One strand of present-day incel ideology is that women are shallow and vacuous creatures (“Stacys”) who are only attracted to unintelligent but conventionally handsome and muscular men (“Chads”). This is perceived as a profound injustice against less traditionally attractive men.

Elliot Rodger – the terrorist who killed six and wounded 14 in a stabbing and shooting spree in California in 2014 – is sometimes valorised among the incel community for the manifesto he wrote before going on the attack, in which he railed against women for not providing him with the sex he believed he was owed.

Alek Minassian, the man who allegedly ploughed a van into pedestrians in Toronto, apparently posted a message on Facebook prior to his attack in which he hailed Rodger as “the Supreme Gentleman”, a term Rodger applied to himself. Ten people were killed as a result of Minassian’s attack; he has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, and 13 counts of attempted murder. Toronto police have said they are still investigating his motive.

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Woman behind the term “incel” says men have turned it into “a weapon of war”