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 
This articles is in fact incorrect, he was seeing a therapist
“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.” this is also incorrect and the author is deliberately lying here.
Rodger was subscribed to NO PUA sites, rather an anti PUA site and NO MRA sites. If you have to lie to make your point, and lie this big, as feminists do constantly, you clearly know you have no point.
This author is typical of the misandric vultures who are using the dead to attack men and men’s rights activists.
But aside from her sexist attitude, she is wrong, lying and is a disgraceful opportunist.
Did you even read the manifesto or check a single article before commenting here? Yes, he was a part of PUA when it was online. That has been long since confirmed.
I should note that though the site was called PUAhate, it is almost always referred to just as PUA by both the media and its prior members. I believe that’s where the misunderstanding is.
I guess the therapist didn’t help him very much, now did they? This is what happens when men post on a blog written by a Feminist. You pick everything apart, and are quick to DEFEND THE MAN.
Knock that off. I’m a woman. I’m a feminist. You don’t speak for all of us. You’re shallow and misinformed if you believe these murders had anything to do with misogyny. His first victims were men. No clue how people lose sight of that – or just willfully ignore it. Also – a good bit of spree killers see therapists. James Holmes, Eric Harris, Andreas Lubitz. I could go on. Sometimes – the depths of the illness or psycopathy is beyond the scope of a therapist.
That’s what “they say,” maybe was seeing a therapist.That does NOT mean he is mentally ill. I know plenty of people who are in therapy, but are not mentally ill. That’s a great way by the patriarchal media to try and excuse that misogynistic dickhead for his (despicable and cowardly actions.) That may be the ONLY thing about this article that is “incorrect” as you say, but everything else is right on the money. Eliot was enraged at the fact that he couldn’t get laid, and the ridiculous and hateful “men’s rights activists” influenced him greatly. They probably cheered at this incident amongst themselves! If these m.r.a.’s hate us women so much, then why do they bother trying so hard to sleep with us? They are NOT entitled to OUR bodies just because they’re “men.” Us women are infact, much smarter than they give us credit for. We can smell a rat a mile away. We are not desperate for some male to come along and sell us the dream of kids and marriage anymore. In this day and age, we have the choice to live anyway we desire; with or without men. Guys say we are the “weaker sex.” Well, we are proving everyday that we are not so weak by making our individual ways in life WITHOUT MEN. Seems like they need us rather than us needing them. And that obviously enrages them, so the “m.r.a. movement” is born!
This post is littered with false information and it’s far too late for me to even get into posting all the issues with it. I will say however, that you don’t seem to be any better than the “men who hate women” You seem to have just as many ill feelings towards men as you seem to think they do towards you. Furthermore, asking a single “friend” why he thinks men are afraid of women and then asking two random women why they think women are afraid of men, means nothing. Absolutely nothing. Three people is hardly evidence of anything and men are not always “stronger, fastest, etc” as you claimed. And even if they are, it still doesn’t mean they’re not capable of being hurt by a women. If fact, ironically, many of the things you posted about women apply to men as well.
Also, in regards to Asperger’s Syndrome, it *does* predispose one to violent. Outbursts of anger and aggression is not uncommon and is often due to things they cannot control. There’s also the issue of those suffering from it having impulse control problems. And that’s just what he was diagnosed with, anyone who has had to death with mental health professionals before knows that being diagnosed is no easy matter. He was seeing a therapist and various mental health professionals from the age of 8 and as an adult, later refused medication and stopped going to see his therapist. There is no doubt in my mind that mental illness played a role in this.
Also, you said MRA is where he got these ideas from. That they taught him this and manipulated him. Do you have any actual evidence of this or are you assume while simultaneously scolding others of “assuming” he was mentally ill?
Impulse control, seriously?!! This guy bought a gun and wrote a manifesto – that doesn’t sound impulsive to me at all. I’m not saying that mental health didn’t play a role in this but mental health issues don’t correlate with entitlement and the belief you have the right to harm others. To me, this is an awful situation caused by someone who was both entitled and suffering from a mental illness, not just one or the other. As for “men’s rights” groups, they have been called out as deceitful and harmful by humanitarian groups like Southern Poverty Law Center
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/myths-of-the-manosphere-lying-about-women
And MRAs are notorious for supporting the notion of PAS, a theory generated by a man who made excuses for incest and said victims of it want to be abused.
http://ncmbts.blogspot.com/2010/01/quotes-by-richard-gardner.html
So yeah…
He was a member of an MRA site and he clearly echoed their ideologies. Even IF he is mentally ill what does that say about MRAs?
It was a anti pua site not mra mra have no issue with pua groups feminists are afraid of men’s rights and are using this to discredit mra funnily enough with no facts
No he wasn’t and no he didn’t. MRAs complain about inequity in divorce court, spousal abuse by females, false rape accusations and other things that most men are concerned about. Rodgers only complained about not getting laid. MRAs don’t complain about this because MRAs are getting laid.
Conveniently, your post is also littered with inaccuracies. Elliot Rodger’s was never actually diagnosed with Asperger’s despite a reference to him having it in his parents’ divorce case. In fact, his manifesto leads many to believe a more accurate diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and a severe case of Social Anxiety, two disorders that would heavily conflict with each other and cause turmoil and anger. Unless I have missed it, I have not heard any information suggesting Rodger had quit all treatment (from his manifesto it seemed he quite enjoyed the attention he got from his several different therapists, and he even sent his manifesto to at least one of his therapists before he committed his heinous crime, suggesting he was still in ongoing treatment), although he did refuse the medication prescribed to him by one doctor.
In his manifesto, he said the PUAHate website confirmed and furthered his ideas on women, so you could say he was further persuaded by them and their negative experiences with women that they blamed solely on the women instead of taking into consideration their own mistakes. In the case of Rodger, he never tried to approach a woman and instead spent most of his time hidden away playing video games or later reading about his ideas; the most he ever did was smile at a few girls or walk around hoping to be noticed, yet he claimed it was all women’s fault that there was no interaction between them. It seems he somehow manipulated himself into believing women were evil because he didn’t want to blame himself, just as many other men had in the forum he loved.
Also, the quote you mention is from Margaret Atwood, not the writer of this piece. It seems unfair that you are attacking the wrong person. In addition, it is a fallacy to say that just because she only asked a few people their ideas are then false in the basis not enough people were asked. The smaller the sample may make the information less likely to be accurate for the whole population, but this alone cannot dismiss it’s validity.
I’m not quite sure why you have decided to generalize this woman’s disgust for the actions of some men as a hate for all men. Furthermore, it is not wrong of her to claim some men hate women, as this is sadly all too true.
His own parents tried to have him committed on a 5150 involuntary hold for mental health issues bc they thought he was a danger, how is there, “no proof”? That is rediculous. He may be a misogynist psychopath but when those who raised him and know him are rebuffed by the system again and again, the discussion about the mental health system as a whole needs to be spotlighted.
“He who fights monsters…”
Please let the corpses be buried and mourned, before you desecrate them for political agenda’s. Do you know their names? Their goals and dreams?
I bet you don’t. Because you, miss, are blinded by hatred. You see ghosts and dragons where they are none. You want to purify the fountain, but are poisoning the well.
You are not a feminist. You are a totalitarian. Hateful, spiteful, blinded by your own delusions.
If we can’t be sure that Elliott Rodger was mentally ill, just hateful. Well, are we sure about your state of mind?
Regards,
Guido, a guy.
If one good thing came from this, it’s that it’s shined a light on “incels” and their warped mindset.
With any luck, the authors of those blogs are all on police watch lists now and will be arrested if they so much as try to buy a water gun or a box of plastic knives.
If you don’t raise your children the internet will. And no one should be raised by the internet. This guy looked to others in his situation for community and only got bad advice that solidified his pessimistic world view. This article not-surprisingly dances around how much of a pariah being a virgin (especially a male virgin) means in our sexually charged society which I’m sure is a major factor in his hate judging from his manifesto. The superficial culture of California probably had just as much to do with his misogyny as any web community did.
He doesn’t or didn’t hate woman they hated him and he took there life’s for that and I am gonna do the same
Comments like yours above, arthur, are bound to get you sent to 1) a cozy little jail cell or 2) a cozy little cell in a padded room. Hopefully the author of this blog has saved your IP information.
Arthur, you need to talk to somebody about that.
Get help dude, just because women dont take note of you doesnt mean they hate you
Sammy’s right. Don’t assume the worst – talk to somebody, get a second opinion.
Someone needs to alert the police to this comment. Just send a link to your local police. I’m not in the states or I would. They can track him using his IP address.
I used facebook to message it through to the Dallas Police and SabbathNight’s comments too.
Please seek help BEFORE you wreck other peoples lives-it’s those left alive that will suffer,whether you MURDER just yourself or others!:(
He directly stated that he hates women multiple times. He barely had any interaction with women, he had no reason to believe they hated him, and I’m guessing you don’t either. It was his own fault for never socializing with anyone really, and this is why women never took significant notice of him. They never saw him.
It’s important to note here that, ironically, some men become misogynistic because of a primary WOMAN in their lives: their childhood relationship with their MOTHER. Mothers (and fathers) have a very important role in the healthy development of their sons and how they relate to women as adults. It’s important for mothers to know where to draw their boundaries in their sons’ lives.
There is an excellent book by Kenneth Adams called “When He’s Married to Mom” and it goes into detail about how men can become enmeshed with their mothers and as a result can become misogynists.
The process by which men learn to become misogynists is also discussed in Susan Forward’s excellent book “Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them”.
“a known contributing factor to the development of an abusive personality is a domineering, controlling mother and a remote, emotionally distant, passive aggressive father.
A domineering mother can also be engulfing and smothering, thus a mother enmeshed man will unconsciously harbour deep rage, resentment and contempt towards her – yet at the same time he fears her. He becomes a misogynist who projects his unconscious rage and contempt onto other women and turns into an abuser.”
Does anyone else see something wrong with this statement?
“No. We have no evidence yet that he suffered from any kind of mental illness or was seeking any sort of treatment.”
I’m pretty sure someone posting a creepy ass video on youtube and then murdering random people is enough evidence he suffered from a mental illness. In my book that makes him crazy. Why do people try to analyze things that are so obvious.
well said chris
He was seeing multiple mental health professionals, had a social worker and a life coach, officially misdiagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and prescribed risperidone – an atypical antipsychotic. There were multiple interventions by law enforcement once 10 months prior after attempting to push students off a roof ledge and in April again after posting disturbing vlogs and firung on young adults with an orange juice filled supersoaker. Interventions lead nowhere effective. Police aren’t qualified to detect psychopathy and declared him ‘quiet, polite, non-threatening.’
The feminist blame men , the male rights groupspoiunt to the women, gun control groups blame gun,theGun rights groups blame the restrictions on campus from bearing arms
at least half the victims appear(by name) to be asian
and yet we hear nothing from them about violence against asians(or at least i havent)
Just another example of how the BS groups drowned out the real victims voices
EDUCATE yourself – feminists DON’T BLAME men they blame the patriarchal society, male privilege and sense of entitlement that that engenders along with the resulting rape culture that harms BOTH men and women – feminism and feminists purport the radical notion the women are people with the same rights as men – wow! again EDUCATE YOURSELF!
Fuck you cunt. The Patriarchy isn’t going away, try and take it away, and you’ll be left with a black eye.
I have Educated myself, I have read through these feminist blogs.
I have asked questions of feminist to explain the vague non-committal catch phrases that there seems plethoras of.(just like your ramblings”patriarchy,male privilege same old vague BS)((notice how all the things you blame seem pointed at males in general).)
The real problem with feminism is it refuses to recognize personal responsibility.feminist are reluctant to if not completely void of recognizing other women who would go against their views.
for example one feminist on another belle blog was complaining how Julia Roberts was belittled for having unshaven armpits but refused to acknowledge the fact it was another woman who was doing the belittling.
Speaking of educated, the last feminist i talked to didnt know who Nancy Pelosi was and thought the ACA passed the house of represenatives with the TEA party in control of it.
So I will ask once again
WHAT DO FEMINIST WANT THAT DOESNT REQUIRE A MAJIC WAND ??????
Not to mention that feminist does not necessarily always refer to women. There are feminist men as well.
Forming your thoughts about all feminists being uneducated based on ONE feminist seems quite uneducated if you ask me (or most people, in fact).
I’m not quite sure why you brought up Asians and how they are the “real victims”. Perhaps because Rodger killed three Asians and spouted much hate about Asians, Mexicans, and Blacks in his manifesto despite being half Asian himself? However, his main target was women, particularly blonde, pretty women whom he felt denied him his “right” to have sex with them. The Asian men happened to be his roommates and their friend that he felt he needed to kill in order to “get them out of the way”. I also don’t know why you would suggest only one minority can be the “real victim”. Many groups are victims of discrimination, and this does not make any of their cases less important.
I also agree with the comment above, the majority of feminists do not blame men, they blame the patriarchy (a system that promotes men as being more valuable than “weak”, “emotional” women), which is perpetuated by both men AND women.
he was mentally ill and felt he has trancended the entire human race. It is an trajic even being misused as propoganda
and yet still no answer as to what feminist want done
boy his aim must have sucked if his main target was women as he killed more men and more Asians than he did women.
Also this seems to be someone that was just trying to find a way to disassociate himself from other so he could feel a disconnect from them when he killed them.
He didn’t isolate himself he was forced to be isolated because every time he would be around woman they constantly would pay attention to garbage and not him that’s why he simply walked away and after a while he just snapped and when on a killing spree that’s it it shouldn’t even be a discussion regarding that there is a lot of people that go thru that and I am personally go thru the same thing , I am a guy that has all the luxury in life that a girl support to want but all the chick’s just want basement dwellers and there is nothing I can do about that that’s just how chick’s are in North America they are all brain damaged and they love being retarded and not a single thing will ever change that
While you’re making a sweeping generalization, one need not look any further than mass media and cinema, to the types of women and young girls that they portray, to see there is a grain of truth to your statements. But in reality, one need not look much further than American high schools, either. Who is rewarded with pleasure, attention and gratification? Stupid, popular jocks and cheerleaders. Who obtains the most hits on youtube? Beautiful women, no matter what retarded spiel that comes out of their mouths. This is a society that rewards physical beauty, and shuns other traits which are, in fact, more desirable, and have more meaning for survival. If America believes that its coming generations will be more economically and socially fit and viable in a global marketplace merely because of their physical appearance, they have another thing coming.
Ever seen the movie Idiocracy? That’s what is happening in this country. How long have we been ostracizing and mistreating our best and brightest, just to raise up on pedestals athletes, movie stars, and musicians (nearly all of which today are required to be incredibly beautiful?) We actually elected to presidential office a man who seemed to suffer from severe learning disabilities (George W. Bush) but still managed to graduate from an ivy-league college paid for by daddy. Think about it.
I am truly sorry that you have not found a woman who respects you for your positive qualities. But this is genetic warfare – and as long as people can be manipulated by propaganda (and we learned how to use ours from Nazi Germany, like everyone else) those of us who exhibit traits which would further the human race, technology, science, literature, are going to be second class to beautiful people who, in general, attract more potential mates, and therefore, produce more slave class children.
The biggest fear of those who control the media, and therefore the minds of the people, is that the people will one day have minds to see it. If you just destroy the ability for intelligent, caring, considerate, loving people to procreate, you’ve eliminated the fear. This is a society which breeds Sociopathy, and holds it as a highest ideal. If you find truly loving, caring, good people, hold on to them – because I feel they become scarcer by the day. Elliot lacked these kinds of influences in his life, he lacked a real support network, he lacked real love – some of these people here have said that he didn’t deserve it, but hindsight is 20/20 – and real love, or real friends, may have saved his life and everyone else’s.
This Elliot Rodgers could have been a great individual…he had so much potential, as we all do…but unfortunately he could not survive, or overcome, the toxic climate of a competitive, capitalist, self-gratifying culture. He lashed back out at it, and now there is much whining about how to stop it in the future…but in reality, these things will soon become the norm, because our society, as sick as it is, creates its own harbingers of destruction. Feminism wants to make him a poster boy enemy, but the truth is that there are much bigger issues at play…misogyny being the least of it.
When a civilization reaches a certain level of decadence, immorality and wanton self-gratification, it signals its own end. History repeats itself.
So take heart, friend; You’re watching the death knell of a sick society that will soon be replaced with something much more beautiful, loving and fair. If you go through your life without finding love, then just remember, there are many of us kindred spirits in this world who suffer the same. You can watch as the beautiful people destroy themselves.
I agree with brids… You took everything out of context and you REALLY need to look at both sides. You never made a connection between any accusations and random facts spouted.
Misogynist is a catch-all phrase used whenever a woman is angry because a man dislikes the direction of modern American female culture (the case with Mr. Elliot here).
Please rethink the content and presentation of your articles before posting.
Well sir, if this is true, then you REALLY, REALLY need to look at both sides of the issue.
I’m not sure where you got the idea that she took everything out of context, perhaps you need to read Rodger’s manifesto yourself before you spread uneducated comments such as the one above. Rodger is a very clear example of a misigynist, it doesn’t even take reading all of his manifesto to learn that. He has such an extreme view against women that he would like them to be nearly completely obliterated by concentration camps where they would mostly starve to death. The misuse of the term misogyny does not apply at all in this case. I’m terribly surprised and disappointed anyone would suggest that (being it suggests ignorance or perhaps blatant ignoring of facts).
Love your article. But there are 3 major spots where you did get some things wrong. 1. You say, that this action is a conclusion or follow up or lets say incremention of the ‘timely honored’ way how men treat women… But this is essentially wrong. This man rights movement is a complete different movement and comes from a different direction. In fact there had been a break between the old tradition, new feminism arising and then the modern pick-up and man movements way. Where old men or the old tradition of men did not complain about not getting men, because it wasn’t in their world view, because they thought they were all dope. This new movement harbors resentment about not being chosen, while biology tells them that they >deserve<. The main difference is the new arised counter motivation against women…. You can't connect the old trend to the new one. Since the old say "we are above" and the new say "we are sick of modern women". 2. The problem to this situation the reason why they keep developing those weird believe systems. It is not because their movement is telling them to, but because (some) women respond to this certain kind of behavior. Weak men are ridiculed and nice guys get 'friend zoned'. The problem is that many women take only men seriously that exude a certain side. And guess what… It's not the 'taking care of women' side they wanna see in the dating phase…. I can't express it right now since it's just to late. But the problem is what I call the feminists double standard. Saying that men should treat women nice, but when they are stars or have a certain status the neglect all their integrity and all the behavior expected of men don't count anymore. In fact many of them show the opposite of those behaviors. The main point. And I think he actually mentioned it, is the non-appreciation of the gentleman, since he's seen weak and preference of jerkish men (choosing rather the macho than the nice guy) and weird/integrityless behavior with people like rockstars….
So the regular guy feels putten down without any reason. And even given a fake rule they have to live after or the will get 'punished' or are 'hateable' men, where others behave bad, but receive what most men want… sex.
And from that observation, seeing those tendencies this new 'movement' takes those hard trades. So they don't basically do that, because they want to punish women in the first place, but because they believe they work. Still I got to mention wanting to work out those traits, to fake a certain portrait is disgusting itself
And basically there is no other way to make a women take a man seriously than going into extreme measures…. kind of hard measures…. Overrunning people… Being dominant all the time. Looking dangerous. Some women even like assholes… And of course the consequent increasement of this behavior is violence
So you can't say that it is because "men always had been bad to women, this is now what happens". This situation is a result of the new modern situation that has risen. And justified or not. A female trait stands in the middle of this and can't be neglected.
So it's the shout of women to want to be treated god and equal… but neglecting those men that follow their suggestions and even worse rewarding those that do the opposite.
And you can't take the impression out of the men's heads…. It is deeply rooted into the experiences they encounter and even had been the core message of this murderer.
And is the core reason why pick up artist think they can change their fate with women…..
The way he acted was disgusting and I can't even find words for it since I'm not a native speaker…. Not to excuse. and even this pick up movement is completely obnoxious
I would leave out the man's movement though since that is a topic for it's own.
But you say we have to discuss the topic. And I agree.. But let us discuss it with open cards.
I just have to respond. Of course he was mentally ill. And it DOES matter. It’s clear from every account about him, never saying a word, being in therapy since age 9, his parents worrying for his well-being and others. Did he hate women? Yes. The misogynistic component of all this isn’t diminished from recognizing it.
It does no good by ignoring mental illness as if it had nothing to do with it. It’s not about stigmatizing mental illness. But if his mental illness makes him completely disassociated from reality, or makes it difficult or impossible to have real connections, that’s not something to dismiss for political correctness. The purpose is to understand why these things happen and take everything into account that led up to this.
Never has so little been said using so many words. Rico.
@James:
Well might be, but what I say, lot words or not, holds true and is essential.
@savvysearch:
Might have been that he had been mentally ill…. But he has found the perfect place to build up his paranoia with those women hating movements.
In fact this is a problem of society… Nobody tells the truth. That: having women is not important.
And even more important, not having none doesn’t say anything bad about you.
But media and bullies make you think that it is important.
You can’t deny if he hadn’t had the ground for his hate, this massacre would had been about something else, or wouldn’t had been taking place.
So, it is important to take misogyny, his mental illness and the current female double standard into account when discussing this issue.
Leaving just one of this out is just ignorance.
Sorry to say that.
Im so glad you wrote this and making sure you clarified that aspergers is not a mental illness was on point i have a son with autism when people make these claims i think it makes the aspergers and autism society look bad my son is the sweetest kid i know… ut i guess everyone wants to point the finger and make assumptions when just maybe the parents should have been more involved. .. all ii know is that a person doest kill because of aspergers … they are just people with aspergers that have killed…. which in this case is not a fact that he even had it.
Since when are you not mentally ill but yet take the life of a random person?
Actually he was mentally ill he had asparagus it was known to police and he had counciling for it he was also a part of pus hate group not mra or mgtow actually mgtows and MRA’s like pus you and other people need to do more research before you condem also he killed 6 people 4 being men and before you say well misogyny effects men too read his manifesto he hated men and women actually men more cause they got girls
Before you claim he hated men more than women, how about you actually read his manifesto. In it he describes how he would like to put all women in a concentration like camp where most of them starve to death. A few will be saved for reproduction purposes, but even these will not be known to men of the world and men will live together in a world free of women and sex. He was jealous of men, yes, and this lead to a hatred of many of them, however, he did not universally hate them as a gender as he did women. He also hated men only when they had women, it was directly connected to if they had contact with that “dreaded” other sex.
He only killed more men than women because his plan went terribly wrong and he never got to carry out all the shootings he wanted to. He was targeting women, but failed.
I don’t hate women because of lack of sex or some infantile bullshit… I hate them because they are naturally inferior creatures that deserve to be subjugated. I really don’t know why we as men put up with all of your stupid shit, but for me, it’s been wearing thin for quite a while now. Maybe I’ll be the next Elliot Rodger, who knows, if a woman pisses me off enough, maybe.
@SabbathNight
Way to go dudebro, please keep on demonstrating how “not all men are like that”…
Doesn’t matter if all men “aren’t like that” – there are enough poor excuses for human beings like yourself to keep the misogyny going.
Well done, and thank you for proving how necessary it is to have these discussions about the misogyny that is so prevalent in our culture.
Mr. Arbourist – There are enough of us out here who have NOTHING to do with women ( not about entitlement nor the world owing us anything, just a bad mix and that is OK ,that’s life), but your practicing the “all men..” thing just heaps more and more insults on the guys who are not the womanchasers, and hurt no one. Let’s thin out that paintbrush!
You aren’t mentally ill when you’re middle Eastern or black. Then you’re a terrorist or from a background of “cultural violence”. Why are you always mentally ill when you’re white or mostly white? Why is there never any other cause?
Sorry my reply ended up on the wrong comment..
I blame this on white privilege.
“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.’ ”
Four of the six people killed were male.
Over 70% of US murder victims are male, compared to a figure of around 20% for female victims.
Blaming the Men’s Rights Movement makes a change from blaming violent films & video games I suppose. According to many feminist commentators, men are ‘taught to hate women’ in any case, so identifying Rodgers as an ‘MRA’ is redundant.
As a white het cis male living a life of male privilege in the patriarchy, Rodgers was no different from any other male fitting the same description, so why make his presence on puahate into an issue & why should his irrational rantings re women have informed his decision to murder 3 male roomates, 2 random males & 2 random females?
Given that Rodgers youtube misogyny is consistent with views shared by the majority of privileged white het cis males ( according to the majority of women identifying as feminist ), I’m struggling to see a link between his behaviour & his ‘beliefs’. He signed up to puahate BECAUSE he hated women, he killed 2 women BECAUSE he hated women. I guess puahate just pushed him over the edge right?
So why then did Rodgers choose to kill more men than women & why as a privileged white het cis male am I not ‘entitled’ to fear men too, bellejar? After all, Rodgers decision to post comments on puahate was surely motivated by his resentment of pick up artists…males in other words, the group to which I belong by an accident of birth.
He did not choose to kill more men then women, it just so happens that his plan did not go as he hoped and it ended up that way. This was mostly due to the fact that he had two male roommates who had a male friend over before the attack. He killed them in order to “get them out of the way” so he could carry out mass murder at a sorority house later. Unfortunately for him, the sorority house would not let him in and he instead had to resort to only killing random people on the street. However, he hated women, his main target was women, he wanted all women to be sent to a concentration camp and die (minus a few for reproduction purposes). He was jealous of men, but it was women that he hated and considered inferior.
This is NAMI’s response, perhaps the most informed one available, please read
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=press_room&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=168540
It is with great sadness I once again see the TRUE NATURE of the MEN HATERS taking an incident and with it SPREADING TERROR Over the whole FEMALE POPULATION. The writer above sounds VERY SATISFIED WITH HAVING a Scapegoat to use to blame for the small percentage of men who have violated the rightfully safety of a female.
With the writer (anonymous) who makes numerous false allegations, many of which are USED TODAY IN CANADIAN COURT ROOMS as being a general fact of ALL MEN, of which We men are WRONGFULLY ACCUSED.
I think that men need to START BANDING TOGETHER EVEN STRONGER THAN EVER AND TAKE BACK OUR
RIGHTS AS MEN AND
FATHERS.
I Believe that our society Need PROSECUTE WOMAN and thier instigators with wrongfully accuse and EXTREEMLY
This tragedy (a narcissistic woman AND man hating madman) is being used to further sell homogeneous “one size fits all” slander of all men. The term “toxic masculinity” is being paraded around by feminists all over on-line communities. Being a narcissistic mass murderer is something that can only be pinned on a select few misogynists, and that’s given a wide berth to those who feel this is first and foremost about misogyny rather than sever mental health problems (narcissism, delusions, pathological/anti-social behavior). To be able to say that this horrible crime and act of insane hatred is “toxic masculinity” is to pin this to every human being who possesses any masculinity whatsoever: males.
Once again, feminists destroy their own arguments before they even begin by biting off far more than they can chew and roping in half of the male population of earth in a single broad brush stroke.
I guess when feminists veil their misandry with “Well, we guess not all men are like that…” I guess we should also hope that “not all feminists are like that”.
PS – INTERNET: Misandry is a THING, aka a REAL WORLD. Update spell checkers please… If misogyny came up as a misspelled word, the outrage from feminists would echo an eternity.
Lay off the capslock, you lunatic. Both the men and women on this thread are acting like daft Internet trolls.
Dealing with the Dudebro infestation…this piece from the Daily Kos titled – Are Men Really so Clueless.
Stop proving the article right.
Some men seem to be having trouble figuring out what women are talking about when it comes to the reality of our daily lives. We talk about ‘misogyny’ and hear ‘misandry’ back. We talk about the issues we face as a matter of daily life and see the subject hijacked to talk about the horrors of being a man.
Perhaps it will help to distill the point down for the confused. What is men’s Number One fear about going to jail? Is it about the bad food? No. Is it about the possibility of getting shived? No. It is about being helpless, overpowered, abused and raped. Who in their right mind wants to become a ‘prison bitch’?
Welcome to women’s daily life outside the Big House. We fear abuse and rape as a matter of course. This is our reality. We get on with things. We derive strategies to avoid and we survive. Not only do we survive, despite the misogynists, we manage to thrive. Those of us who don’t get killed or mentally beaten to a pulp in the process, of course.
I’ve been stalked/hunted, harassed, objectified, diminished and raped. I’ve been followed home by strangers both at night and during the day. I’ve had strangers rub their penises against me on public transport. I’ve had my breasts brushed during a handshakes. I’ve been lectured about ‘my place’ (i.e. beneath the moronic-but-stronger-than-me man lecturing me). I’ve been told that as a woman I need not be listened to. I’ve been threatened for saying ‘no’ to a date request. I’ve had someone I turned down start rumors that I was a ‘slut’. I’ve had neighbors knock on my door with hard-ons. I’ve been held down against my will while other men laughed at my screaming. I’ve had bosses invite friends in to watch me work. I’ve been fondled and groped at work. I’ve been fired from jobs when I didn’t want to date the boss. That’s jobs, plural. I’ve had bosses in other jobs make passes at me where my refusal didn’t result in termination. As the owner of a company, I’ve had all answers to my questions addressed to my male business partner. I’ve had the father of an employee stalk me. The list of what I, a vagina owner, have dealt with as a matter of course goes on and on and on.
Notice that nowhere in that list do I talk about my self-actualization dreams. My fancying people who didn’t fancy me back. My battles against shyness and awkwardness. My pushing back on societal expectations that my number one goal in life should be to get married and have 2.5 kids. Why? Because those are my issues. They have do to with me living the life I want to live. They have nothing to do with men threatening me or treating me like an object. They have nothing to do with misogyny.
I have yet to see any Men’s Rights activist or “misandry” thread hijacker detail any level of personal struggle that even remotely resembles that of the hundreds of women who have shared their experiences over the last few days. I would say that I am more than happy to discuss the hurdles that men face but my honest reaction is “seriously?!?” Besides the fact that we talk about you people all the time, in my world, men have much more power than I do. They make all the laws I have to live with. They not only walk around oblivious to the safety issues I obsess about but they are the reason I have to obsess.
I’m super sorry that some men feel like they don’t get to live an authentic life because of societal pressure but, give me a break, that is one thing that both sexes have in common.
Am i the only one thinking that all of this could have been avoided if only one damned girl kissed that lonely boy or tried to come in confidence with him? Ok the guy was a bit Asperger but i mean what the hell??.. if you see a boy in the deepest of depressions, and i know you saw he was, give him a fucking hug, a kiss or whatever else could make him feel not 100% alone anymore… it is heart breaking to know everything could be saved by a little affection.
I don’t understand how (or why rather) a girl sacrificing herself to an out-of-control beast will stop him.
A guy like Elliot Rodger would simply have chewed her up and spit her out and then moved on to the next girl who showed him affection. If any of those girls got away, he would simply hunt them down (such as we see on ID shows like Stalked: Someone’s Watching and Obsession: Dark Desires).
I think we need to stop making women and girls responsible for the feelings of men and boys. Like, seriously. Women and girls do not need to be your nannies and kiss your every boo-boo. We have our own issues thank you (and amazingly, we don’t overwhelmingly gun people down over them).
Perhaps it will help to distill the point down for the confused. What is men’s Number One fear about going to jail? Is it about the bad food? No. Is it about the possibility of getting shived? No. It is about being helpless, overpowered, abused and raped. Who in their right mind wants to become a ‘prison bitch
The reason that nobody wants to go to prison is because it sucks to have your freedom taken away. Derpy Derp.
Anne, I couldn’t agree more. According to Elliot himself, he never even held a girl’s hand. Its very sad to think that throughout his 22 years life, not a single girl never showed him any affection.
I feel sorry that men have created this world that you speak of. But likewise, i feel sorry that humans have created the world that we both live within. I’m sorry that life is not fair – I’m sorry that there is so much evil in the world – I’m sorry that you have come in contact with so many potential rapists and slanderers. I’m sorry that you have been treated like a sex object. I’m sorry that people push down and mistreat others.
Your issues are quite real, Arbourist. I feel terrible that you’ve gone through what you have. I hope and pray all of your dreams are realized, if not in this life, in the next. I wish I could change this world, but it seems so far removed from anything close to an ideal…safe…loving…caring…peaceful…equitable…that I’m not sure we could ever even get close.
I’ve been guilty of hurting with words women who have scorned me…but it was always after a long relationship which ended so abruptly, and often for the embrace of another man, that I could not contain my negativity. I have had terrible experiences, but it is not resultant in “misogyny” as much as it is resultant in “misanthropy.” Human beings are cruel, selfish, terrible creatures in many instances. What Hobbes said really isn’t that far off the mark, you know? I feel that feminists may, in many ways, mistake what seems intrinsic in human nature as a whole, for something only in the male sex. But then again, there are things you say which only you could know and experience. Still, I feel that we understate the degree to which humanity resides on the scale of good and evil.
“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”
He had ASD. He was clearly psychotic.
For Belle to say “Immediately claiming that with no proof to back that fact up leads to the further stigmatization of the mentally ill” in the same article where she blatantly lies and says
“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.” shows the typical and extreme hypocrisy and dishonesty of yet another feminist hate pedlar. The hypocrisy and dishonesty is all through the whole pice. He has NO MRA subscriptions of any sort and clearly was not interested in anyones rights…. does he even mention feminists in his sick manifesto?
” 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. ” This from the woman who says he was subscribed to multiple MRA channels?
Men’s rights groups do not in any way encourage the gynocentric view Rodger had. In fact had he joined a men’s rights channel early enough this may not have happened.
Men’s rights groups support equality and advocate for this from a male perspective. In family law, opposing parental alienation, domestic violence (falsely seen as violence against women) the 60% harsher sentencing for men compared to women for the same crime. Unlike feminism, they do not demonize women as a gender and also unlike feminism, use fact, non violence and do not oppose free speech.
There are too many lies that the author can not back up to go through all of them, it’s pretty much from start to finish, but here is a another big one
“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”
NO! men’s rights group say men have a right to anyones body! Sorry Belle, but no everyone is fixated on women. FEMEN, have a cover photo of a woman hold a man’s severed scrotum, feminists have sent death threats to other women, ERin Pizzy had to leave her country because of death threats to all her family and after her pets were killed by feminists. Feminism is full of violence from second wave on. Solanas, French and friends. Feminism is full of violent man hating icons and literature. I have yet to see a feminist group that does not blame men for everything or place any responsibility for issues women face, made up or real, on women.
Has anyone noticed how when women are killed, they are women, when men are, they are people, citizens or similar (I know this was a mixed death toll). Or, as in a recent story of a mother and two female friends molested the mothers child they were not women, they were “residents” …. or as in recent plane crash “20 dead, including 5 women’ (paraphrasing) ?
Je peux dire que ce n’est pas inexact …
I can’t think of any major MRA website I have read that supports the hatred of women. They may voice hatred of and frustration with the double standards and stereotypes that men face, but they don’t support hatred of women. Perhaps you should research some male rights websites like: national coalition for men and a voice for men.
Paul Elam of A Voice For Men has said some truly terrible things about women. That they deserve to be raped, that he gets off on thinking about that, etc.
@moebuis22
–Pual Elams’ satire…
–more Pual Elam.
Nope, no violence or hatred at all…
Run along Moebius, your lies and your corrosive misogynistic ideology need to go away now.
This applies to “Men who are being abused and physically attacked by a woman.” Not women in general.
As for the women “wanting to be raped” bullshit, well, you’d have to be mentally ill to believe that.
So, you don’t want to demonize individuals with mental illnesses. Yet you’d rather you’d rather paint negative picture of adult virgins, or men and women who are very shy? So, if you’re past that age of 21 and have never had sex, then you’re automatically a mass shooter. I get it.
Listen, I am well aware of the Men Rights Groups on YouTube. Frankly those idiots drive me crazy. Some of those “organizations” are just hate groups. However, please don’t use this guy’s inexperience with women, as a means explaining and condemning his behavior. When you do, it further isolates those who have trouble socializing. Thus doing exactly what the killer accused everyone of doing, shunning him.
Some of us don’t like to play the games that the men and women Elliot hated so deeply do. In fact, some of us loathe those games, and find them pointless, ignorant, a gigantic waste of the short time people have on this planet. To each their own, but the reality is, we all learned the way we act from somewhere else. Nothing that we do originates within ourselves. Mark Twain said that, I’d consider it an empirical fact. Tabula Rasa and all that jazz.
You’re right, some of us don’t like to socialize all that much. Some of us struggle with things that come completely and utterly naturally for most of the human race. And we’re the ones that get shit on, not the other way around. “Nice guys finish last.” Or rather, men who lack fake confidence and can’t lie through their teeth, and lack natural wit, do.
Then there’s people like Elliot, who have the perfect volatile combination of perspective, intelligence, egoism and negative experiences to turn them into an avatar of destruction.
I’ve taken the high road – I’ve learned from my mistakes – and I understand that I will never fit into the world as most people know it. I can’t. I won’t chase women, I won’t be passive aggressive…I won’t try and manipulate them so they sleep with me, or enter into a relationship with me. But there were moments where, stricken with my endless stream of rejections in all aspects of life, that I considered even taking my own life. But why bother? Unlike Elliot, I would never harm others to try and get back at them for what they’ve done to me…but I know something he doesn’t. I know that by continuing to exist, I force these people to face their own terrible natures. The reason some of us are so separated from the rest, is because we remind them of how terrible the human race can be. Not because we exemplify it, but because we are everything they will never be.
Wow, your blog posts are rubbish and everything you say is full of shit.
Firstly, we do *know* that Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. We also know he wasn’t an MRA. That’s fact.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/feminism/ex-pua-elliot-rodger-commits-mass-murder-establishment-attacks-all-non-feminists/
Elliot Rodger wasn’t an activist for men’s rights. Nothing he did suggest that he did advocate for men’s rights. However, he did self identify ad a misanthropist and he did say he felt he was the closets thing possible to a living human God. He thought he was better than all of humanity.
Yeah, his hatred for men and women equally may have been born out of frustrations of excessive rejections which devolved into an unquenchable entitlement to sex, but how does that devalue the movement for advocating for rights men simply do not have? Typical feminism to create outright lies and twist situations into an attack on MRA’s. So much for ‘movement for equality.’
Labels himself misanthropist and says he hates all of humanity. Goes on a killing spree and 2/3’s of his victims were men… Feminists say he was a misogynistic MRA and that his actions are to be example for the whole of the movement which believes men should have rights too. SOME feminists even said he killed 6 women .That’s an outright undeniable lie, so, why should I believe anything else a feminist says about the incident?
I presume then that if I can find ONE instance of a feminist (or person identifying as such) then I can devalue the whole feminist movement? Just ONE. One single person to do ONE horrifying act and I can obliterate your whole ideology of bigotry and hatred? Well, that’s an unfair comparison to what you’re doing, *Technically* I’s just have to twist the situation to make it appear as such.
*cough* FEMEN *cough* Radical feminists *cough* Anarchist Feminists *cough*
There’s LOT’s of atrocities committed IN THE NAME of feminism. More scarily, their atrocities in no way deviate from the confines of the ideology. Specifically, *some* feminists may disagree but there is nothing in the ideology which would permit these actions as wrong, in most cases these atrocities could easily be defined as “empowerment.”
There you go. 100% undeniable proof that feminist is now a devalued hate movement (it always was.) Now fuck off from mankind so we can replace you with an actual fair women’s interest/rights movement that aims for equality.