In the spring of 2023, several news outlets reported the heart-warming story of a fourteen-year-old autistic boy who made a poster and presented it to a female classmate, asking her to be his valentine. The girl said no, whereupon the boy's mother took to social media, recounting the tale and emphasising just how 'shy and socially awkward' her son was. The story got national attention and 'the next day at school, a number of [the boy's] classmates approached him with kind words and offers to be his valentine'. One girl 'presented him with a poster like the one he had made to ask the girl the day before'. He became a high-status victim, at least for a day; the girl he had initially asked out, a heartless bully. Yet what exactly had had she been supposed to do? Say yes when she didn't want to in order to spare him humiliation?
The story illustrates many of the problems with 'just' being kind. In the eyes of some, the boy's autism elevated him above the other boys who pressure girls to do things they do not want. His shyness and social awkwardness were problems the original girl could have solved simply by saying yes. Maybe she judged boys like him just because they were different. Her rejection became, not a simple expression of her desires – just as his choice to ask her, rather than another girl, had been – but a judgment on his worth as a human being, one which the rest of the world set about correcting. To some, the boy had a right to kindness and validation which the girl was withholding. But what of her right to have her needs respected? There's a suggestion that while all girls have the right to say no, it would make life a lot easier if they could train themselves not to, coupled with the old message that girls are better than boys at manipulating their desires – see how many of them were willing to approach the boy the next day! There's so much prejudice in the world, but if girls agreed to offer themselves to the boys who felt most left out, we'd have begun the work of removing it. Taken to its logical conclusion, this is incel thinking.
