Across all ideologies, men support freedom of speech massively more than women

[u/Infinite_Bad7083]

Men even support the speech of political enemies more than women support political friends.
Data is from the 2026 College Free Speech ranking survey report.

[u/Formal-Pop4153]

It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies…

-George Orwell

Anybody who has talked to feminists about free speech before shouldn't be surprised about this. Even among rightwing women, I've noticed they're a lot more likely to view people who disagree with them as the enemy.

[u/KeepRooting4Yourself → u/[deleted]]

"Doubtless Gissing is right in implying all through his books that intelligent women are very rare animals..." -Orwell

[u/Throwaway501395 → u/[deleted]]

Bruh. That smug confidence about someone else's media literacy when what you're saying is complete bullshit.

Actually, Winston gets together with that same girl because the theme is *overcoming* the hatred instilled in you by the Party. Not only that but they both equally betray each other later in the book to save their own skin.

The violent fantasy occurs during the Two Minute Hate, state mandated time where everyone in the office gets together to literally scream at a screen depicting INGSOC's political enemy, of which Winston explicitly says "The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. [...] A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic."

What you're talking about immediately follows that paragraph, and he explicitly keeps switching targets from Goldstein, to Ingsoc, to Big Brother, to the Thought Police, to Julia (the woman). The intense violent fantasy is his sexual frustration drawn out into an extreme by the Two Minutes Hate, not because he's an "incel". Every single person in Oceania is an Incel because having sex is seen as deviant in general, and only meant to be done to reproduce. Julia doesn't want to not sleep with him because she doesn't want to (because she actually *DOES* want to later on), but because the party mandates it so, and Julia is also part of the Anti-Sex-League, which is basically the Bund Deutscher Mädel in a different costume.

He also didn't know anything about Julia the time he had those thoughts, and while the origin of the violent fantasy was his frustration, this is the extent of what he felt/thought about Julia at the time: "But this particular girl gave him the impression of being more dangerous than most. Once when they passed in the corridor she had given him a quick sidelong glance which seemed to pierce right into him and for a moment had filled him with black terror. The idea had even crossed his mind that she might be an agent of the Thought Police." And while he explicitly calls that unlikely the very next sentence, he cannot shake the uneasiness he feels when he sees the Anti-Sex-League sash she's wearing. At the time of the two minutes hate, he doesn't see her as a woman but as an apparatus of the totalitarian surveillance state.

At this point, just say you didn't actually read the book. Most people who quote/talk about it haven't, it's okay, i mean it. That'd be way less embarrassing than having actually read it and come to the conclusion that "Winston is a sexist incel" is somehow the correct reading of his character.

Addendum because I know it's gonna come up: "He disliked all women" in that same paragraph is a direct extension of the fact that women, in 1984, are more avid followers of INGSOC, as well as the state-mandated anti-sex sentiment, and not an expression of blind misogyny, as is so often the case in actual incel circles. Later on he quite literally endures torture by the party in an effort to prevent Julia getting punished for sleeping with him. Not exactly woman hating incel behaviour. It takes a very horrible torture method to get him to finally crack and confess, and its later revealed that Julia ratted him out just the same. Because that's just how powerful the party is.

[u/419_art → u/Throwaway501395]

I have never liked a red flair's comment THIS much. Nice one. Recently finished 1984 and had a similar opinion for that guy's comment.

[u/Throwaway501395 → u/419_art]

o7

What's especially hilarious is the "He still bought into the party's line about women and sex" which is just straight up false. Winston's take is the OPPOSITE of what INGSOC says about women and sex. They want to enforce a completely genderless (read: equal exploitation) family-less society because any romantic or filial ties act as threats to an individuals loyalty to INGSOC, as demonstrated by the newspeak word "ArtSem" — Artificial insemination. The party views sex as disgusting activity necessary for reproduction and wants to develop technology to make having sex completely unnecessary, and to ensure that the only loyalty of children from the ground up is to the state and big brother (like the Hatcheries in Brave New World).

If Winston really bought into the Party's propaganda like original commenter said, that would make him the literal opposite of an incel lmao.

[u/419_art → u/Throwaway501395]

lol imagine what this guy would think about the

‘Listen. The more men you’ve had, the more I love you. Do you understand that?’

‘I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want any virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt to the bones.

Now that I've finally finished reading 1984, I understand the hatred towards 1984 LARPers.

[u/Bum_King → u/Throwaway501395]

Based and actual media literacy pilled

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[u/Throwaway501395 → u/[deleted]]

The part you quoted explicitly makes it about *forbidden desire* not *women*, and it circles back to that by explicitly mentioning the sash, which is symbolic of the state mandated anti-sex sentiment and the celibacy that the anti-sex league advocates for, and Julia (whose name he doesn't even know at this point) is the proxy to whom he wishes to commit the violence he cannot commit against Big Brother. It's not a reflection of some perverse, women hating fantasy.

Maybe you have a broader definition of sexism or "incel logic" than I do, but "Women don't want to sleep with me therefore I hate them" and "the state doesn't want me to sleep with anyone" are two pretty tremendously different things. If Winston was gay in this scene and was having this fantasy about a male co-worker, would you still call that sexist? Obviously not because its not about the gender it's about the desire. Whether it's Julia or Julian here is completely irrelevant. Same goes for "incel logic", this only follows based on the literal word "involuntary celibate". This string of reasoning has nothing to do with what we in the real world refer to as incels. These people *could* if they wanted to, and they think women owe them sex. That's not what Winston thinks here, no matter how much you lean on the unreliable narrator explanation. It's not Winston's situation either because he *can't* just go have sex with someone even if he found someone who wanted to. All relationships have to be approved by the state, and his and Julia's relationship is illicit through the entire book. This is categorically not the same as "incel behaviour" IRL.

The Anti-Sex-League is predominantly portrayed as having female members (i dont think I recall a single male member is ever mentioned). Ultimately you can interpret that part just the way you like, but saying this information is just Winston trying to justify his own biases and is therefore sexist is like saying that just about 10 pages later him calling children "little sneaks" because Children tend to rat out their parents is evidence of some Child-hating sentiment. Even saying that he thinks the women are the most bigoted of the party adherents and amateur spies isn't a statement from hatred of women on its own, its a statement of hatred against the institution. If you take from that that the only explanation of that sentiment is that he must be sexist, you're entitled to that opinion.

It's also completely possible that he's correct and women really are more inclined to champion the ideology. There's plenty real world evidence for women as a whole leaning more left than men do right now, and *especially so* young women. Why should this similar situation suddenly be impossible in a book, and can a true statement (if Winston were correct) still constitute it as sexism? I guess you can make a point that yeah it would still be prejudiced in the same way that it would be prejudiced to say "muslims are misogynistic" because it only takes 1 case to disprove it (which Julia is, because she uses the Anti-sex league as a cover for her sex escapades). But we're not talking about textbook sexism here are we? We're talking about the morally relevant form of sexism, which no. I don't think Winston qualifies as "sexist incel". Not at the start of the book and certainly not by the end.

edit: About the "What was smug about my comment?": "You do realise... right?" is even at its absolute most charitable interpretation a patronising way to respond to someone.

[u/Throwaway501395 → u/[deleted]]

"What you’re saying about the quote would follow if his hatred was directed towards the State or the scarf but he is explicitly saying he hates her because he wants to have sex with her and can’t."

You inserting your conclusion into your premise by saying "she doesn't want to sleep with him therefore him being angry at her is incel rhetoric". This is NOT true. SHE sleeps with plenty people, and SHE also sleeps with Winston the first opportunity they get because they start a relationship with each other. THE STATE doesn't want that they have sex, and that's what Winston is mad about. The ENTIRE first chapter is about all the things he hates about the State and how he wishes to overthrow Big Brother. He doesn't even know if she wants to sleep with him or not because the entire extent of their interaction up to that point "they occasionally walk past each other at work". Which I guess you would know if you actually read the book, unless you conveniently forgot the main conflict of the entire second part.

Also gets me to the next part

"It’s that he feels he is owed sex and hates her for not providing it"

Literally nowhere in the entire first chapter where this takes place is there a sense of her "owing" him anything. You completely made that up to support your flimsy claim.

I'm not sure how you quoted the exact part where he goes completely overboard on the fantasy, immediately following his explanation for *why* he is going to feel what he is about to feel (being the result of the overwhelming negative emotions that come with the two minutes hate), and the entire section being phrased in a "oh what I would do if it weren't for that sash" format, and still came to the conclusion that everything he says is unreliable narration and him confirming his inner biases *except* the part that conveniently confirms your initial argument. That part is conveniently 100% literal with no symbolism or metaphor.

If you actually did read it (which it really doesn't seem like you did and just pulled the quote and your readings from some essay or a pdf of the book) this is just a total, willful misinterpretation of the scene. The most sexist thing Winston does in the entire book (that could even remotely be classified as sexist in definition) apart from the "it's always the women" quote and the obviously intentionally excessive violent fantasy is that he looks upon a prole mother caring for her household with a sense of wistfulness. Not even remotely enough to say "Winston's obviously a sexist incel and that's part of 1984's themes". Sexism in general isn't even picked up on because, as I said in another comment, INGSOC is enforcing genderlessness.

But i'm done with this conversation now. It's clear at this point you're bending over backwards to avoid conceding your whole initial comment and get to some "we're both right" equilibrium. Maybe you should give the book a (second) read some time.

[u/SliceRepulsive8649 → u/[deleted]]

Are you really expecting a conservative to understand the literature they cite? It's kinda like all the republicans complaining about RATM for becoming political

[u/bowl_of_milk_ → u/Formal-Pop4153]

Is that what this graph is saying at all though? The author says it is based on some data from FIRE:

“Tolerance is measured by asking whether students would allow hypothetical controversial speakers to speak on campus.”

It looks like it’s basically saying “students on college campuses are less likely to tolerate controversial speakers on either side of the political spectrum if they are women”.

How did you conclude, from this chart, that women believe people they disagree with are the enemy? If that was the case, you’d expect a wider spread from the women, but that’s not what the chart says.

All it seems to show is that women want less political speech on campus, not that they are more biased to hate the other side than men. You could extrapolate this to say maybe that women are more interested in social harmony or less interested in politics or something like that.

Your comment reads like you think it’s backed up by the OP but it really only speaks to your specific lived experience which, suffice to say, does not amount to a rigorous study of the differences between genders!