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.
Wow men really need to look back at Their story, HISTORY, or rather His Story…..it’s full of raping, beating, and killing women. I must spread the word of this book until my death because the author died from cancer because he felt this book was so important and it really is. Please read and spread the word of Jack Holland’s: Misogyny, The World’s oldest prejudice. It is chock full of man’s long attempt of genocide on women. It takes the reader all the way back to the birth of misogyny….may be out of print….buy used, it’s that important.
It seems my comment has provoked a reaction. I stand by my arguments, but perhaps I did not explain them well enough – especially given how emotive this event is for everyone.
Let me try again (before running for cover!)
If he was a misogynist then if we look at his actions we have to conclude he was also a misandrist to AT LEAST the same extent. When someone is BOTH a misogynist AND a misandrist the two effectively cancel each other out…. and you are essentially left with someone who is just a violent, sick, dangerous lunatic.
I don’t think either of these labels (misandrist / misogynist) are really adequate to explain the man’s state of mind or attitudes towards men and women.
As I pointed out previously, he cared about women enough to hate them, but he did not even care about men enough to even consider them worthy of hate (or any other feeling). Men did not seem to even register as people in his sick mind.
The men he killed were like bugs splatted on a windshield to him. They were in the way, he killed them, it meant nothing to him. He did not care about men to even kill them out of hatred. Watch his videos and you’ll see he is incapable of viewing men as people in their own right. And that is why he does not spend time and energy expressing hatred towards men.
Do you ‘hate’ the bugs that you splat with your car windshield, or tread on when you walk down the street? No of course you don’t. But neither do you care enough about them to get upset when you squash them. The truth is they mean NOTHING to you. The injury, death, pain and suffering you cause to hundreds of insects on a daily basis means NOTHING to you. This is also how Elliot Rodger felt about men. He viewed them as bugs.
And this is why it’s (at best) over-simplistic to label him a misogynist for (1) ranting about women (2) killing some women (3) ignoring men completely and (4) killing some men.
Those were his actions and those actions should determine how we label him. You can’t pick and choose!
By portraying the men that he killed as simply ‘collateral damage’ or ‘the next best thing to women, when no more women were available to shoot at’ you people are demonstrating EXACTLY THE SAME attitude towards men as Elliot Rodger.
Your attitudes demonstrate that you do not even value the murdered men’s status (as men) high enough to attribute any significance or importance to their murder!
This is the essence of the message you are all conveying…
He murdered women = he hated women
He murdered men = he hated women
And (apparently) for me to view the men’s deaths as significant makes me an evil witch who is trying to distract everyone reading these comments from his REAL crime (the only crime we should be focusing on!) …… which is the murder of the women.
Your collective reaction to my comments is the epitome of ‘patriarchal’ attitudes in action.
In a patriarchy men are disposable and women’s (and children’s) protection is of utmost importance (This is why we have the convention ….”women and children first” ….. or the news headline…… “Five people died in the accident, including two women”). And there are obvious biological (survival) reasons why we have always tended to adopt this unequal value system. A population which loses half its males is really not in any real danger of going extinct, but a population which loses half its females is. We are hard wired to value women’s safety and survival above men’s. That is what the ‘patriarchy’ has always been about.
You are viewing Elliot Rodger’s actions through the lens of patriarchy, not gender equality. I’m not saying you *have* to view his crimes through the lens of gender equality – I am just pointing it out, that’s all.
The fact is Elliot Rodger viewed men as disposable, worthless and insignificant to the point of not really being able to view them as human beings at all. Like bugs or bacteria or weeds he was incapable of hating men because he was incapable of feeling anything significant about them at all! And like bugs, bacteria or weeds he had no hesitation in killing them when they got in his way.
To depict his actions ONLY in terms of misogyny (especially in the unavoidable context of ‘gender equality’) is dishonest and exploitative. And it demonstrates a total lack of empathy or concern towards the male victims and towards men in general. ANd it make a mockery of the concept of ‘gender equality’ where men are supposed to be equal human beings who’s lives and deaths are just as significant as women’s.
Even though I think the term misogynist is wholly inadequate to describe this deeply sick individual, I would not have objected to him being labelled a misogynist if he had been labelled a misandrist at the same time. By labelling him as both, the inadequacy of those labels to describe his behaviour becomes apparent.
Misogyny – like racism, xenophobia, homophobia etc – might be irrational and abhorrent stances to take from moral / philosophical point of view, but they ARE based on well defined principles and in THAT sense are logical (ie they have internal consistency).
Misogyny = specific hatred of women
Racism = specific hatred towards (or feeling of superiority relative to) other races based on their race
Xenophobia = specific hatred of people from other countries
Homophobia = specific hatred of homosexuals
When those principles do not apply to someone’s behaviour (ie when that internal consistency is broken) then the label can no longer be applied to them. For example…
If I SAY I hate foreigners, but my actions demonstrate I actually hate everyone then the label ‘xenophobe’ is an inaccurate term to describe my behaviour (even if some of the things I say are indeed examples of xenophobic hate speech).
If I SAY I discriminate against gays, but my actions demonstrate I actually discriminate against everyone who is in a sexual relationship (heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals etc), then ‘homophobe’ is an inaccurate term to describe my behaviour (even if some of the things I say are indeed examples of homophobic hate speech).
If I SAY I hate women, but then I go out and murder men AND women (and more men than women), then ‘misogynist’ is an inaccurate term to describe my behaviour (even if some of the things I say are indeed examples of misogynistic hate speech).
I don’t think I can explain it any clearer than that. Describing Elliot Rodger’s behaviour in terms of misogyny is so over-simplistic it is completely misleading.
There are only two reasons to misrepresent the reality of an event with inaccurate terms.
1. You made an honest mistake because you haven’t thought about the subject deeply enough
2. You are being dishonest and are deliberately trying to mischaracterise the event for some ulterior motive
Finally, I have been accused of unfairly defining Elliot Rodger as mentally ill, when he is (according to so many people in these comments) just a misogynist. Examples have been provided of racist tyrants throughout history who also murdered or persecuted their own population etc etc.
I would classify ALL of history’s tyrants and mass murderers as mentally ill (mentally damaged), along with Elliot Rodger. The history books only label them as racists or xenophobes or anti semites (or whatever) because it does not serve the ruling classes’ interests to have the general public grasp the true nature of the ruling classes throughout history – which is a succession of sociopaths/ psychopaths who were the product of abusive and dysfunctional parenting and schooling.
When you understand how sociopaths and psychopaths are actually created (ie through sustained trauma and abuse, particularly in early childhood) you soon realise the childrearing practices of the *aristocracy* as well as the *elite school system* and *the military* have ALL been purposefully designed to create sociopaths and psychopaths of varying degrees.
The majority of the ruling classes throughout history from kings and queens to modern day presidents and prime ministers were (like society’s crazy gunmen) all sociopaths/ psychopaths who’s minds were broken by abuse, trauma and neglect in early childhood. That is not to excuse their actions – it is to UNDERSTAND the root causes of their actions.
By denying the mental health issues these people obviously have you are closing the door to the ONLY way we have to prevent future tyrannical madmen or mass murderers, which is to start focusing on early childhood and specifically parenting. We live in a world were 90% of mother still *admit* to hitting their infants and children! Rich career obsessed women who abandon their infants to strangers within weeks of giving birth when they can well afford to be a full time mother is wilful child neglect. Feminist women are the ONLY group in society who appear regularly on daytime TV defending their moral/ legal right to assault other human beings – and their own children no less!
Looking at the causes of sociopathy/ psychopathy and mental illness in general leads us to some very uncomfortable home truths and THAT is why most people prefer to simply attach over simplistic labels to society’s broken people and pretend they grew up to be the way they were in a vacuum.
The cry of ‘misogyny’ and the label ‘misogynist’ only serves to whip up emotion and animosity between (and amongst) the sexes. It has zero use in understanding what is ACTUALLY GOING ON in the minds of these *obviously* seriously damaged people.
Only by studying how sociopaths and psychopaths (and other variations of those) are formed can we actually protect ourselves and the next generations from being victims of more violence. Science is already extremely clear about how these kinds of people are made. And abusive and traumatic parenting is the main factor. But this does not fit well into the feminist ‘victim narrative’ where women are automatically innocent victims with no agency, and thus have no responsibility for helping to create the often dysfunctional and violent society we live in…… and the feminist ‘threat narrative’ where dangerous, violent, rape-y men just appeared on earth in a teleport machine – rather than being molded and defined by their early childhood experiences at the hands of their parents – not least by their mothers, daycare staff, primary school teachers – who all tend to be women.
This kind of responsibility-free attitude is both disempowering and demeaning to all women.
Anybody who just cries ‘misogyny!’ instead of asking ‘How the hell did his mother and father treat him as an infant and child to cause him to turn out such a mess?” has already shown they have zero interest in understanding how this event happened or how to prevent another similar event from happening again.
FTFY.
You seem blissfully unaware of all the cultural applauding of the playboy, of the encouragement of “sowing wild oats”, of “playing the field”, the digs at having been “trapped” by “the ball and chain” which positively laud the sexually active single man.
vs the SPINSTER-shaming, “when are you going to find a man”, poor lonely old woman with cats, slut-shaming scorn, pity and derision for the single woman.
And SFD doubles down with the largest teal dear in the history of THTM. I got as far as
before going “No.So much no!”
I
Citation needed because you have no evidence that he was either a misandrist or that he ws a purple unicorn that shits rainbows).
Oooh, what other bigoted hatreds cancel each other out? Is it like there’s only so much room for hatred in me or is it more some weird mathematical equation? Can i not be racist and transphobic at the same time? Or maybe not sexist and homophobic?
And what does it say about your whole argument that misandry is as mythical as that unicorn I mentioned?
I see what you say. Someone who hates a lot of people actually doesn’t hate anybody but is just a “violent, sick, dangerous lunatic”.
Yep, some of the things this all tells us about you:
1. You are an MRA
2. You are boring
3. You are ableist
4. You are misogynistic
5. you neither understand logic nor feel empathy.
6. you are so full of self-importance, you think that coming onto a thread talking about the violent murder of people and the threat of the mass murder of women, and spouting your bullshit as if this is some abstract debate is a really good idea.
7. We would not feel safe with you IRL
8.You should probably fuck off now before the heavy hitters get here, read your crap and tear you to shreds.
SfD: 1: Don’t flatter yourself that getting a reaction means you are doing something right. If someone burns a bag of dogshit on a porch they get a reaction too.
2: f he was a misogynist then if we look at his actions we have to conclude he was also a misandrist to AT LEAST the same extent.
No, we don’t. To take an extreme parallel. Hitler started a war. In the course of it at least 20 million Russians died. He also had concentration camps. In them somewhere between 11-13 million people died.
Of those some 6 million were Jews.
So we can conclude, based on the numbers, that Hitler wasn’t really that much of an anti-semite.
Rodger’s motivation was an anger at women because he felt they had wronged him. His intent was to kill a lot of them. That happenstance prevented this doesn’t remove his motivation, nor his aim.
The men he murdered were murdered because of his hatred of women, just as the whites The Order murdered were because of their hatred of blacks. They needed money for the race war they wanted to start, and the whites were in they way.
The whites who were killed because they were agitating for civil rights were killed because the bigots hated blacks, and they saw the whites as threats and traitors.
3: You are viewing Elliot Rodger’s actions through the lens of patriarchy, not gender equality.
Nope. I am viewing them through the lens of the words and actions of Elliot Rodger; in toto. I am not taking one circumstance (the ratio of the death he managed to cause) but his writings, his videos, and the history he had with others.
. I’m not saying you *have* to view his crimes through the lens of gender equality
Yes (for the values you are assigning those words in this argument) you are. You are trying to argue any other interpretation of his actions is invalid.
If you want to make an argument, own it. You may be wrong, but you won’t look dishonest (of course it’s hard to hide a dishonest argument. The mental gymnastics required to support it tend to give the game away).
I would not have objected to him being labelled a misogynist if he had been labelled a misandrist at the same time.
Of course not. That abolves you, and us, of having to look at the pervasive damage misogyny does to women (and men). If he was both in equal measure than he can be dismissed.
Mighty convenient that. Nothing to see here, move along.
But you’ve summed yourself up nicely:
There are only two reasons to misrepresent the reality of an event with inaccurate terms.
1. You made an honest mistake because you haven’t thought about the subject deeply enough
2. You are being dishonest and are deliberately trying to mischaracterise the event for some ulterior motive
It’s pretty plain that you are doing the second. In addition to the facile nature of the claim you are putting forth (and that you are ignoring Rodger’s attempt to kill more women than he managed to do), you are repeating, in only slightly modified language, the same arguments, at least three times, in the same comment.
That implies a basic lack of faith in the persuasive power of the argument. It makes it look as if the person you are trying to convince is yourself. Which leads to the conclusio that you are being dishonest, and trying to browbeat others in accepting the lie.
As to the farrago of nonsense about “the majority of the ruling classes”, that’s so painfully inept (and stupid) as to merit no detailed response. You have attempted to wash them free of motive, agency, and action by declaring them all to be damaged goods.
I do wonder, however, at the allegation they were created to be so by intent: you soon realise the childrearing practices of the *aristocracy* as well as the *elite school system* and *the military* have ALL been purposefully designed to create sociopaths and psychopaths of varying degrees.
So who designed this and why? And if it’s the intent, and the societal norm, how can you call it an aberration?
<Anybody who just cries
‘misogyny!’ instead of asking‘How the hell did his mother and father treat him as an infant and child to cause him to turn out such a mess?” instead of asking how socidety could foster the level of hatred toward one half of the world has already shown they have zero interest in understanding how this event happened or how to prevent another similar event from happening again.FTFY
Crap. HTML Fail.
Anybody who just cries
‘misogyny!’ instead of asking‘How the hell did his mother and father treat him as an infant and child to cause him to turn out such a mess?” instead of asking how socidety could foster the level of hatred toward one half of the world has already shown they have zero interest in understanding how this event happened or how to prevent another similar event from happening again.FTFY
Ok, actually went back and looked at the last few paragraphs of SFD’s screed.
Apparently, women are failing to take responsibility for turning ER into the
“violent, sick, dangerous lunatic” by the way we “broke” him in his childhood.
I struggle to adequately describe the contempt I feel towards SFD. What a waste of oxygen.
Off to work. Have fun with the chew-toys.
Can’t believe you read that whole screed, @Pecunium. Enjoy your day.
Applauds Augzz for actually reading all of that ghastly teal dear.
Elliot Rodgers wanted to put all women in concentration camps and starve us to death. That’s how much he cared about. I feel so flattered!
By your logic Hitler hated Christians more than he hated Jews because he was sort of indifferent and waffling when it came to Christianity but he cared enough about Jews to round them up and put them in concentration camps.
This is one of the few times in the history of all internet comment sections in which Godwinning is appropriate. That’s how fundamentally illogical you are. Congratulations!
Can we give out an award for least logical troll at the end of the year? Spinning is the leading contender so far.
As for the rest of your teal deer, citations need. You’ve ranged from biased assumptions to outright lies without backing any of what you said up.
By the way, I studied forensic psychology in college. You have a lot of misunderstandings about sociopathic murderers. That’s what happens when you derive most of your information from pop culture.
The two disorders most commonly linked with sociopathy are anti-social personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. Neither of these are considered mental illnesses so much as they are considered a fundamental part of the personality. They are on axis II. Mental illnesses are on axis I.
People with APD or NPD are not “insane.” They are completely capable of logic and planning. As far as I know, nobody in the field of forensic psychology actually suggests that psychopaths should be absolved of any bigotries.
Of course, Rodgers’ doctors or family have not actually told the media that he was diagnosed with either of those personality disorders so you’re just armchair diagnosing and making assumptions. Stop pretending you know he was mental ill and speaking with authority on the subject. You know fuck all about it.
So, women should take responsibility for men’s actions and that’s how personal responsibility works?
http://www.nohope.org/uploads/gallery_42_2_125387.gif
Anything else is demeaning and disempowering to women?
http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luozk8qzSB1r6aoq4o1_500.gif
*sips coffee*
This is by far the stupidest, most morally bankrupt, convoluted thing I’ve read in a while.
Considering what I’ve read lately, that’s really saying something.
I’d like to present this rabidly misogynist troll with The Golden Fedora award for outstanding assholery and bigoted mental wankery.
http://i.imgur.com/K9pqJji.jpg
Way to go, butt barnacle. You’re the worst.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5l869txuK1qhur6c.gif
Misogyny + misandry == mental disability? What kind of fucking equation is that? o_O Even outside the scope of an equation your words make no sense. There is no such thing as prejudices cancelling out each other. And even if such a cancelling-out effect existed, there is no obvious way to reach the conclusion that it produces a mental disability – and not only a mental disability, but also one that makes someone violent and dangerous. You have literally no firm ground to stand on here – all you are spewing out is speculation.
He never cared about women. He felt entitled to them, and therefore hated men who took away his opportunities to fulfill his entitlement by being in relationships with those women he was interested in. The men were an obstacle to his male entitlement, and that’s why he killed them (alongside his strong racism).
You have it totally backwards. Disablism serves those in power because it obscures systemic factors that lead to violence such as this. You have no reason to make the assumption that the nebulously defined “ruling class” has comprised of sociopaths and psychopaths. You do know that quite a few sociopaths and psychopaths don’t actually hurt people, right? There is no strong relation at all between mental disability and violence. You keep making that shit up. On top of that, you say that this mass sociopathy/psychopathy is a product of abuse through dysfunctional parenting and schooling. Even if you could prove such a thing, where the hell does the abuse come from in the first place? Does it just arise from some vaguely defined humanistic notion of human beings just choosing to be bad? Do you really want to engage in such a ridiculous, shallow analysis? I guess you do.
90% of mothers abuse their own children? Working away from home and hiring babysitters is willful child neglect? Feminist women actively defend abuse? Feminists deny the importance of mental health issues? Yeah, time for you to go fuck yourself. You not only lack comprehension and stick to made-up statistics, but you also are a genuinely awful human being. Go fuck yourself.
There is only oppression based on sex, not oppression based on gender. So there’s no reason to say “the sexes”. Moreover, sex is a social construct, not a natural biological category that exists outside of modern society.
Actually, feminists do argue that men are molded and defined by childhood experiences – but their socialization goes far beyond that. They are socialized by the media, their peers, and so on. Many women do play a role but ultimately the system is upheld by men. Your emphasis on the role of women is baseless and without any meaningful analysis of gender.
Yes, because childhood socialization is the root of all development. Yeah, right. Learn to sociology, dipshit.
|@SfD
Please stop talking. Every post you make reveals more about your misogynist mindset, and I think everybody has had quite enough of entitled assholes defending their fucked up worldview. People here don’t disagree with you because they don’t understand what you mean; we disagree with you because you’re wrong.
I will not go into your post very deeply, since others here have it covered. Not that you would ever try to read and understand their arguments, of course.
Nope. First off, misandry is not an institutional problem like misogyny. Society does not hate men and tell women that men exist for their pleasure, and that if they fail to cater to women’s wishes, women are entitled to ‘correct’ them. You should see the absurdity of your claim by the second sentence – who exactly is oppressing whom, if both misandry and midogyny exist as equal phenomena? Secondly, saying something does not make it true, so you can stop repeating your inane points. Thirdly, ableism again. We still have no reason to believe mental illness caused his rampage.
You got it backwards. Women were objects to him, something he thought he deserved; they were not people with their own minds and agendas. His attitude to men was entirely dependent on whether or not they had one of these objects that he coveted. They were the measure by which he judged his own success. Men were people to him alright, women were the prize they were stealing from him. Women deserved to die because they would not act like the automatons that he felt entitled to.
Wait, so are you defining misogyny as active hatred of women or not? Because suddenly, you claim misandry means not making men the focus of your hatred. By doing that, aren’t you equating women’s right to safety from bodily harm with… men’s right to be the center of attention? I have trouble following your logic, here. But I guess that applies to the whole manosphere.
But that’s what they were to him. Collateral damage. He killed his roommates because they were in his way. Stating facts is not hateful.
No. You’re ignoring all arguments and insisting we’re the ones with the logical failing. Stop being willfully obtuse and actually read what people have written.
Isn’t it funny how you deny the existence of institutional misogyny, yet use words that carry a misogynistic meaning set up by historical institutions?
Now hold it right there. The ”men are disposable gender” bullshit doesn’t fly here. It’s a sad attempt to blend together different factors from misogyny to classism, and to make it gendered. Don’t even try. And you can quit the ”hard-wired”, ”women are protected” etc. crap as well. We all know they’re not true. And again, you’re equating a woman’s right to safety and autonomy with a man’s “right” to not be ignored in any discourse ever. That’s really the main problem with all misogynist arguments, I think.
When it’s convenient for you, you throw out the ”well, he was just nuts” argument and start claiming it was due to misandry. What exactly is your argument? Because you’re all over the place.
And here’s the crux of the problem. You think his actions can be viewed through a lens of gender equality, when he performed those acts motivated by a hatred of women, in a society where gender equality is not the default setting. There is no equal amount of misogyny and ”misandry” in our society; in terms of gender, things are heavily skewed against women. Whether we ”want” to view things from that perspective or not is irrelevant, it doesn’t change the reality of the situation.
You cannot grasp the full extent of the problem before you stop assuming we live in a value-neutral culture.
Claiming that misandry and misogyny are comparable forces in society is pretty fucking stupid, for this exact reason.
But you’re ignoring that misogyny, racism and homophobia are deeply ingrained in our society. They are the standard settings. They are institutional. The same is not true for misandry, reverse racism and heterophobia, which are not backed up by our culture, and which is why those terms are never used by people who actually understand how power manifests itself in our society.
I think if you took one step back and took a long look at the historical fact that straight white men have never been oppressed as a group, you might understand why it’s frankly embarrassing that grown-ups compare a non-issue such as misandry with the institutional and cultural problem that is misogyny.
Wow. Projecting much? If you think social phenomena can be analysed as individual cases, without context, you’re the one not thinking about it very deeply.
Go away, okay? Nobody wants an ableist shithead here.
Yeah, that’s some very deep thinking there, buddy. ”There were no institutional problems! The leaders were just crazy and evil! Let’s not think about it anymore! Who wants ice cream?”
Yeah, let’s just blame the parents (read: mothers) and not think about how misogyny just happens to pop out everywhere, with no relation to each other and no context whatsoever!
I’m through with your shit. I’m going to go vomit now.
Well, Spinning For Difficulty managed to hit all the MRA talking points.
It’d been great if ze’d managed to do it in few less words. Or, y’know, not at all.
But yeah, funny how when a man kills people because he hates women, and explicitly states this, it’s not misogyny, but is in fact women’s fault. Because mothers who work are bad. So are women teachers. In fact, no man is ever at fault for anything, and if a man does do something bad, it’s because he’s “crazy” because the women in his life made him that way.
I don’t even.
It’s not that we don’t value their status as men – it’s just that they weren’t actually victims of misandry. Of course their gender mattered, but they weren’t killed because of misandry. Fuck off with your manipulative bullshit.
Women, stop hitting yourselves with our fists!
Also, for fuck’s sake, don’t come back here clarifying your arguments for the umpteenth time. We understood you from the start. We just also know that you’re full of shit and you’re a bigoted asshole. So, like, just leave already.
You know who doesn’t value the male murder victims?
Misogynists using their deaths to try to ‘splain away their killer’s reasons for killing them and others. You don;t give a rats happy ass that these men were murdered. You only care about exploiting their deaths to draw attention away from misogyny’s roll in them.
Once again, MRAs show exactly how much they care about male victims.
This whole “he didn’t hate men but actively hated women, therefore he wasn’t a misogynist” thing is completely illogical. No, Elliot Rodger didn’t care about men because the only person Elliot Rodger cared about was Elliot Rodger. But he actively hated women. Women weren’t people to him, they were objects, they were prizes, they were toys. That’s why he was pissed off at women. That’s why he hated women so much. He thought he was entitled to have a woman-thing just be given to him to be used as he pleased. And when women (at least, the kind of women he wanted) didn’t automatically throw themselves at him, he decided to shoot them.
He fantasized about putting all women into a concentration camp and starving them while he watched from a tower. He fantasized over fucking genocide of women.
Really, this is at out victim blaming.
You are disgusting and really need to fuck off, Spinning For Difficulty.
My favourite (not really) part of SFD’s latest shitfest:
Such disingenuousness!
Troll to English engaged
Oooh, look, I got a reaction. Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!
You disagreed with my brilliance. You must be so stupid. I shan’t read your comments and respond. I shall just tell you The Truth that is my brilliance in more detail.
Silly hysterical womenz getting so emotional about this fab discussion I’m having.Anyone would think you were actually affected by misogyny and violence and stuff. How ridiculous you are, getting angry when I’m just being so brilliant and clever.
Look at me! Aren’t I so clever! Look at me!
I know this is going to hurt and upset you but I’m going to do it anyway and make a big joke about how stupid you all are to be upset by the horrible things I’m going to say. See, look at me being clever AND funny! Here I go!
Troll to English disengaged.
I want to share this.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/30/1303118/-Dear-Men-STFU#
Jesus, SFD, if you’re so butthurt about not being on Rodgers’ hitlist, I’m sure the women of the world will gladly trade places with you.
P.S.–Misandry is not a thing.
Um. DId I read the troll right? At one point he claimed ER cared enough about women to go through the trouble of murdering them? Eeesh.
@Lea
That was beautiful. I disagree that child custody cases are actually a men’s issue, but still a beautiful article.