Was Marysville school shooter Jaylen Fryberg trying to exact revenge on a girl who had rejected him? Various news accounts suggest that Fryberg was reeling from a recent breakup; a number of angry, anguished, and frustratingly enigmatic recent comments on Fryberg’s Twitter account seem to back this up.
So it may be that the shootings on Friday were yet another reworking of an old story.
It’s no secret that many men, for an assortment of reasons, react badly and often violently to romantic and sexual rejection. This can range from self-described “nice guys” of OkCupid sending vicious messages to women who say no all the way to angry men who stalk and harass and sometimes kill ex-wives and girlfriends. Women who leave abusive relationships often suffer greater violence at the hands of exes unwilling to let them go.
I’ve written before of the striking ways that Men’s Rights Activism recapitulates the logic of domestic abuse; it’s no coincidence that so much MRA “activism” consists of harassment of individual women. So the question naturally follows: does the rage that drives so many MRAs come from the same dark place in the psyche as the rage that so many romantically and sexually rejected feel towards their exes?
Think of the fury many divorced MRAs feel towards their exes and women at large. Think of the self-pitying rage of “nice guys” MRAs in their teens and twenties who feel they’ve been unfairly “friendzoned” by stuck-up women.
As I pondered the tragedy in Marysville, I found myself thinking again about a disturbing short story written by A Voice for Men’s Paul Elam several years ago (and which I posted about recently).
In the story, you may recall, a jilted husband tells the other men in an anger management group session just what had landed him there. His story, as rendered by Elam, is a melodramatic and often mawkish tale of a man betrayed by a narcissistic “hypergamous” wife who left him for his business partner while he had been out of town at the funeral for his father. Oh, and she stole all his money, to boot. (Elam is not what you’d call a subtle writer.)
When the story’s hero finally confronts his ex, whom he finds ad his business partner’s house, she comes to the door in a nightie and tells him she left him because he just wasn’t cutting it in the sack. Then she makes a point of refusing to kiss him goodnight (and goodbye) because, she tells him sadistically, he probably wouldn’t like “the taste of another man’s cock on her lips.”
And so, the hero tells the other angry men in his group, he punched her in the nose so hard he broke it.
It’s clear Elam identifies wholly and completely with the hero, and we are supposed to see his punch as a form of righteous justice administered to his sadistic, emasculating ex.
There are a lot of angry divorced men in the MRM – including some with several divorces in their past. The standard MRA explanation is that these men come to the Men’s Rights movement after being “raped” — their word, not mine – in divorce court, or kept apart from their children by angry exes.
But I don’t think that’s it. Many of the angriest don’t even have any children. I suspect that the rage they feel is more like the rage of Elam’s hero – a rage borne out of a deep sense of sexual humiliation and the loss of control over the women who have rejected and abandoned them.
The anger of many younger MRAs seems to have a similar psychosexual source. These are the young men who rage against “friendzoning” and wax indignant about “false rape accusations” and “yes means yes.” In their mind, women are the “gatekeepers” of sex, and this frustrates and sometimes enrages them.
On some level they feel that women are collectively depriving them of the sex that they deserve, and they feel resentful they have to, in their mind at least, jump through so many hoops to get it. Some, I suspect, think that there’s no way they can actually “get” sex without cutting a few corners, consent-wise, and resent feminists for making this harder for them.
The self-righteous rage of the rejected is a dangerous thing. It’s dangerous when it’s directed at individual women. And it’s dangerous when it’s directed at women at large.
Crisis averted, Shaun. He’s still here.
I’m a feminist, and now I come to think about it, every single person I’ve ever asked into bed has obliged. Not necessarily every time I asked them, but… yeah, I don’t remember being outright rejected by anyone.
There we go, theory disproved. What was that you were saying about generalisations?
Does anyone smell sock?
Nah, I think the sock is busy in the other thread.
Which btw you should definitely read, if only for the argument that comments about cats are trolling.
Sockpuppets aside I’ve taken a visit to the chewtoy’s blog and now need to take three showers and hug a cat.
“Being rejected make both men and women angry, it’s just that they join different movements. Here MRA:s and feminists have something in common.”
That’s so true. I know *I* only joined feminism because I can’t find a man. And because I love bonbons. Because feminism is *clearly and obviously* all about *men*. And bonbons. Just like we told repeatedly told John.
Oh, and I want wage equity. And to not be expected to work F/T just like a man and still do all the childcare/cooking/housework. And to not be accused of being at fault for having been raped/beaten by a man. And to have equal representation wrt to government, law enforcement, the military, education… . And to not be presumed to have fucked my way to the top. And to not be judged entirely based on what size my breasts are.
Actually, given that I made the decision to start dating again 2 years after I left an abuser who is still threatening to kill me and it took almost 6 whole hours to get a date…maybe, just *maybe*, feminism really isn’t about men at all and I’m not here because *I* was rejected for leaving a murderous abuser.
So John, where’s that credible source backing up your claim? If you’re so obviously right, it ought to be super easy to find one. Still waiting. Still eager.
The troll in the other thread is hilarious rather than horrifying. John otoh pretty much stepped straight out of a Lifetime movie that you know isn’t going to end well.
Karalora, phew. That was a close one.
<–Happily married feminist who's even (gasp) a SAHM to three (partly because t stopped making economic sense for me to work and partly because we -as a family- decided that life's easier -for this family right now- when not everything domestic has to be done in one hour in the morning, a few hours at night, and on the weekends).
And my husband's a (double gasp) feminist man alllll on his own, in large part because he thinks that the toxic version of masculinity that he was fed as a child is bunk.
He's even well-versed in feminist and minority scholarly thought and theory, something which I cannot say about myself.
And, FWIW, I've been told countless times about how well I fit the popular ideal for feminine beauty (talk, slim, small waist, large bust, etc).
I just think that it's bull that people should pin their self worth (or have it pinned on them) according to physical standards of beauty.
So, no, actually.
You're so wrong it would hurt if it weren't so hilarious 😀
Which other thread, Cassandra?
Also I see that John has totally and completely confirmed that he joined the MRM specifically because he was a bitter rejected asshat.
http://milenhealth.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Mystery-solved-620×340.jpg
The Sarkeesian thread. The troll started out tedious but has become more entertaining over time.
Gr.
Please ignore te autocorrects (“tall”, etc). I’m on my phone and the case is all smudged by dried toddler gunk.
ZOMG cassandra HE’S ADORABLE!
*feeds troll teething biscuits*
Isn’t he the best? I think we should keep him.
I promise we’ll walk him Dave! Can we can we can we????????
If nobody makes “seahorses have gender roles” into a meme the internet will have officially failed us all.
@Josh (who is totally not John using a sock!)
“Feminists are feminists because they’re unfuckable” coupled with “NO U” is actually older and less interesting than either of those two non-concepts (noncepts?) on their own. Just FYI.
@Josh: it’s possible that some women become feminists just ’cause they can’t get a man– it’s a big big world and there are a lot of people with varying motivations in it!
It’s also possible you are really my grandma. If so: Hi Grandma! I love you! I will call you this weekend, ok?
but as for me, I have been married for a pretty long time, have four cute little kids, etc. There’s been romantic turbulence but who doesn’t experience turbulence? People who never fly, that’s who.
But I’m pleased overall with how my personal life has turned out.
If I had no interest in the world beyond marriage and babies, I would probably not be interested in feminism. If the world beyond my front door didn’t have an unpleasant tendency to assume that my interests don’t legitimately extend further than my kitchen (and maybe bedroom, but even that is iffy,) then I probably wouldn’t be interested in feminism.
but, as it happens, I AM interested in the big world outside of the kitchen, and yet that world still occasionally seems confused and cranky and plain unwilling to accept this fact!
I think that’s kind of amazing. Don’t you?
So! Here I am!
Thought this article was funny and interesting in the context of this conversation:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-uncomfortable-truths-behind-mens-rights-movement/
That is assuming, of course, that the end all and be all to a woman’s existence is to get and have a man and that’s assuming that women who don’t have a man attached to them wanted one, but couldn’t get one and then decided to become feminists. (I have no idea what this statement says about lesbians who, by definition, don’t want men and some of whom do not identify as being feminists. Or what this says about straight men who identify as feminists. Or Hell, let’s throw in gay men or transgender people who identify as feminists.)
See, this is what I was talking about far upthread.
http://www.feelingoodtees.com/Assets/ProductImages/PS_1029W_INSULT_PEOPLE.jpg
Urm…I hate to tell you this, Josh, but I have never known a feminist to become one out of a sense of rejection, unless you define rejection as being treated to brutality, rape and political invisibility.
Nope. Been one for almost fifty years, and it really is about the radical notion that women are people and, as such, deserving of the same consideration, respect and opportunities as male people.
(walking away…scratching head)