 2023)·Free: No
I first heard the word a few years ago from a guy friend. He was disgruntled by modern dating and by his own negative experiences in relationships. He was disappointed in himself for still being a bachelor in his mid-30s, as he'd always desired a loving, fulfilling marriage and family. Despite this dream, he was convinced his fate was to be alone for the rest of his life; forever desiring what he couldn't have… and he told me why he thought so:
"I can't find or keep a girl because I'm too much of a simp."
"What's that?"
"It means I try too hard and girls see me as beta."
(Don't even get me started on the words 'alpha' and 'beta').
I knew that over-giving and people-pleasing were signs of neediness and self-abandonment. Naturally, placing someone on a pedestal insinuates that you're powerless and not the greatest catch yourself. I assumed that's what he meant.
But then I started hearing the word used in other scenarios:
- If a man called out another man's misogynistic behavior, he was a 'simp.'
- If a man did something thoughtful for his girlfriend of wife, he was a 'simp.'
- If I, a woman, talked about my appreciation women, some men would even call me a 'simp.'
I decided to do some more digging on the origins of this seemingly-new word. Unsurprisingly, the word wasn't new — just revived.
It's not exactly clear when exactly the word originated, nor who coined the term, but there's evidence that it's been around as far back as the 1920s, and was used in the New York Times in 1923.
In 1949, it was defined as an abbreviation for 'simpleton' in the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the word was used to insult 'soft' men in Hip-Hop songs by rappers like Ice-T and Too Short:
In short: Pimp good, simp bad.
The word died out until TikTok users brought it back in late-2019, thereby making it common terminology again.
On Google, the first definition of 'simp,' is: "a silly or foolish person," referencing Oxford Languages. This is almost identical to the Oxford Languages definition of 'simpleton,' which is: "a foolish or gullible person."
The slang dictionary at dictionary.com offers a more accurate and updated description for how the word is currently being used:
This sounds almost identical to the self-professed 'nice guy.' dictionary.com defines a 'nice guy' as:
After the 'nice guy's' failed attempts of using kindness in exchange for sex or romantic intimacy (which is manipulation, not kindness), there's a chance they'll eventually adopt — if they haven't already — incel ideology and become 'red pilled.' An incel is:
Here's a conversation I had with an incel recently, in case you haven't had the displeasure of talking to one yourself and to showcase how far gone they are:
As you can see, the 'nice guy' façade is quickly exposed once a woman says "no" to his advances.
Instead of working on their flirting skills ("are you ready for your foot rub" is a terrible opening line) and, much more importantly, on becoming decent people who others might actually want to say yes to (which would mean no more love bombing and actually seeing women as people, not objects), they turn toward the growing online community of incels who spew their hatred on online forums.
What I've noticed is that those who've taken on this toxic ideology are rarely called 'simps' and don't tend to self-identify as 'simps.' Instead, the word is often used by incels toward loving boyfriends, husbands, and toward all men who respect women.
Why?
The most obvious answer is jealousy.
The second most obvious answer is misogyny.
Basically, their motivation behind calling someone a 'simp' appears to stem from their inability to understand why a man would possibly treat a woman with kindness, compassion, attentiveness, and so forth, without the motivation for sex.
Because that's what they do, or used to do, without success.
To them, women are not people inherently worthy of these things — but objects they are entitled to as men.
…Which is why they often reply with heinous things when we say "no."
Don't believe me? That's probably just an indicator that you're not completely unhinged, or haven't had to deal with any incels firsthand. For argument's sake, check out these articles:
*TRIGGER WARNING: SA*
This 'red-pilled' ideology is a dangerous one — most notably for the women whose physical safety and lives are at stake.
Naama Kates goes so far as to say that incel ideology is creating terrorists in this UnHerd article:
For impressionable and desperate men, this is a problematic — to say the least — mindset to be exposed to, and many virgins and singletons are being drawn to these forums and podcasts thinking they've finally found a community they can belong and relate to. When there's a relatively-large number of people shouting from the four corners of the internet that real men, to again quote Too Short, "never fall in love with their ho," they are left with three main reactions:
- To cultivate a strong enough sense of self and masculinity that they don't care what some incel says (this becomes more difficult when the incel in question is their real-life friend)
- To conceal their affection for their partner (or women in general) out of fear of being judged
- To become an incel themselves, eventually
I've heard some men retort that "women don't know what they want… they say they want a romantic, emotional guy but they always go for the bad boy," "women love Chads who treat them like shit," and "I never got 'bitches' until I started disrespecting them."
Yikes.
I'd wager my life savings that anyone who says they 'stopped being nice' in an attempt to 'get bitches' — or who uses the word 'bitches' — was ever a kind person to begin with. I'd also wager that men who think women want to be mistreated have never gotten to know one and most probably listen to too much Andrew Tate.
Normally, I'd suggest for someone with limited social interaction and unfair biases to get out there and see first-hand that:
…But to the incels who are dead set on viewing women as 'whores' and 'holes,' I'd prefer they stayed far, far, far away from us.
Although incel culture may seem like a modern-day phenomenon because it's blown up more recently, the misogyny behind it dates as far back as 1200BCE, and most certainly further. To prove that their beliefs are not only unoriginal, but also archaic, I'll compare what modern-day incels believe to what notable men from the patriarchal society of Ancient Greece believed — which is revealed through their plays, poems, texts, and mythos.
- Incels believe women are inherently lesser to men
- Incels believe the 'role of a woman' is to serve men, bear children, and to do household chores/cooking
- Incels believe women are evil, deceitful, disloyal, etc.
- Incels believe they are entitled to women
As far as the Great Aristotle was concerned, women were not fully formed in the womb, making them incomplete humans.
In The Odyssey, written by Homer (c. 900–701BCE), Penelope's son has status over her simply for being born a male, and he tells his mother when she tries to engage with his guest:
Penelope does as she's told, just like any other ideal, level-headed woman would've done.
To Homer, anyway.
Another notable incel from Ancient Greece was Hesoid (750-650BCE), whose epic poetry about his interpretation of mythology revealed how he viewed — and loathed — women. According to Greek mythology, all women originated from the first woman, Pandora, who was created by the command of Zeus for the sole purpose of tormenting men and balancing out their 'goodness':
To Hesoid, being a man was a lose-lose scenario: He either had to suffer at the hands of a submissive wife who 'mommied' him and bore his children (note the sarcasm), or go without having a son to take care of him when he got old:
Women were seen as temptresses because of their beauty and apparently manipulated gullible men with this power:
(Maybe if women were given a voice and rights they wouldn't have had to find loopholes.)
Not only were women seen as evil personified, but they were also responsible for all evil on earth, from back when Pandora opened Pandora's Box:
(But women are the ones who can't take accountability for anything, right?)
No misogynistic rant is complete without women being referred to as 'gold diggers':
(Because it makes perfect sense that women were willingly opting to perform unpaid labor and repeatedly endure childbirth — which was even more dangerous back then — instead of having an education and being financially independent; living their lives pursuing their passions and marrying someone they actually loved and chose.)
Living in Ancient Greece as a woman lacked personhood and would have been a waking nightmare. You would have received little-to-no education and been shut indoors (so no one could accuse you of being a non-virgin before your wedding day) until your early-to-mid teens, when your father would marry you off to a significantly older man so you could pop his children out for him (because men were viewed as the givers of life, and women were mere vessels) until the day you can't bear children anymore (if you lived long, that is), silently accommodating his every whim and desire along the way with your mouth daintily shut.
Deep Breaths.
Men shaming men for not being manly enough isn't modern, either.
Now, if I'd been raised to believe certain things were morally superior and others morally tainted, I'd probably want to align myself with the superior and avoid the tainted, too — and I daresay I might even look down on those who participated in such 'corruption' willingly, if the social influences were strong enough.
In the case of the Greeks, that 'corruption' was… women. And men did not want to be seen as feminine — few things were more insulting.
There was, of course, a word to describe such 'reprobates': Malakia, meaning 'soft.'
Today, men use the word 'simp.'
As you can probably tell by now, the patriarchy harms both women and men, and the word 'simp' exemplifies the double-edged-sword of sexism:
- Men are encouraged to be as masculine as possible and are shamed for participating in anything even remotely feminine, including seeing women as equals (if women are equal, men are not greater)
- Women are treated as objects and as lesser to men
That isn't to say there's been no progress. Women are able to have their own bank accounts, have access to higher education, can vote and run for office, can be CEOs and managers and bosses, can divorce, can even wear stereotypically-male clothing like suits and pants without getting a second glance.
But what about the inverse?
Why do so many men avoid programs and occupations that are female-dominated? Why do they expect their wives to manage the bulk of the household chores, even if their wife works more or equal hours? Why is it still so taboo for them to wear a skirt, dress, makeup, or high heels (some of which were, funnily enough, originally made for men)?
Some of it is entitlement, yes — chiefly in the case of husbands expecting their wives to be housekeepers. But I believe it's also because we, as a society, have been conditioned to still believe that masculinity is not shameful, whereas femininity is.
- If masculinity is not shameful, then women aren't going to be as scared of being perceived as masculine.
- If femininity is shameful, then men are going to be embarrassed to be perceived as feminine.
But even the good traits women were, and still are, said to possess — which was a much shorter list, mind you — such as being nurturing, loving, and emotional… men avoid these, too, in fear of being seen as 'effeminate,' or 'malakia'— especially by their male peers.
Certain men claim that the reason why they have to hide their emotions is because women find it unattractive. Even if there is an element of truth to that — I'm not a straight man, so I can't really say — it doesn't explain why men were held to the 'stoic standard' even at a time when women didn't have much choice in who they married.
And it is, without a doubt, a harmful expectation for someone to be unfeeling. Females aren't born more emotional and males are not innately emotionless; it is a learned — suppressed — trait.
Feeling shame for expressing and having emotions makes it that much more difficult to seek help, and the rising male suicide rate indicates that men need to shed their unhealthy beliefs about masculinity for their own sake — but there's still hesitation.
Much of this hesitation, I theorize, can be attributed to the fact that those in positions of power have less motivation to change to begin with because they are reaping the benefits of their higher status and therefore see no problem with the pre-set standards society has presented them with.
But also, some men have a tendency to blame women for the harm the patriarchy is causing them.
In other words, they have misdirected anger, which is very evident in online incel forums.
Today, while women are busy embracing their independence now that we have the freedom to do so — which is amazing — many men are averse to embracing their more feminine side (or should I say, they are hesitant to embrace what society has deemed 'feminine'), because the shame of being a woman is still very much alive.
As much as feminists have fought for our own rights, we cannot change men.
We cannot make them see us as people and respect us…
We cannot make them open up or get more in touch with their emotions…
We cannot make them unafraid of the judgements of other men…
We cannot make them view femininity as something beautiful…
…nor is it our job to.
But what I will do is not belittle men for being kind, empathetic, compassionate, caring, nurturing, or emotional.
And until the word fizzles out again, hopefully for good, I'll wear the word 'simp' with pride, because — contrary to what incels might believe— loving women and treating them like goddesses is something I'm unashamed of.
