When a white supremacist murders blacks or Jews, no one doubts that his murders are driven by his hateful, bigoted ideology. When homophobes attack a gay youth, we rightly label this a hate crime.
But when a man filled to overflowing with hatred of women acts upon this hatred and launches a killing spree targeting women, many people find it hard to accept that his violence has anything to do with his misogyny. They’re quick to blame it on practically anything else they can think of – guns, video games, mental illness – though none of these things in themselves would explain why a killer would target women.
In the case of Elliot Rodger, who set out on Friday night aiming, as he put it in a chilling video, to “slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blonde slut” in a popular sorority house at the University of California, Santa Barbara, some Men’s Rights activists and other manospherians are doing their best to convince the world that misogyny had nothing to do with it.
On A Voice for Men, for example, Janet Bloomfield (who goes by the name JudgyBitch), notes that Rodger killed more men than women, and thereby declares that
Elliot was an equal opportunity hate monger, torn between wanting to kill women and wanting to kill men. …
Jessica Valenti proclaims that “misogyny kills”, blithely unconcerned with the fact that more men than women were killed. Killing men is misogyny? That’s an interesting interpretation.
Bloomfield ignores the reason more men were killed than women: Rodger’s planned massacre of sorority women failed. He was unable to get inside the sorority house. And so he was forced to improvise.
On Twitter, meanwhile, cultural commenter Cathy Young, long sympathetic to Men’s Righsters, seems to think that Rodger’s rampage was entirely due to “mental illness” and argues that connecting Rodger’s rampage to a wider culture of misogyny is a form of “anti-male hate speech.”
Even more strangely, the proudly racist Steve Sailer – a hero to Heartiste and others in the “alt-right” wing of the manosphere – has declared that Rodger wasn’t motivated by misogyny but rather by “anti-Blondism,” and that his targeting of “ blonde sluts” in a popular sorority house was “an extremely intentional racial hate crime.” Never mind that the half-Asian Rodger idolized blonde women as superior (even as he hated them) and that his comments online are littered with rather crude, rather traditional racism against people who weren’t white.
But Sailer’s claim is little more than an attempt at a derail.
The fact is that Rodger made his misogyny very clear — in his videos, in his internet postings and most of all in his 140-page “manifesto,” which is filled with angry denunciations of women and elaborate fantasies of violent “retribution” towards them. As with many misogynists, his misogyny was largely driven by thwarted sexual entitlement: he desired women intensely but they (wisely) wanted nothing to do with him.
Consider the following passages from his manifesto. I’ve put some of the most disturbing bits in bold.
The most beautiful of women choose to mate with the most brutal of men, instead of magnificent gentlemen like myself. Women should not have the right to choose who to mate and breed with. That decision should be made for them by rational men of intelligence. If women continue to have rights, they will only hinder the advancement of the human race by breeding with degenerate men and creating stupid, degenerate offspring. This will cause humanity to become even more depraved with each generation. Women have more power in human society than they deserve, all because of sex. There is no creature more evil and depraved than the human female.
Women are like a plague. They don’t deserve to have any rights. Their wickedness must be contained in order prevent future generations from falling to degeneracy. Women are vicious, evil, barbaric animals, and they need to be treated as such. … All women must be quarantined like the plague they are, so that they can be used in a manner that actually benefits a civilized society. …
The first strike against women will be to quarantine all of them in concentration camps. At these camps, the vast majority of the female population will be deliberately starved to death. That would be an efficient and fitting way to kill them all off. I would take great pleasure and satisfaction in condemning every single woman on earth to starve to death.
I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds just a little bit like misogyny.
Rodger saw his “Day of Retribution” as part of a war against women. Elsewhere in his manifesto he wrote:
Women’s rejection of me is a declaration of war, and if it’s war they want, then war they shall have. It will be a war that will result in their complete and utter annihilation. I will deliver a blow to my enemies that will be so catastrophic it will redefine the very essence of human nature.
Now, there is no question that he also hated certain kinds of men and boys – the “obnoxious brutes” he so often saw with the “pretty blonde girls” he simultaneously desired and despised. His manifesto is dotted with denunciations of them, as well as with denunciations of humanity as a whole. At one point, he posted a fantasy on PUAhate about killing all the men on earth with a virus so he could have all the women for himself. But he thought about, and wrote about, killing women all the time.
Indeed, even when he was bullied as a youngster, he directed most of his anger not at the bullies themselves but at their girlfriends.
Remembering one bullying incident from high school, he wrote
Some boys randomly pushed me against the lockers as they walked past me in the hall. One boy who was tall and had blonde hair called me a “loser”, right in front of his girlfriends. Yes, he had girls with him. Pretty girls. And they didn’t seem to mind that he was such an evil bastard. In fact, I bet they liked him for it. … The most meanest and depraved of men come out on top, and women flock to these men. Their evil acts are rewarded by women; while the good, decent men are laughed at. … I hated the girls even more than the bullies because of this.
Rodger was not only a misogynist; he was explicitly an enemy of feminism. While he doesn’t seem to have ever identified as a Men’s Rights activist per se – the only “rights” he seemed to be interested in were his own – his postings online echo the extreme and ignorant denunciations of feminism seen amongst MRAs and other manospherians.
This, too, has been denied by Men’s Rights activists. On AVFM, the “non-feminist” would-be “philosopher” Fidelbogen declares that
We have no evidence yet that Elliott Rodger was anything but apolitical in regard to feminism as such. He was not outspoken about feminism … He was only a sexually frustrated chump with mental issues, who apparently “hooked up” with PUA literature, and websites like “the Manhood Academy”.
In fact, Rodger attacked feminism explicitly in a number of comments on PUAhate, where rabid antifeminism is essentially the default ideology. In one comment, he declared bluntly that “feminism must be destroyed.” In another he predicted that
One day incels will realize their true strength and numbers, and will overthrow this oppressive feminist system.
Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.
And while he saw PUAhate itself as “a putrid pit of despair,” he argued that
it does give a view of what the world is really like, what women are really like, and the evils of a feminist society.
Every male should read the posts here so that they can be awakened. There are too many delusional males worshipping women who would only spit in their faces.
There is no question that Rodger was a very disturbed man. I’m not a psychiatrist, nor do I have access to his medical or psychiatric records. But I would not be shocked to find that he was struggling with some sort of mental disorder or disorders. He was seeing several therapists, and a psychiatrist prescribed the antipsychotic Risperidone for him; he refused to take it. This prescription in itself doesn’t prove he was psychotic; psych meds are often prescribed for off-label uses, and Risperidone is also used to reduce irritability in people with autism. (Rodger was reportedly diagnosed as having aspergers.)
But, as someone who has himself dealt with depression for decades, I cannot help but think, reading through his manifesto, that his thinking was, as mine has sometimes been, distorted by depression.
He was also clearly a narcissist, in the colloquial sense if not necessarily in the clinical sense, whose resentment of others was driven by narcissistic rage. And some of his pronouncements, particularly towards the end of his life, were so grandiose it’s hard to know whether these reflected his tendency towards melodrama, fueled by his love of fantasy literature and video games, or if they are symptoms of a delusional disconnection from the real world.
I don’t think, given the considerable evidence there is of his troubled state of mind, that raising these issues detracts from the main point, and that is:
Rodger was a misogynist through and through. In many ways his misogyny was his life. If you watch his videos and read his manifesto, you’ll see that he related anything and everything in his life to what he saw as the grand tragedy of his rejection by “girls,” a state of affairs he blamed entirely on the girls of the world and not on his own “magnificent” self.
He was utterly consumed by his sexual obsession with “pretty blonde girls” and their utter lack of interest in him, and, increasingly, by his elaborate fantasies of “retribution” against them, which ultimately led to his killing spree on Friday night.
To deny that he was driven by misogyny makes as little sense as denying that Hitler was driven by anti-Semitism.
The evidence is as clear-cut as it can be on this point. Anyone who can’t or won’t admit this is either an ideologue or a liar – or both.
—
Thanks to Melody and several other readers for pointing me to some of the examples used in this post.
It really says someone’s the lowest, most pathetic (or bathetic, if that’s a word) sort of loser if they get something out of spending time trying to cause anger or distress to women on the internet. How contemptible is that?
Well. Kittehserf.
Pretty damn despicable in my view, and there isn’t a fork in my eye. [perhaps I sould confess that I’ve been reading Schlock the mercenary, where forks and eyeballs do seem to come together more often than would be prudent.]
Also, bathetic is a word, so congratulation for improving my prose.
Stevie – ha, good. I knew bathos was a word, but wasn’t too sure if that extended to bathetic. It certainly applies to trolls, doesn’t it? There’s nothing of pathos about them, it’s bathos all the way down.
Speaking of enlarged vocabularies, is “fork in my eye” a phrase other than in the “I’d rather stick a fork in my eye” sense? I’m not familiar with it.
Kittehserf, it’s a perfectly cromulent word (bathetic).
Part of me wonders how the ‘but he killed men!’ brigade would be defending him if he’d actually achieved his goal of getting into the sorority house. The rest of me is horrified by the possibilities.
Ninja’d!
Robert – oh, they’d find a way. Those women at the sorority house could have just sexed him. It was their responsibility not to be murdered, after all.
Och, I’m on my phone amd browser shut down so I lost my post, bummer.
@cassandrakitty
So much this! You summed up what I was trying to say in one succinct paragraph, thank you! It seems sad that so many guys could be so clueless bc that mentality is not just in MRAs or evenguys who just hate women, I’ve found it tl be pretty pervasive.
(On another note, can I just say there are some muthafuckin smart people commenting on this site. I really enjoy reading everyone’s POV and even though I agree with most everything being said here there are still new perspectives to learn, and I really appreciate that. So thanks to David and all of you! Cheers to you!)
Gah! A week on and misogynists are still trying to deny that this murderous asshole was one of them? Hey, trolls, do you know the difference between this guy and the you? His attacks on women went far enough to be considered newsworthy.
That’s it. You manosphere turds are just smart enough to stick to the sort of abuse that doesn’t make headlines and he wasn’t. There’s no other difference you and him. Absolutely fucking none.
He went on to say that her marrying to money would have helped him get the hot blondes he wanted. His own mother (more specifically, her body) was a commodity that should have been traded not just to make his life easier, but to get him sex.
Yeah. That’s definitely an argument against his misogyny.
::points up at Sir Bodsworth’s post::
THIS.
A better kind of spinning.
Hypnosis via turtle
Sir Bodsworth
Absolutely. What would these people have said if he’d turned out to be just another one in the terrible, dreadfully long line of men summed up at http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/ . Probably nothing. Just another news day.
Or is every single one of these entitled, violent, murderous assholes also suffering from this mysterious mental illness that no one’s been able to name.
I remain convinced that the killer was simply insane. Yes, his hatred was focused upon women, but it could have as easily been focused on anything else that his diseased, tormented mind singled out as the source of his angst. There is no shortage of examples of the oppression of women in the world and it is not the least bit hard to present cases of misogyny that are valid and supportive of the feminist perspective. To prop up a guy who was unmistakably mentally ill hurts the cause by making it seem to be desperate for a clearly visible villain, when there are no shortage of suitable villains to be had. Most of Hollywood and the advertising industry should suffice.
And I remain convinced that you are an ableist, misogynist, privileged shit-head with all the logical ability of a lichen. Glad I’m not you.
But somehow, taking a man at his word when he spends his time ranting about how he hates women, fantasises to other misogynists how he wants to kill us, and doesn’t get called out for that, then goes on to kill women … no, that’s not a valid case of misogyny.
I guess you don’t think Lepine and Sodini and all the other men who’ve mass-murdered women or killed us one at a time were valid examples, either.
I’m surprised there aren’t lost hands lying thick on the ground. You’d think they’d fall off with all the nuclear-strength handwaving going on.
Also: wtf is this “the feminist perspective” shit? If you think there’s any other perspective on this that doesn’t support misogyny, then you’re basically joining them. There’s no fence-sitting on this subject.
Oh well, italics look pretty, I guess.
Feminist logic….
1. This man was so misogynistic that he went on a gun rampage to specifically murder women.
2. His plans to murder only women were thwarted
3. So as a last resort he changed his plans and ended up murdering more men instead.
Actual logic…
1. Misogynists do not murder men, just as vegetarians do not slaughter cows, racists do not persecute their own race and terrorists do not buy their enemy flowers
2. If he had claimed, before going on his killing spree, to be from the planet Zarkon on a mission to wipe out the human species, that does not mean he actually is from the planet Zarkon….. it just means he has serious mental health issues
3. His actions reveal that he was not really a misogynist, he was just a deranged and violent lunatic with serious mental health issues.
4. We know he had serious mental health issues because people of sound mental health do not go on a killing spree because they can’t get a girlfiend
5. We know he was not a misogynist because he murdered more men than women, and because he was a deranged gunman with mental health issues (see point 4)
To use the actions of a mentally deranged person to try to demonise all men is absolutely disgusting behaviour.
Imagine he was a mentally disturbed black man who was obsessed with ‘white privilege’ and not getting a job in this ‘white dominated world’. Then he goes on a rampage and murders a mixture of black and white people (more black people than white people if truth be told).
You people are acting like white people saying “This proves he hated white people – even though he actually murdered more black people. It also proves we live in a culture which hates white people. Black people are a threat to white people”
That is how twisted, hateful and disgusting your arguments are. You are trying to use the actions of a mentally deranged gunman to stir up hatred towards men. YOU people are the ones spreading hate.
#2 is rebutted by the fact that there are no websites dedicated to the planet Zarkon. Whereas there are many websites dedicated to hating women and talking about killing them. Belief in Zarkon is not a common belief whereas mysogyny is pervasive. You do not have to be crazy to believe mysogynistic things – in fact to have no mysogynistic beliefs at all would require serious dedication and self-reflection to the extent that I doubt such a person exists.
So, Spinning Up Your Own Arse, you identify all men as misogynists?
Men who aren’t misogynists won’t be particularly impressed with that.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/elliot-rodgers-trail-carnage/story?id=23858106
He tried to murder more women, including a woman outside the sorority house who was shot five times but lived. There are twelve others of unknown gender who were injured as well.
If you want to ignore how he clearly attempted to get into that sorority and murder more women, no one can stop you. However, it’d be great if you would leave and deny the facts of the case on a different website.
Spinning For Difficulty, instead of making up imaginary feminist logic, why don’t you read what I (and the various commenters here) actually said about his motives? I mean, if you want to argue against imaginary people who argued something different than what we argued, that’s fine, I guess, but there’s no point in doing it here. Why not just wander around your house yelling at yourself? That way at least we don;t have to hear it.
I don’t know why people think Hitler was an anti-Semite. After all, his policies resulted in the deaths of many more non-Jews than Jews. Sure, he was known to be involved with anti-Semitic groups and to say things that were just like what those groups said, but to draw some kind of link between that and the whole Holocaust thing is just nonsense from people who hate Gentiles.
Clearly, there is no need for any self examination or reflection needed on the part of the anti-Semites who are blameless in the whole affair. Or they would be, if they even existed, which they don’t.
No, the reason Hitler did what he did is that he was clearly Austrian. I’m sorry if that offends those of you who are Austrian, or who have friends, family or other loved ones who are Austrian, but that’s really all there is to it. All we have to do in the future is keep poisonous gasses out of the hands of Austrians and we’ll never see a repeat of the tragedy.
Try again after understanding feminism. I’m not holding my breath, since I’ve seen the garbage people who use the phrase ”feminist logic” in a derogatory manner spew out.
Rodger was an idiot who had no plan B in case his plan A failed (which it did). That his bloodlust took out more men than women doesn’t negate the fact that the real target of his hate was women.
I’m annoyed by people who think real-life murderers are some frickin’ Hannibal Lecter or Jigsaw level geniuses who always stay one step ahead of others. Most of them are not particularly intelligent, and are prone to screw up their plans. The media glorifying serial and mass murderers is a problem (probably ties into the whole ‘lone wolf’ thing).
Firstly, vegetarians don’t identify as cows, so your comparison is stupid.
Secondly, persecution takes many forms, not all of them outright violent. Someone going on a killing spree is not persecuting his victims, he’s fucking murdering people. Are you seriously saying this act would have only counted as misogyny if a large group of men had been rounding up women for concentration camps (which was, incidentally, what Rodger wanted to do)?
Thirdly, you’re mangling the definition of terrorist. A terrorist is defined by his violent acts of terror, not by the group he’s targeting. A misogynist hates women, but doesn’t necessarily go out and murder them. Indeed, a misogynist might buy a woman flowers (or drinks, or dinners, etc.) because he expects to be sexually rewarded by the woman. The terror begins when the woman refuses.
Learn to logic before accusing others of failing at it.
That’s… stupefyingly stupid. Read Kim’s response to get a clue of how utterly asinine your argument is.
How?
Spot that fallacy: ”He had mental health issues because he did X, and X is only done by people with mental health issues.”
Logic, not your strongest suit. Where’s your evidence that only people with mental health issues do this? What are you basing your premise on?
All you’ve shown so far is an impressive amount of false equivalencies, circular reasoning, begging the question and ignoring evidence. Logic, you no haz it.
Nobody was demonising all men. I’m a man, and I do not feel demonised by the fact that Rodger was motivated by misogyny. Or are you suggesting all men are really misogynists? Tell me, who’s the one demonising men, again?
What is it with the false equivalencies? Men are not oppressed as a group. Black people are. Trying to equate the two groups is dishonest at best, hateful at worst. And again with the mentally disturbed. There is no evidence of that. Stop it.
Anyway, if the hypothetical black man had left behind a 130+ manifesto of how he hated white people, then yes, we could assume the crime was racially motivated, and that he failed at getting at his true targets. But minorities are usually the victims, not the perpetrators of hate crimes, so again, your comparison fails. A better comparison would be a white man going out to murder black people.
No. Women are not the privileged group, men are. Your false equivalencies are getting nerve-grating. Try understanding privilege and power dynamics before opening your ignorant mouth.
”No, you’re the real criminals for suggesting there is an institutional problem that I might be a part of!”
There is no institutional hatred of men. Misandry is not a problem on par with misogyny. Feminism pointing out that this act was motivated by institutional misogyny is not hateful, it’s stating facts. Feminists are not saying that all men are inherently misogynistic, you are. Expressing criticism against an unfair, uneaqual system that teaches men that they are entitled to women is not spreading hate.
You, sir, are an idiot.
Wow. I went a whole 8 hours without hearing “Not All men” and “Rodgers didn’t hate women!”
Well, I’m up now. (Sigh. Scrolls up). Nevermind.