TW for violence against women, misogynistic language, violent language, talk of rape
Last night, a 22 year old man named Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured seven more in what most news outlets are describing as a “shooting rampage.” Rodger died later that night from a gunshot wound to his head, though it’s still unclear as to whether or not it was self-inflicted or from responding deputies shooting back after he opened fire on them.
Almost everything I’ve read about him has referred to him as a “madman” or “mentally ill.”
No. We have no evidence yet that he suffered from any kind of mental illness or was seeking any sort of treatment. Immediately claiming that with no proof to back that fact up leads to the further stigmatization of the mentally ill, and contributes to the (incorrect) assumption that mental illness equals violence, and vice versa.
We don’t know whether Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. What we do know is that he was a Men’s Rights Activist, or MRA.
He was an active member of the “PUAhate,” an online forum (which has been down since the shootings) dedicated to “revealing the scams, deception and misleading marketing techniques used by dating gurus and the seduction community to mislead men and profit from them.” And just to clarify, they’re not revealing these scams because of how vile and misogynistic they are, but rather because these men have tried these techniques and still failed to trick women into sleeping with them. These are men who both feel entitled to have sex with women and also blame all women everywhere for not fucking them. See, they want to have sex with a woman because that’s what they deserve just for being dudes, but they also hate women for withholding what they view as rightfully theirs. And I mean, boy do they ever hate women. The PUAhate forum has, according to an article on The Hairpin, threads with titles like “Are ugly women completely useless to society?” and “Have any hot women ever committed suicide?”
Rodger also subscribed to several YouTube channels on how to be a ‘pick up artist,’ including The Player Supreme Show and RSDfreetour as well as multiple MRA channels.
Last night, shortly before going on his killing spree, Rodger posted a video on YouTube to serve as his manifesto. In it, he declares that he’s a 22 year old virgin, and then goes on to say:
‘College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. But in those years I’ve had to rot in loneliness. It’s not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me. But I will punish you all for it,’ he says in the video, which runs to almost seven minutes.
>‘I’m going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB and I will slaughter every single spoilt, stuck-up, blonde slut that I see inside there. All those girls that I’ve desired so much, they would’ve all rejected me and looked down on me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them,’
‘I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one. The true alpha male …’
This is what the Men’s Rights Movement teaches its members. Especially vulnerable, lonely young men who have a hard time relating to women. It teaches them that women, and especially feminist women, are to blame for their unhappiness. It teaches them that women lie, and that women are naturally predisposed to cheat, trick and manipulate. It teaches them that men as a social class are dominant over women and that they are entitled to women’s bodies. It teaches them that women who won’t give them what they want deserve some kind of punishment.
We need to talk about this. The media, especially, needs to address this. We live in a culture that constantly devalues women in a million little different ways, and that culture has evolved to include a vast online community of men who take that devaluation to its natural conclusion: brutal, violent hatred of women. And I don’t mean that all these men have been physically violent towards women, but rather that they use violent, degrading, dehumanizing language when discussing women. Whose bodies, just as a reminder, they feel completely entitled to.
Another reminder: this isn’t an isolated incident. Not by a long shot. No, most men don’t go out in a blaze of glory after shooting up in a sorority house, but there are so many examples of men becoming violent towards women after being rejected. Like the kid last month who stabbed a girl to death because she wouldn’t go to the prom with him. The threat of violence is the main reason why many women feel unable to leave an abusive relationship – because after leaving is when they are at their most vulnerable. When you look the statistics on violence against women, Elliot Rodger’s act doesn’t seem so much like a one-off incident. He was participating, albeit in a grandiose public way, in the time-honoured tradition of controlling women with violence and punishing them when they don’t behave as desired.
We don’t know if Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. We don’t know if he was a “madman.” We do know that he was desperately lonely and unhappy, and that the Men’s Rights Movement convinced him that his loneliness and unhappiness was intentionally caused by women. Because this is what the Men’s Rights Movement does: it spreads misogyny, it spreads violence, and most of all it spreads a sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies. Pretending that this is the a rare act perpetrated by a “crazy” person is disingenuous and also does nothing to address the threat of violence that women face every day. We can’t just write this one off – we need to talk about all of the fucked up parts of our culture, especially the movements that teach men that they have the right to dominate and intimidate and violate women, and we need to change things. Because if we don’t, I guarantee that this will happen again. And again. And again.
‘”Why do men feel threatened by women?” I asked a male friend of mine. So this male friend of mine, who does by the way exist, conveniently entered into the following dialogue. “I mean,” I said, “men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power.” “They’re afraid women will laugh at them,” he said. “Undercut their world view.” Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, “Why do women feel threatened by men?” “They’re afraid of being killed,” they said.’
Margaret Atwood, Writing the Male Character (1982)
ETA: A few people have been commenting to tell me that I’m wrong about Elliot not having a mental illness, as his family members have reported to the media that he had Asperger syndrome. Asperger syndrome is not a mental illness – it is a neurological condition, and it does not predispose people to violence. Correlating Asperger’s with violence is wrong and uninformed and you are doing more harm than good by saying that.
The Belle Jar 
He was just a loser and blamed his problems on anyone but himself.
Aspberger’s at worst just makes you socially awkward since they have a tendency not to respond appropriately (expressions aren’t congruent with environmental stimuli) in social situations. I’m sure this is most likely what led to many of his perceived failed interactions with the opposite sex.
Unfortunately, he decided to blame the fact that he couldn’t ‘get’ women on the women who weren’t attracted to him. If he (and most guys honestly) would focus LESS on what THEY want…and instead focus more on their surroundings to discern who might actually like THEM…THEN pick from THAT pool, I believe incidents like this would decrease dramatically.
I make no excuse for this guy…and it’s a crying shame that innocent people had to die because of his entitled narcissism. I just hope that men at large soon realize that violence doesn’t help anyone and only gives Misandrists (and some feminists are misandrists in sheep’s clothing) more ammunition to socially castrate men even more.
Men…this isn’t the way to ‘fight back’. If a girl you like doesn’t like you, don’t get upset with her. Instead of wasting your time trying to get girls to like you, deal with the ones that already like you. Simple in concept, yet trying in execution. But with the way our society is currently operating, it is currently the best option.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140216025709/http://puahate.com/showthread.php?p=2902589
This is an archived link to the page in reference 🙂 anything once put on the internet can never be erased!
I do wish culture wasn’t so small minded, this article is the most intelligent thing I’ve read about men and women in a very long time.
Please do not sit in blindness and believe catastrophic moments like Rodger, or the Colorado shooting, or any of its similar counterparts are only do to “mental illness”
I’m begging that someone will take the words above with intelligence and heart because this, unfortunately, WILL happen again. And the reasons listed above are why.
“What we do know is that he was a Men’s Rights Activist, or MRA.”
There is no evidence he was an MRA. That is erroneous nonsense. Stop parroting feminist propaganda. No wonder men explode when there are so many lying feminist bastards out there saying crap like this to smear men who want equal rights.
He subscribed to MRA channels on youtube and peddled the same “You women, you fucking evil women, I fucking hate you so much because I am a superior gender and you will not submit to my will” BS that I hear out of every MRA I’ve had the unfortunate encounter with online. [Hey, remember when MRA’s were such nice people, they decided to spam a college campus with fake rape reports?]
“Lying Feminist Bastards Saying Crap to Smear Men Who Want Equal Rights” you already HAVE fucking rights.
It’s like this: If only a man has the right to walk across a street, and suddenly females want to walk across the street too, suddenly men everywhere start screaming and attacking women because how dare they! Then, when you point out that some of the men start hating the women and getting aggressive, you’re labeled a ‘man hating feminist bastard trying to smear men who want equal rights’
What rights do men not have? I’ll wait.
Blaming women for your problems. Rule #1 in the Misogyny handbook. Good work.
This always sounds so funny coming from the dominant class in society. The same class that has made society in their image, with their norms and their standards of behaviour.
It is ludicrous stand to take given the social realities of the situation, but then again with the standard MRA boilerplate, connection to reality is dubious at best.
Of course aspergers is not a mental illness but I also believe it’s incorrect that he wasn’t receiving treatment. According to this article his family was concerned, he was seeing multiple professionals, and his family had even called the police after seeing one of his videos. So it seems like they were really trying to do the right thing.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/05/24/7-reportedly-dead-including-gunman-in-drive-by-shooting-near-uc-santa-barbara/
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/24/1301671/-Elliot-Roger-Gunman-in-California-Mass-Shooting-was-influenced-by-the-Men-s-Rights-Movement
just a word on mental health: most practitioners differentiate “thought” disorders and “mood” disorders. it’s a fuzzy line, no doubt. still, the point is that mental illness doesn’t necessarily equal lack of awareness or conscious intent. in an extreme manic episode, a person might do or say things they otherwise wouldn’t — but they can nonetheless sound completely rational and lucid. something to keep in mind here…
He was a deeply disturbed individually who hated women. I have met a few of these types of “men” in my life and they are deeply troubled and abusive to women. This entire situation is just so sad.
As it turns out, we do know he is insane, it’s sort of a definitional thing. Insanity is defined as being a danger to yourself or the people around you, he went on a shooting spree that ended with his own death. QED.
Forgive me if I’m misunderstanding, but how do you place depression and anxiety under the umbrella of mental illness, but leave out the crippling social and psychological issues this kid seems to have been dealing with?
His manifesto also explains that his parents tried very hard to get him psychiatric care. He was diagnosed with Asperger’s.
So, yeah, he was disturbed. One can’t read his manifesto and not see how mentally ill he was. Just the sight of affectionate couples enraged him.
There’s also the issue of his internalized racism. He wrote about his hatred of non-white men and how it infuriated him to see them with white blondes. As a self-described Eurasian, he found himself lacking in the physical features he envied in white, tall blond men. At one point he dyed his hair blond.
The guy had so much wrong with him in addition to being a horrible misogynist.
Depression and anxiety are often chemically-based, organic (physical) illnesses, that can be treated with medical (pharmaceutical) intervention. The kind of psychological difficulties you seem to be referencing are not physical in origin and are generally unresponsive to medical intervention, requiring instead non-medical psychotherapeutic treatment. They are often conflated in popular culture, but in essence, one exists in the physical makeup of the brain, the other exists in the mind.
You realize that whether depression causes imbalances in the brain or vice versa are not perfectly understood. to state that depression is a simple chemical imbalance is a overly simplistic view of depression.
That’s the thing – mentally ill or not, mental illness doesn’t cause people to go on killing sprees. People with the same illnesses as him don’t do that, and there are plenty. His problem was a combination of mental illness AND the fact that he reveled in it. He joined like-minded groups that egged him on and fueled his frustrations. Yes, he was disturbed, but for every suicide there are hundreds or thousands of depressed people who don’t kill themselves. For every sociopath there are many more who want to do something about it than there are serial killers. You can’t pin it all on rampant misogyny and you can’t pin it all on mental illness, but you CAN pin it on both COMBINED.
I follow your argument but he didn’t kill seven women. As far as I’ve read, he killed two women and five men (his three roommates, one man in a drive-by and himself). He did have these feelings of entitlement towards life but he as much as he resented women, he hated men out of jealousy, too. In his video, he says he wants to annihilate the world. So, while he might have had misogynistic attitudes, he hated basically everyone, including himself.
I found it interesting that he posted these racist comments on this PUAHate website towards black and Asian men when he himself was half-Chinese. And in his video, the way he laughs self-consciously, he almost seemed drugged. I think we will learn more about Rodgers and get a better portrait of him in coming days.
He was filled with self-loathing. His hatred of men of color was reflection of his hatred of himself. He didn’t have the perfect blond, muscular jock looks he thought were superior.
What video did you watch? The one I saw had him complaining about being a virgin and how because no female would have sex with him he was going to “take my revenge”. His intent was to kill females because apparently having a dick means anyone with a vagina is supposed to fall all over it or something. Mens Rights Groups are a fucking joke! When the sexual assualt and rape rates have over 95% of the victims as women who the fuck needs rights? The ones raping and killing us or the ones dying and getting raaped? Those poor poor menz who can not get sex is just so unfair. Get a sex changed, you can be fucked for the rest of your life then by every aspect of society.
You are exactly the type of person that makes feminists look bad. Men’s Rights Groups exist for a reason. Because Women’s activism has picked up so much in recent times, when it comes to rape and sexual assault, anyone with a penis is immediately assumed guilty until proven innocent. You can ruin a man’s life by simply lying and saying you were raped by him, regardless of what truth there is to it. Elliot Rodger is a very isolated case, and obviously does not represent the general male population’s feelings towards women, so please do not generalize as such. Yeah, the guy was a sick fuck. Nobody is arguing that. Let’s move on.
His plan was to shoot up the entire sorority. If he had succeeded, he would have killed far more women, which was his intention. The men he killed were people who got in the way of his “retribution” plan, but his main purpose in his rampage was to kill a LOT more women.
Did you miss the part where he said he was going to go into the streets and kill everyone he saw? Or did I just imagine that?
I have never been a big fan of sorority chicks, but I must say that the Alpha Phi sorority displayed some of the most intelligent instinctively correct behavior I have ever heard of. Rodgers knocked on their door for a solid TWO MINUTES and they refused to answer the door. Had they opened that door they would most likely all be dead. The only reason the death toll doesn’t include 15 hot sorority girls is because they displayed some unbelievably good sense, something I never would have thought they’d have in them,
My experience with sorority girls (as a college girl myself) is that they are stuck up elitist cliquish oppressive bitches. At least that’s how the ones at my school behave. But these Alpha Phi girls displayed a seriously well developed survival instinct that makes me question my current opinion. When it comes to safety, they
won, and delta lost. Because of their good instinct the death toll is held to 6 instead of 20+. Kudos to whoever taught them not to answer the door to strangers.
I enjoyed your writing. I would disagree about one point. A mentally healthy person does not murder people. Yes the stigma associated with mental illness is crippling and uncalled for, and mental illness does NOT equal violence, but this man was obviously quite ill. Whether he was Asperger’s (which IS listed on NAMI’s website) or not is not important. He could not have been a mentally well person and still commit these acts. Yes, these groups are hateful and horrifying, and hold much responsibility for this man’s crimes, but again, a mentally healthy person would view the garbage they spew as just that.
I write, quite a bit, about mental illness, addiction, and stigma, and the staggering pain and heartbreak they cause, more from the negative stigma then from the illnesses themselves. I write about it because the stigma associated with it is killing people. I advocate for NAMI and for The Anonymous People, and several support groups from family and friends who live with these illnesses. I do know of what I am speaking. You’re welcome to read my blog, and I’d be interested in what you think.
I am sorry to say that you are just as caught up in the unspolen social norms as the young man this article discusses. We are as a nation currently honoring generations of mentally sound people who kill. You say murder, but the differences are justification and social norms. Her entire point is that violence against women IS a social norm, which is why he felt justified. Mentally healthy soldiers kill in the belief they are defending thier country (justification), simply because an officer says ‘go there, kill them.’ This young man did the same, and unlike soldiers who struggle with these acts for life as they puzzle out whether thier beliefs support the justification, this man has his personal anger as well as the support of society and his fellow misoginysts to buttress his acts.
I would ask that you read some of my writing on mental illness.
He was mentally ill. He had been diagnosed and had been under the care of a psychiatrist who prescribed an anti-psychotic medication. Additionally, his parents hired other counsellors to help him. His family called the police because they thought he was dangerous.
There are MRA scum who are not mentally ill. Rodger, however, was mentally ill. That’s just a fact. His mental illness led him to find solace in the MRA cauldron of hate.
No one who kills is mentally sound. Soldiers are broken down before they are thrown out into the field and rebuilt through conditioning to dehumanize the enemy. There is nothing mentally healthy about any of that. Many return not wanting anything to do with normal life. Addicted to the hunt, they end up in a deep malaise and the worst cases end up going on their own shooting spree. Stop fooling yourself. I don’t care if its Memorial Day. This whole “Mentally Sound” killer thing is bullshit.
Got it in one. Anyone who ‘goes on a shooting rampage’, killing people they don’t eve know IS mentally. Mass murder is not the act of a healthy mind, ever.
It seems to me that there were a number of factors that acted as negative forces in this man’s life. First he was lacking in social skills, second engaged with groups that condemn women, third Elliot Roger was receiving psychiatric therapy and fourth society promotes violence toward women. However I think you have undermined the damage that the health experts can do with their patriarchal attitude. I can assure you that the medical profession actively promotes this abuse toward women.
When I was 17 a doctor told me I needed to see a psychiatrist because I was not interested in sex and did not want to go on the pill. It wasn’t that I was gay it was just that I didn’t want to sleep around. When I was in my early 20s I was sexually assaulted by a doctor, the medical profession not only refused to do anything about it, but they actively withheld the evidence that proved I was assaulted, and they slandered me as mentally ill. Then they assaulted me again. Consequently I spent years fighting for justice, but could only pursue civil action, because no one saw the abuse as a crime. I did win the civil action because they were prepared to recognise the crime as negligence. Though I spent ten year of my life fighting, I will never say I received justice and I got very little in the way of compensation, so I have not been able to pick up the pieces of my life.
I know that I will never recover from the injustice that was done to me, but I have to go on fighting for others because no one deserves this abuse. We need to change the attitude of those who are meant to protect us and this includes the police, doctors, psychiatrists, counsellors, Centre against sexual assault, nurses, religious organisations, lawyers, judges and everyone else who thinks it is OK to violate another human being by ignoring their NO, ripping away their dignity and destroying their life.
Dear Jade, I am saddened to hear that you were so abused by the system but in saying “You will never get over it” is like saying “I don’t want to get over it”. I truly believe that we as either a women or a man can with commitment and belief in ourselves get past abuse. It starts by making a decision not to let these acts control our lives, by allowing the acts to make us stronger…. you have survived you are still here and that in itself is a win. Be strong accept what happened…look at it in all its ugliness then let it go and make a commitment to live everyday pursuing happiness and love and forgiveness. You win by not allowing it to control your life…by taking control and being stronger for it. Good luck I wish you all the best life has to offer. Kat
Hi Kate thanks for your comment and support and you are right to correct me in my statement where I said I will never get over it. You know when this happened to me I actually did tell myself that I could never get over it, because I felt that if I accepted what had happened and moved on with my life, I was really saying that it was ok to do this to me.
Over the years I reached out for help and I found that all the professionals were making me feel worse, so I avoided them and only allowed supportive people in to my life. Fortunately I was able to find a Christian psychological and a Christian counsellor who were very helpful. In fact they were the only professionals who said: “You were not wrong. You were wronged.”
It is such a simple thing for someone to acknowledge a wrong, instead of blaming the victim; but none of the other so called experts would do this, because they wanted to protect the perpetrator and destroy me in the process. Their alleged therapy of blame the victim left me felling that I was living in a darkened dungeon. I remember thinking that I must have died and woken up in Sodom and Gomorrah where no one has any morals or values. It was a dark lonely place full of people who were pure evil and I didn’t want to be around them. I lost all my faith and trust in people. Nonetheless I kept searching for a way out.
You have no idea how much it helped me to hear the Christian psychologist and counsellor acknowledge the wrong that was done. It enabled me to start seeing that there were some decent people left in this world, within time I started seeing glimmers light at the end of the tunnel and gradually I regained some trust in humanity.
Whilst I am still working on the healing process, I can happily say that I have regained the ability to see that there are good people in this word who care about others and want to build them up rather than pull them down. If the world was full of bad people, life would be miserable for everyone. Luckily there are lots of decent people who are worth knowing.
I agree with your analysis. I see several mental disorders present in his behavior and I am not a psychiatrist. What I am is a person who has suffered from mental illness. This young man’s loneliness and feelings of isolation are classic of depression, and due to the extremity of his condition, I would say manic. He also suffered from narcissism. Those I am almost sure of. There is at least another form of psychosis present, but I can’t put my finger on it. In one of his videos, he was very agitated, pacing and yet still almost stoic when he spoke. He definitely suffered from mental health issues. And certainly the groups in which he was seeking advice were contributing to his deteriorating state of mind. A sick mind is usually quite impressionable.
That said, I believe that too many people are getting defensive about admitting his mental health problems. While I understand that there is a stigma placed on anyone with mental disorders, denial is not the answer. More education is necessary, not just to alleviate those stigmas, but also for public safety. People need to know how to recognize when a mentally ill person may be presenting potentially dangerous behaviors. While certainly the majority of mentally ill people are misunderstood and can be a joy to know when given the opportunity, there are those that are suffering a combination of disorders that create a potentially deadly psychosis. It is not common, but it does happen. And it is happening more and more often. That is why public education is vital.
There was a twitter trend called #yesallwomen. It explained that while not all men treat women poorly, all women have been treated poorly at some point by a man. That is an excellent point. And just like not all men are the same, neither are all mentally ill. Most will never be violent, some will. Ignoring it, denying it, or dismissing it will not make it go away. Recognizing it, and getting help for those who are suffering so that they can get proper diagnosis and treatment, will.
I also agree with a previous poster. This was not about misogyny as much as it was his narcissism. He hated women for rejecting him. He hated men for being who he wasn’t, and for having what he wanted. He saw himself as superior to both men and women, and wanted to make everyone suffer for his inability to connect with them. These are not traits of a stable mind. By itself, narcissism is not particularly dangerous. However, coupled with other, more manic disorders, it could become deadly. And in this case, it did.
Beautifully put. I couldn’t agree more.
Please. Mentally healthy people murder other people all the time. And plenty of people with mental illnesses never kill anybody.
Really? They blamed that on aspergers? I could see that as a cause for his discomfort (lack of social skills) but not killing a bunch a people, that’s crazy to even say! Thanks for the article, I’ve never thought of it this way and I’ve been MOSTLY lucky with men, but when I really think of it, this is part of the reason the little annoying things happen. Like being called a bitch when you’re not interested, or having a guy (this just happened) try to talk you into a relationship with them when you tell them you ate already in a relationship…. it’s the deeper problem of entitlement. So, because I have a vagina I should let you choose for me! ? GTFOH
No, his problems extended beyond Asperger’s. His doctor prescribed an anti-psychotic medication. From his writing, it’s clear that he suffered from severe anxiety and depression along with obviously delusional thinking.
In his writing, he talks about wanting to kill his elementary school aged younger brother because he is jealous of the child’s social skills.
He hated everyone whom he felt was better or more successful.
Jealousy is not a mental illness.
The perpetrator is lucid in his video. His actions were obviously premeditated. They even have a certain logic to them, given his premise of sexual entitlement. He may be narcissistic, but he is not psychotic. Rather, he is enraged. The question is: where is it written that one has to have a romantic partner by a certain age, engage in sex by a certain age, and expect one’s college years to be a trip to a hedonistic amusement park? How did these ideas enter his head? It’s apparent that he tortured himself with these expectations. Along with the misogyny, (which is unquestionable – you need only listen to him), he had the sense of frustrated entitlement that I believe to be culturally induced. Taking a long view of this atrocity, the culture of sex-as-commodity needs to be challenged.
I appreciate your articulate and intelligent comments; also agree wholeheartedly that a serious and dispassionate examination of cultural determinants of horrifically violent and selfish acts of this nature is urgently warranted.
The saddest part of his premise and expectations of college as years of sexual fulfillment and the status quo of men engaging in sex at a certain age is that it’s a status quo not generally supported or perpetuated by the females they intend to have sex with, or at less so than it is perpetuated by other men and male cultural interaction. He can’t blame women for his misguided and unbelievably selfish views. Men are to blame for putting twisted ideas about sex into the heads of other men and then blaming women for not conforming to those twisted ideas and “feminists” for daring to insist that our bodies are more than a mere object. Forgive my generalizations on men vs. women, but I couldn’t come up with a better way to express my thoughts.
Just because someone seems “lucid” doesn’t mean that he isn’t seriously mentally ill. Why do you think his psychiatrist wanted to put him on anti-psychotic medication?
There are perfectly sane misogynists. Rodger was not one of them. He was ill. His manifesto was filled with self-loathing.
Risperidone is an anti-psychotic, but is used for other indications as well, including as an adjunct in the treatment of depression, and for the treatment of symptoms of irritability in people on the autism spectrum. The visit where the medication was prescribed is dealt with in the killer’s manifesto: it centered around his conflict with his stepmother.
The “other counsellors” you mentioned were peer counsellors, a couple or so years older than himself, who would help him with social skills. There is no indication that anyone, including the psychiatrist, realized how twisted he was – the treatment and support was about developing social skills, and getting along with the blended family. The closest to alarm was the wellness check initiated in Apr after his mom found his videos online, but that went nowhere.
So you think a mentally healthy person kills 7+ people and writes about being a living god, setting up concentration camps, etc?
*plugs ears* I DON’T LIKE REALITY WHEN IT DOESN’T SUPPORT MY AGENDA
The horrific acts of terrorism perpetrated by a men’s right activist is reason that guns should be banned in the USA. None of that 2nd amendment crap.
Toronto has strict gun control, and we hardly hear of any of these misogynist murderers. No male should own a gun because he is more likely to harm innocent women and children for his misogynist and bigoted views.
Men do not respect women, and sexism is spreading in Toronto because of losers from the Mens right movement.
Really? So, then we would only be dealing with 3 deaths by stabbing. The issue isn’t gun control, California has very strong gun laws that I’d suggest you read. The issue is mental health, and the fact that a month earlier, the police were called by his parents, and they could do nothing without violating his rights…And, you should check your facts. According to the FBI, women constitute only 23% of gun victims, and Toronto’s strict gun laws resulted in 57 gun deaths in 2013, or a rate 2% higher per capita than New York city…
Toronto doesn’t have gun control … it’s a city. And, no, sexism is not spreading in Toronto.
Im also from Toronto, and I don’t know what rock you’re living under but there are plenty of guns here, you can legally own pistols in your home, what the hell are you talking about? Thousands of men in this city own guns and no they don’t go shooting women and children, and no we don’t all disrespect women. This level of hate and ignorance is not going to solve any problems.
Thank you for writing this. You are damn right the media needs to start talking about this! About how women are always portrayed as being sexual beings yet when assaulted or raped are blamed for being to sexy. About how popular music has been teaching boys and men for years that we are simple objects to be lusted after and sexualised and girls shown how to be be over sexualised. We still teach our girls how not to get raped and murdered but nobody is teaching our boys to have self control and people would rather call this guy crazy than admit that society allowed him to get away with thinking this way.
You are so very RIGHT ! There seems to be far more woman hating than there was when I was in high school/college in the 60s-70s. Guys didn’t act so entitled & you didn’t hear of all the gang rapes by high school kids. Our society has allowed this by the things you mentioned, plus the decline of proper parenting. Today’s parents give kids what they want, defend them when they’re wrong,there is no emphasis on delayed gratification & self control, there are few if any consequences for bad behavior, & when things go bad blame someone else. Another stupid idea was the “everybody gets a trophy because everyone’s a winner” idea. We had that nonsense in my schools. Dumb crap about losing hurting a kid’s self esteem & not using red pencils to correct papers for the same reason.REAL LIFE DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT ! You win some,you lose some, you’re going to get rejected, you’re going to fail at something. That’s just the way life goes & kids need to learn to cope with all that. But today’s kids don’t always learn those coping skills & go on shooting & killing sprees when they don’t get their way.I’m a retired teacher with over 30 yrs experience & have watched this terrible decline happen in the past few years.
Yep, the whole “everybody wins, every time” Is a huge contributor to the culture of entitlement. Sadly, many are taking this as reality and not having to deal with the consequences of abusing the rights of others.
IZZY82
“While I don’t know the exact racial identity of Elliott, the majority of mass rampage shooters are white men.”
Africa.
AFRICA.
THERE ARE LITERALLY MASS SHOOTINGS AND SLAUGHTERS EVERY DAY THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE CONTINENT, ALL OF THEM NOT WHITE MALES!!!
How can you give a statistic that is sooo far off and obviously not researched???
Aspergers alone is not blame. Aspergers is bred in a society that values virtual reality as true reality, thereby creating autistic individuals through mate selection (“triumph of the nerds” in the modern economy), pervasive computer interface during childhood, disinterested parents, and a culture that is spiritually bankrupt in that it claims that social reinforcement is the best and only source of self-esteem. This type of mental illness is showing up quite frequently, and the result is revenge killings against society. Time to unplug, assess your partner’s genetic fitness, hug a tree, and teach your children to pray to whatever higher being they feel comfortable with. It doesn’t have to be this way. Have mercy on the human race.
Aspergers is a neurologic difference that has been around for a LONG time – well before computers. Research, check facts, be an informed writer please.
from webmd.com “The exact cause of Asperger’s syndrome is not known. And there is no known way to prevent it. It tends to run in families.”
Aspergers is NOT bred… autistic individuals are NOT “created”
That’s all I have to say on that
I have intimate long-term experience with Aspergers, so you can criticize my opinion but not my knowledge. You quote WebMD that it tends to run in families – then clearly there is a either a genetic or environmental factor, or both, so “no one knows what causes it” is not quite accurate, is it? One way to avoid creating children with Aspergers, as I said, is to assess your and your partner’s genetic fitness. Aspergers was around long before computers, but those people did not attract mates and have children at the rate that the modern economy and associated societal tolerance allows. In the past these were the odd single men for whom work was everything and for whom conversation was awkward and whom women tended to pass over.
A lack of ability to properly assess and process emotional responses of others is clearly traumatizing and is a primary problem that people with Aspergers have in relationships. It seems that paranoia and rage are often the result, though usually not murderous. If you have any doubts, you can do even a cursory review of the materials and support groups for women who are married to men with AS.
All people are created through human choice and divine intervention; I see nothing wrong with deciding to be responsible for the human choice part.
Thanks to the blog owner for allowing so many stimulating comments on this subject.
“Aspergers was around long before computers, but those people did not attract mates and have children at the rate that the modern economy and associated societal tolerance allows”
References please. Oh yeah, that’s right – there were no more than a handful of sociological statistics prior to half a century ago. Made that one up off the top of your head, didn’t you?
“In the past these were the odd single men for whom work was everything and for whom conversation was awkward and whom women tended to pass over.”
If women passed them over, and you proclaim it a genetic disorder, why exactly are there so many of them today, and also according to you, more than there once was? Maybe there’s something attractive about men in general who have asperger’s – namely, they typically have a much higher intuitive understanding of morality and act on it more regularly, and they are typically quite rational – as opposed to say, your jock “alpha” stereotype who is going to fast become utterly obsolete in a world that he can not understand, handle, or navigate. Good lucks, big muscles, and a small brain only get you so far, bucko.
“A lack of ability to properly assess and process emotional responses of others is clearly traumatizing and is a primary problem that people with Aspergers have in relationships.”
What is traumatizing is having to deal with the “average joe person” who doesn’t have the intellectual or moral capacity to deal with people, or for that matter even situations, that are different or outside of the norm.
“All people are created through human choice and divine intervention; I see nothing wrong with deciding to be responsible for the human choice part.”
That’s right. Push your personal eugenics on the rest of the human race. I suppose we should have just let the Nazis do their thing too, right?
sathor, I really don’t understand why you are so angry about my comments. The Nazi comment was particularly trite and irrelevent to my point. I suggest that people be careful about reproducing when there is possibly a genetic predisposition that would produce children with Aspergers, I’m not talking about excluding existing people of any variety from participation in loving relationships or in society, nor am I suggesting any harm to anyone. I also don’t have to produce references to my opinions in order to please you; if references were so important to you then why didn’t you include them in your comments on jocks and the high morality of people with Aspergers? I think that you have taken my comments off-topic at this point, and calling me “bucko” as well as the rest of your personal antagonism says more about you than me.
Reading through his manifesto, I’ve found that he has both enlightening perspectives and very dangerous ones. He was troubled no doubt but some of his points do ring true. For instance, about halfway through the book he mentions being bullied in a hallway by a jock, while a number of “good-looking” girls joined in and laughed. This was of course very traumatizing to him – never would it justify murder or vile activities, but it seems telling that we have a society where men and women alike enjoy partaking in such devastating acts, and yet we expect there would never be any kind of backlash whatsoever. It seems apparent to me that we live in a very hypocritical world – this man’s pleasure of life was taken from him primarily as a result of his environment and genetics, and he took the pleasure of life from others as a result of that cumulative experience. He is an anti-hero, and deserving of his fate, but nonetheless I feel there’s a lot of lessons we as people need to learn, and while I’ve always known that, reading his manifesto certainly highlighted the fact. I feel a deep sorrow for both him and his victims, and anyone with any degree of empathy would find it unavoidable given his autobiography. Demonize him as much as you like, but in the end I feel that he was driven mad by a lack of love and attention, and it would do the world well to recognize that mistreatment of others is probably the biggest factor in producing evil…that has been reflected in almost every shooting in this country for the past ten to fifteen years that I can recall.
His family tried to provide him love. Yes, he lacked romantic love but so do a lot of people who also suffered bullying. They don’t commit mass murder.
We live in a hypocritical society. That’s true. But Rodger was also mentally ill. He lacked the tools to navigate the world. He had a fairy tale view of relationships, believing that sex with blonde white woman would make everything perfect. He actually believed that his problems might also be solved if his mother married a wealthy man and his would-be stepfather’s wealth lift him into higher class, making him more desirable. When that didn’t happen, he spent money on the lottery, hoping to win millions.
Delusional. Delusional. Delusional.
I don’t disagree that bullying cuts deeply and scars terribly.
A lot of attention has been placed on his interest in Mens rights groups. While his extreme views on gender definitely seem to be part of the problem i’m surprised nobody has really brought up consumerism as a contributing cause. His manifesto really commodatizes people, and he seems to feel entitled to a pretty girlfriend, and is angry that people didn’t like him. He seems to have taken it for granted that he should be respected, and loved without contributing anything to that process. I wonder how much being bombard with your usual assortment of advertising and media gave him the impression that because he had no success in relationships he was a failure, and the fact it didn’t just happen to him was further evidence.
I disagree with your analysis. Sathor sounds like he has a better grasp on this than you do. The personal reasons highlighted by the shooter paint a much clearer picture than tying it into a broad social issue. His aspergers definitely helped it along as well. You don’t understand the condition at all if you think it didn’t.
People with Aspergers do not feel entitled. No.
Great post! This man was disturbed, but not because he was mentally ill. I hate how people try to use mental illness or something similar as a means for not being responsible for their actions. It’s sad, and honestly, the ideas of violence and rape have kept me, personally, from even dating. You’re afraid to say no because you’re afraid of getting hurt in a very horrible way. It shouldn’t be like that. What happened to mutual respect between the sexes? Has that ever existed?
I’m also tired of society and the media taking stabs at women all the time. It’s ridiculous, demeaning and wrong. No one in this earth came to this earth without coming through a woman’s vagina. Show some respect for that fact alone, if nothing else!
Did you miss the part where he was diagnosed with mental illness and his doctor prescribed an anti-psychotic drug for him? He was evil but he was also clearly mentally ill. The two can co-exist.
His manifesto recounts how his parents struggled to get him help with psychiatrists and counselors. He also describes his deep depression and paralyzing anxiety. Rodger planned to kill his elementary school aged younger brother because he was jealous of him. He was sick.
Dismissing his documented mental illness does no one any good.
Asperger syndrome is a mental illness and I’ve seen the anger outburst with it myself. A big 15 yr old kid tried to strangle her grandmother because she was asked to be quiet for a music student to practice… I was called a bitch by her in public because there where to many people on the street and she got freaked out. The same girl broke her dad’s front window in the car while he was driving because she couldn’t find her video game and was being lectured by her mother….. I don’t know if this kid had a mental disorder but I do know that the police was warned about his behavior and they couldn’t do anything… It’s sad.
So 1 case you’ve seen has led you to draw a generalization that because that 1 girl is very angry so they all must be very angry?
My problem this article is we do know the kid was being treated by a psychiatrist, who had prescribed psychiatric medication that he refused to take. So he was mentally ill. The addendum arguing that Aspergers isn’t a mental illness is misleading, since he had other, diagnosed issues beyond that.
When you shoot someone it means you’re insane . Sane people do not kill people . I think you and him both live in a world I don’t live in . I wouldn’t want to be either of you .
Good for you for clarifying the Asperger Syndrome issue. It is DEFINITELY not a mental illness and insinuating that it is will only shed a horrible, glaring, stigmatizing light on the perfectly kind and SANE people that have Aspergers.
Why does everyone here keep saying he killed seven women? Six people were murdered. There could only be seven female victims if he was female himself. He targeted and killed more men. In every article the victims are called “people” to intentionally mislead, because for some odd reason, the men never count as victims so it seems. The media has buried the fact that his first three victims were all stabbed to death, and were all men, and the final victim was a man. Death toll : 4 men, 2 women, and himself. Not only did he say he intended to kill women but also men who had better lives than him. He had hypergame complex, which turned him into a disgusting misogynist, but his actual crime was misanthropic, as illustrated by the mixed gender of the victims.
I have a mental illness, and I am alone. But being alone doesn’t makes me lonely nor have a mental illness makes me a murderer! Saying that is just wrong!!
If a man is constantly rejected by women, there must be a reason.
We can all sense when there is something ‘not right ‘about a person, it’s a natural instinct that assists self-preservation. We avoid them and reject them, and it’s never going to change.
Elliot Rodger was rejected by women, not because of his looks, level of education, the size of his wallet, or his heritage, but because they obviously sensed some danger .
They were right .
You’re right, there must be a reason: It could be that the person being rejected has some defect or flaw that basically everyone detects magically at a moments notice (sounds pretty unlikely when put in those terms, doesn’t it?) or it could be he won what I like to call the “reverse lottery” – that is to say, essentially every experience he had with the opposite sex resulted in rejection, which while being statistically incredibly uncommon, isn’t by any means impossible. Look up statistics on the number of people who die virgins – you might be a bit surprised.
People really aren’t as aware of things as we all like idealize. If life is truly random, it is a much simpler explanation to simply say he drew bad hand after bad hand, and all of those hands, together with his propensity for mental illness and possibly neuro-divergent wiring, resulted in a violent outburst and suicide.
I think you’re also in many ways deflecting the reality of the whole deal by saying we reject people like this in such a nonchalant manner. You’re confusing the person he was in his final moments with the person he was throughout his entire life, and he certainly wasn’t that forever, else he would’ve committed the act much sooner. You know absolutely zilch about the man. Have a little respect for the hardships people endure, and recognize that every bad thing you say and do to anyone, ever, might play a role in something like this happening. I pray you don’t go through years of continually terrible, traumatizing experiences, because like most of us, you probably wouldn’t be able to handle it. Stress is cumulative,
He could have easily sought out an entirely different type/group of people. But he kept choosing to seek out the stereotypical popular echelon of people, the types mentioned already in the countless media responses on the situation—the people he obviously was having zero luck with.
You don’t see countless other people killing because they get rejected. Myself, I’ve been rejected countless times during my life and I never had the desire to go on a murderous rampage.
Entitlement is a disease that erodes the fabric of society.
People,especially women, often have an intuition about people they meet. They get “bad vibes” around them. It’s an animal instinct that too many people often over ride with too much rational thought. I read this kid’s manifesto & he’s filled with rage & hate that must’ve come out of his pores like a bad odor & scared the girls away, so that no matter how nice he tried to be, some of that aura of hate would come thru. What upsets me is that the cops did nothing when the parents warned them. That stupid mess about mentally unstable people’s “rights” to not be locked up unless they’re a danger to themselves or others or they can’t be arrested unless caught in the act. We’ve seen all the bad signs before with these shooters: the loner, the bullied kid making threats to kill, the friends who say he’s weird, the possible mental instability, the lack of social skills. But the cops did nothing & 7 people died.
He was not actually ever “rejected by women” as most people would understand such romantic rejection – he never, not once, asked a woman out. The closest interactions he had was saying “hi” to a fellow student while she passed him walking in the opposite direction, and smiling at a couple of pedestrians while he was in his car. He makes much of these interactions (and how these women failed to respond, ie smile back).
But he never asked anyone out, it seems he never even exchanged one sentence with a women he might be interested in.
The “rejection” came in the form of women not spontaneously flocking to him while he wandered his neighborhood in his ~fabulous~ clothes, or noticing him when he entered class dressed snazzily.
Thank you, not just for this analysis but for the ETA against the false co-relation between mental illness and inevitable violence and the false stereotype of Asperger’s Syndrome equaling a prevalence for violence. I’m an Aspie, and since at least Virginia Tech have had to deal with the stigma and backlash against my brain type every time a mass murder or violent act happened and the media began speculating that the perp must have Asperger’s. Its hard to be able to mourn such events when you also have to worry about protecting yourself from these faulty associations. This guy was crazy, he was so filled with hatred and anger over his misogynic view that all women owe him sex if he wants it, that he could justify murder. Whether or not he had any mental illness or may have been on the Autism Spectrum, has nothing to do with that. Thank you for clearly articulating this fact.