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If anyone was hoping – against their better judgement – that Men’s Rights activists would be inspired by the tragedy in Isla Vista to reconsider any of their beliefs, or even to reflect for a moment on the many striking similarities between passages in Elliot Rodger’s book-length manifesto and comments posted every day by MRAs and others in the manosphere, well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you should not keep that hope alive.
It’s not that they’re not talking about the tragedy. A look through the top 100 posts in the Men’s Rights subreddit, the largest Men’s Rights forum online, reveals that roughly a third of them, including the top stickied post, relate in some way to Elliot Rodger’s rampage and the discussions that have come up online and in the media in its aftermath.
But the message of virtually all of these posts is: “Nothing to see here! Move along!” There are numerous posts expressing outrage that anyone would see any connection between Rodger’s toxic misogyny to the Men’s Rights movement; there are others mocking and attacking the #YesAllWomen hashtag; there’s even one suggesting that Rodger, who wrote about how he longed to watch all the women of the world starve to death in concentration camps, wasn’t actually a misogynist at all.
Take a look. One post, with more than 500 upvotes, complains:
Another post makes a strikingly similar complaint:
One angry MRA asks:
Another wonders:
Sorry to break it to you, fella, but that’s not how defamation suits work. If it were, all of us who call ourselves feminists would be collecting millions of dollars from the Men’s Rights subreddit for all the patently untrue things you guys say about us every day of every week.
Still others make sure that everyone knows that Rodger hated men too – not that this has actually gone unnoticed in the media or in discussions of the tragedy.
And then there’s this fellow, who seems to think that Rodger only hated men, and that his big problem with women was that he loved them too much:
There are, it’s true, two posts that raise the issue of what might be done to prevent tragedies like this from happening in the future. One of them takes on the issue of “virgin shaming.” (Sure, I’m against that, and against slut shaming too. Odd that roughly 100% of the virgin shaming I’ve ever heard in my life has come from MRAs and other non-fans of this blog, even though — sorry to break it to you fellows — I’ve not been a virgin since the early Reagan administration.)
Meanwhile, the other “positive” suggestion — the stickied top post, submitted by one of the forum’s moderators — is pretty transparently intended as a PR move – and an excuse to bash feminists.
Yep, “creep shaming.” That’s the problem! Way to cut through all the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter! The problem isn’t that some men — well, a lot of men — think and act in predatory and entitled ways towards women. The problem is that sometimes when they do, women call them “creeps.”
The problem isn’t that the world’s creepiest and most entitled man just killed 6 innocent people, the problem is “creep shaming.”
After killing his roommates and a friend of theirs, Rodger attempted to get inside a sorority so he could massacre the women inside it. But he couldn’t get anyone to let him in. Probably because, well, whoever was nearest the door thought he looked a bit, well, creepy.
“Creep-shaming” isn’t some insidious form of discrimination against awkward men. It’s a defense mechanism that women develop to protect them against predatory men. And in the case of the Isla Vista murders, I’m guessing that the willingness of women to go with their gut sense that Rodger was a creep literally saved lives.
But the mods of the Men’s Rights subreddit would rather moan about “creep shaming.” They would prefer that women lower their defenses against men like Elliot Rodger — because it hurts their feelings to sometimes get called a “creep.”
Guys, this is why people think Elliot Rodger was an MRA.
EDIT: I added more to the conclusion because I had more to say about creep shaming.
And there is already a truther movement claiming the shootings are a false flag. I knew there would be, but it just makes me sad, especially considering that these folks tend to stalk and harass the families of the victims now.
Gah, the false flags. How can it be a false flag if actual people are actually dead?
Cassandra,
Nope, I didn’t read that bit. Err. Maybe I shouldn’t?
The claim is that “crisis actors” are hired to portray victims and the families of victims. As if the news is a stage play.
That Jezebel article:
OK, they’re just coming out and saying women are subhuman. They’re just coming out and saying that their should be and will be another more killing like this. They are amping each other up to do exactly what Rodger did. They are amping each other up to rape and murder women.
I mean, can society, like, I don’t know, take this shit seriously now?
@Chie
And then, what, promptly never mention they were hired for this again?
I hate people sometimes. 🙁
Ah yes, we have the ‘go Elliot’; yet another idiot who thinks Ayn Rand’s novels represent reality. If I had a £ for every wannabe who thinks that threatening to go Galt is going to impress the world with their sheer awesomeness I would be a great deal richer than I am.
Oddly enough, Galt was into genocide as well; there seems to be something about the toxic brew of beliefs which tends towards the desire to wipe out anyone deemed to be inferior…
Oh my goodness…
The word is terrorism – terrorism fueled by misogyny.
It’s so f***** scary.
🙁
@WhatIsThisGravitasOfWhichYouSpeak
The theories often contradict each other and never hold up to much scrutiny, but I’ve learned that trying to debate someone who thinks this way is futile. I have a co-worker who just has no filter, and believes every one of these theories. I do whatever I can to avoid any subject that might set her off….and thanks to HAARP, that includes the weather. We’re pretty much on kittens and the evils of police brutality. It’s an odd intersection, but that’s where we connect.
Jesus Christ, Exene Cervenka of X is one of the conspiracy believers on this issue: http://dangerousminds.net/comments/exene_cervenka_the_victoria_jackson_of_punk_rock
Raw Story has a bit about Cervenka, too. Something about the convenience store replacing their windows too quickly for the shooting to be real.
What I’m surprised about is that this is the first I’ve heard of false flag theories. I think the Sandy Hook theories were out there hours after the shooting because Alex Jones said something and he gets mainstream attention.
Dear people here, please sign this petition banning anyone from coming here and shilling that “I get to decide what terrorism is, right US Government?” petition.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/238cd8acc7c8452939aed8aead18aa0e/tumblr_mru736elBo1r0wqrdo1_500.jpg
Seriously, I’d rather hear about how their Aunt Trudi made $6,547 from home.
Exene’s health has been very poor in the last few years; I suspect there may be some relation between that and her descent into the conspiracy zone.
@Anand
Yup, you’re very confused about many things. Nailed it.
Today in arrogant young men, libertarian dude goes Galt, nobody notices.
Also, WTF, Exene? I agree with the author – just imagine being stuck in a tour bus/van with someone who believes that kind of crap.
Exene, what the hell? So sad. I grew up on your music, dammit!
This isn’t quite like discovering that Santa Claus eats babies, but close.
Holy cats, that Jezebel article. I feel badly for the writer; that’s being thrown in at the deep end.
The conversation she records at the 11:04 AM time stamp should be linked every time somebody starts to suggest that the brutally angry incel guys would be all better if they could just have any kind of access to partnered sex.
Breaking News: one of these guys hired an escort, he does not sound appreciative, and he is still hanging out in a toxic place with dissatisfied, angry misogynists. So it seems that making sex workers take one for the team is not going to fix anything, and will put more women in intimate contact with scary angry men. Who would have thought!
I made it to 12:04 and think I need to go play with my fish. Either that or talk my mother into giving me a ride to BF’s house so I can hit up my vodka. (He’s at work still, but is fine with me spending the night, I just need a goddamned ride!)
Also, someone broke my amazingly awesome $30 coffee thermos. It’s still useable but I am one PISSED Argenti!
So . . .um. The Amazing Atheist made a video about the shooting. Does anyone know what he said about this? I only know because a friend posted it on FB and said the AA was “right.” Having seen other AA videos, I cannot bear to watch it, so wondering if anyone here has had the stomach for it. I probably shouldn’t be arguing with my friend about how awful the AA is if I don’t even know what he said.
cassandrakitty
One of the things which strikes me most about the typical MRA rant is that it is the essence of Rand’s very strange ideas about the way human beings interact with each other; they are constantly searching for some way of quantifying themselves as superior to others. They are constantly searching for some way of having whatever they want without having to put in the hard work necessary to achieve anything worthwhile. They are constantly telling themselves that they deserve everything they want, and that the only reason they don’t have everything they want is because evil people have wickedly deprived them of it all.
It never seems to occur to them that, for example, the people winning Nobel Prizes do so because they’ve worked, and worked, and worked; it never seems to occur to them that the women they viciously abuse as being intellectually inferior have, in reality, demonstrated their abilities through education and training.
Even the less toxic expressions of misogyny, where, for example, ageing SF writers hold up Barbie as a suitable role model of quiet feminity, betray an incomprehension of the real world. They want women to ask nicely, rather than issue orders. In the real world my daughter leads the resuscitation team; when someone crashes there are four minutes before irreversible brain damage occurs, and in those four minutes certain things have to be done in the right order and the right time if the patient is going to survive. There is no time to ask people nicely, and if a member of the team doesn’t want to do something because women shouldn’t issue orders then the patient is most probably going to die.
Given that resuscitating people is exceedingly difficult in the first place, someone standing around huffing about how the team leader should have asked nicely is not a person you want caring for you. Barbie as a female role model is not good for life expectancy. Sadly this is not a point which has occurred to ageing SF writers, though I suppose they may discover it the hard way…
@ Stevie
Watch out, Erin might come back under a new nym to leave 300 comments screeching about how that last bit means you want ageing SF writers to die in the ER.
Sorry, grumpycatisagirl, I can’t stomach AA. I’ve covered homicides before for the AP, but watch a AA video. No. Life is too short.