>
Reason #1538 it’s not such a good idea to spend time online nursing your resentments towards the opposite sex because no one from that sex seems to want to have sex with you: Because that kind of, sort of, makes you a little bit like Jared Loughner.
The Wall Street Journal managed to track down what are apparently some comments Loughner made on a gaming site; they’re full of his usual conspiratorial nonsense (his lunatic theories on grammar and currency) but they’re also, as the Journal notes, “peppered with displays of misogyny.” One posting
titled “Why Rape,” … said women in college enjoyed being raped. “There are Rape victims that are under the influence of a substance. The drinking is leading them to rape. The loneliness will bring you to depression. Being alone for a very long time will inevitably lead you to rape.”
This is the dark side of the “incel” mindset. (That is, those who turn their “involuntarily celibate” state into an identity.)
Another time, the Journal reports, Loughner
started a thread titled “Talk, Talk, Talking about Rejection.” He solicited stories of rejection by the opposite sex. The next day he wrote, “Its funny…when..they say lets go on a date about 3 times..and they dont….go…” Three days later, he wrote, “Its funny when your 60 wondering……what happen at 21.”
There is other evidence that Loughner nursed anger towards and hatred of women and authority figures: he apparently scrawled the phrases “die bitch” and “die cops” on a letter he’d gotten from congresswoman Giffords.
As Amanda Marcotte points out, there are a lot of people out there who’ve responded with anger at the very notion “that misogyny might play a role in the choice of a young man to shoot a powerful woman in the head … .”
But the fact is that misogyny has consequences, and one of its most common and most predictable consequences is violence towards women. Misogyny plays a role, as Marcotte notes, even when the perpetrator of this violence is “crazy.”
What I’m seeing here is that Loughner, mental illness or no, completely absorbed society’s teachings about male entitlement and female sinfulness, that men have a right to have needs filled at women’s expense, and that women give up their rights to bodily autonomy if they do things deemed unladylike, like have sex or drink alcohol.
And just as those who spew hateful political rhetoric — filled with talk of guns and targets and “second amendment solutions” to political “problems” — shouldn’t be surprised when someone takes that rhetoric seriously, so those who spew misogyny online shouldn’t be surprised when someone acts on that misogyny and attacks a woman. As Marcotte puts it,
just because someone has a mental illness rarely means that he’s completely unaware of the world around him. Loughner’s ability with a gun or his thoughts on rape didn’t spring fully formed from his brain, but are the product of an individual interacting with a specific environment.
Those who contribute to that toxic environment — whether they’re Sarah Palin talking about “reloading” or some random woman-hater talking gleefully online about bashing “bitches” — share in the responsibility when someone pulls a gun and shoots down a female politician he’s convinced himself is a “bitch.”
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>"Yes, because your observations about Western society from OUTSIDE Western society are so credible."—Sal BroWhat could be construed as a logical fallacy, btw.
>Santo-ey:You're the second person to show up in the last couple of days who thinks he's very clever for referring to me as "Davey." Maybe you're all the same person. Maybe this is all a dream.
>Of course it is all a dream Daffyd.
>Davey – Every day with you is a dream.
>@SalFirst of all, thank you for actually having a real, on-topic discussion with me.Leaving aside Loughner, if you don't like violent rhetoric being used to justify violence, then what is your opinion of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? What about NATO's cluster-bombing campaign in Kosovo during the Clinton administration? The loudest voices in our political and pundit classes who have been railing against violent rhetoric this week have supported this kind of killing (and putting US troops in harm's way) all along. That's a much bigger deal to me, and the utter silence on it this week suggests that we have a much more serious problem with violence than most people are willing to admit, even after this latest headline-grabbing tragedy.
>Yohan:You didn't understand me, I guess.I don't think all MRAs hate women. I think there are probably plenty of men out there who want to be able to be stay-at-home-dads and not get called names and stuff like that.Blanket statements like "All feminists hate men" are stupid. It's like saying "all Germans were Nazis" it's not true and it's stupid to say such things.
>It all comes down to this. An evil white male empire exists today and all David has as evidence for it's existence is a stoner shooting a woman, a schizoid shooting a woman politician, and a blogger who calls himself evilwhitemalempire.
>And let's not forget The Internet Hate Machine. Great evidence for an evil white male empire.
>Mr Futrelle…Your's is the only new environment I have entered in the past fortnight and also the only one to which I have provided a particular email address.I'd appreciate an explanation for the several hundred items of spam that email account has received in the past twelve hours. You are the only possible source. Not a good look, mate.Readers should take note.
>Greg, you are an idiot. This blog is on blogger. Any email you type in to post a comment is not seen by me. I was under the impression you were a super genius, so I'm not sure why you might be confused on this point.
>Not my field mate. I've subscribed thru blogger to post here. With a specific email address.Are you telling me blogger is the source?I'm serious about tracking this. Your's is the only new place or thing I've done on the net in weeks. THAT I do keep tabs on. If it's not you can you point me in the right direction.Let's get the bastards.
>To add david. I DO apologise for my bluntless. I was way over-reaction to the f-n spam and was bloody seething.I'm not immune to the stuff but it's normally only a couple a day. This is unique for me.Hate the bastards.
>It makes zero sense to me that blogger would be the source of spam, but, like I said, I have nothing to do with it; if you put in an email address, blogger gets that, not me.
>OK David. Thanks for that forebearance.
>Men were targeted in assassinations for millennia, yet no one assumed it was because of misandry. Men will continue to be targeted, and again, it will not be assumed to be misandry. The vast, vast majority of political assassinations were and will continue to be men. The majority of murder victims in general are men. This one man's hate is no different than any other assassin’s hate. It may be tailored to a woman as opposed to a man, but it is no less or more dangerous. Women, including female politicians, are still far safer than men. Political rhetoric had little to nothing to do with this. People were killing those in power long before the internet and CNN.
>@ biscuit queenVery good observation. The gender of the killer and the victim in political cases is irrelevant.The best example we have in Asia is the killing of Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by 2 men.Her son, Rajiv Gandhi took over the politicial function and he was killed by a female suicide bomber, 18 other people died as well.
>Davey Wavey:Do you still write for Salon.com? Or do you work for Amanda Marcoote full-time now?
>Yohan and The Bisquit Queen:Keep up the good work. Bravo and Kudos!
>Oops, my comment was too long, so I need to break it up into 2 parts:wytchfinde555,What could be construed as a logical fallacy, btw.Yes, I worded that poorly. I meant to point out that it is unlikely that Yohan has enough current information about Western relationships to make a judgment about what outcomes are most common among them. Perhaps he can explain the source of his information. (Television and movies are not credible sources, btw.)Joe,First of all, thank you for actually having a real, on-topic discussion with me.My pleasure. 🙂 [I]f you don't like violent rhetoric being used to justify violence, then what is your opinion of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? What about NATO's cluster-bombing campaign in Kosovo during the Clinton administration?I'm not a fan of war, particularly these wars and the bombing in Kosovo. I think these examples are different, though, because they are inherently violent acts. Speaking about them using violent language is necessary, given their nature. (Ironically, it's common for politicians to use euphemisms to avoid having to bluntly describe the violence involved in war.) This is different from using "reload" as a metaphor for "vote".The loudest voices in our political and pundit classes who have been railing against violent rhetoric this week have supported this kind of killing (and putting US troops in harm's way) all along.Well, arguably, if these politicians use violent imagery to talk about a war and some soldier is inspired to act on it, they'd consider that a good thing. It's effed up.
>The Biscuit Queen,Men were targeted in assassinations for millennia, yet no one assumed it was because of misandry.Historically, a huge majority of authority figures have been male, which may be reason enough for a majority of assassinated leaders to have been male. Beside that, though, if we'd found "die man scum" written by one of those fabled man-hating feminists who then went on to kill a male politician, we'd be right to question whether the target's sex factored into her act. In this case, Loughner had written about hating women AND THEN shot a female politician. It's not freaking misandry to bring this up as a possible motive when there's evidence suggesting it might be true.
>Is it misogyny to wonder that this politician was likely the only one having town hall meetings in the vicinity at the time? Seems more likely a cause than her gender. How often is a politician in one's town?
>I. M. Salos said… Yohan and The Bisquit Queen:Keep up the good work. Bravo and Kudos! Thank you, it's easy here, just to show some historical facts and to present some economic data, and finally to ask: I am a man, where are my privileges?To consider all MRAs worldwide to be bad, because a crazy guy was shooting a female politician somewhere in southern USA is anyway far over the top and cannot be considered as a serious argument.
>I never heard that in case the victim was a male politician and the killer was a female (it really happens, a female suicide bomber in Israel, in Pakistan and India etc…) that this could have been done out of misandry.Sal Bro said….Historically, a huge majority of authority figures have been male, which may be reason enough for a majority of assassinated leaders to have been male. Not really true if you read about history in Europe, there were many highly influencial royals, who were females. Russia, France come to my mind or also Britain.http://bedfordstmartins.com/newcatalog.aspx?disc=History&course=European+History&isbn=0312154399The Trial of Mary Queen of Scots… this brief narrative with documents explores a variety of important themes in English history, including issues of religion, nationality, sovereignty, gender, and the legitimacy of female rule. There are also many other examples of ordinary females being executed in the past (or you might call it better assassinated), like the lynch justice in the US or the witch trials in Europe. To call this 'misogyny' is rather pure fantasy of a feminist, bashing men for all and everything. The reason why these females were killed were politics, religion, racism etc. but for sure not misogyny.
>Now you're just being obtuse. I didn't say misogyny was "more likely" than other plausible motivations. I'm saying that it's ridiculous to dismiss it out of hand given the evidence, unless you're trying to push some pet agenda.And Tucson has two congressional representatives, Grijalva (a man) and Giffords (a woman). They're on the same congressional calendar, and both have offices in Tucson. You have heard of Google, I assume.
>Sorry, above is in reference to The Biscuit Queen's comment.Yohan, I said "majority" of rulers have been male. Your anecdotal evidence fails to address this.