Misogyny Made Elliot Rodger Do It

You can talk about gun laws and mental health (again and again) but when will the dialog turn to the real motive: Misogyny.

Here’s something I just posted to my FaceBook account (I’ve been trying real hard to bite my tongue…obviously, I caved) –

If society only talks about gun laws, they’re only looking at half the problem. Misogyny fueled the killings. The killer was a Men’s Rights Activist. Had a feminist gone on a killing spree, we’d know it. We wouldn’t read articles that avoided the topic of feminism, we wouldn’t read articles that ended “I didn’t know my behavior could have lead her to do that” and we sure as hell wouldn’t be discussing gun laws. We’d just blame the crazy feminist, who as all people know are “militant,” “lesbian,” and “men haters.” It’s ironic (and mind-numbing) you have to prove you don’t hate men in order to stick up for women’s rights…and most importantly, women’s lives.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) wrote about his misogyny – if they found it, why can’t the major newspapers?

Shooting Suspect Elliot Rodger’s Misogynistic Posts Point to Motive

By Josh Glasstetter on May 24, 2014 – 4:24 pm, Posted in Anti-Woman, Extremist Crime

…Rodger wrote that incels  [involuntary celibate]must go on offense: “If we can’t solve our problems we must DESTROY our problems.” He concluded with a call to arms against women:

One day incels will realize their true strength and numbers, and will overthrow this oppressive feminist system.

Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.

ABC news

Santa Barbara Killer’s Friend: ‘I Think He’s a Really Lonely Guy’

Really, ABC? You believe loneliness lead him to kill? Great reporting!

…police interviewed Rodger and found him to be “polite and kind.” He did not specify which law enforcement division conducted the interview.

A social worker also contacted police about Rodger last week, said Schifman.

Schifman said Rodger was diagnosed as being a high-functioning patient with Asperger syndrome and had trouble making friends.

 

US Weekly had this headline:

Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow Speak Out Against Ann Hornaday’s Washington Post Op-Ed on

Suspected UCSB Shooter Elliot Rodger

In her Washington Post essay, Hornaday writes, “As important as it is to understand Rodger’s actions within the context of the mental illness he clearly suffered, it’s just as clear that his delusions were inflated, if not created, by the entertainment industry he grew up in.”

“As Rodger bemoaned his life of ‘loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desire’ and arrogantly announced that he would now prove his own status as ‘the true alpha male,’ he unwittingly expressed the toxic double helix of insecurity and entitlement that comprises Hollywood’s DNA,” she wrote. “For generations, mass entertainment has been overwhelmingly controlled by white men, whose escapist fantasies so often revolve around vigilantism and sexual wish-fulfillment (often, if not always, featuring a steady through-line of casual misogyny). Rodger’s rampage may be a function of his own profound distress, but it also shows how a sexist movie monoculture can be toxic for women and men alike.”

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“How many students watch outsized frat-boy fantasies like Neighbors and feel, as Rodger did, unjustly shut out of college life that should be full of ‘sex and fun and pleasure’?” she continued, referencing Rogen’s new movie. “How many men, raised on a steady diet of Judd Apatow comedies in which the shlubby arrested adolescent always gets the girl, find that those happy endings constantly elude them and conclude, ‘It’s not fair’?”

After being referenced in the piece, Rogen, 32, took to Twitter, “.@AnnHornaday I find your article horribly insulting and misinformed,” he tweeted. “How dare you imply that me getting girls in movies caused a lunatic to go on a rampage.” 

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Apatow, 46, chimed in, “She uses tragedy to promote herself with idiotic thoughts.” He later added, “Most of Earth can’t find a mate– someone to love.  People who commit murder of numerous people have mental health issues of some type.”

Will somebody send him a Women’s Studies book or at least a Media Arts one? I guess you would use childish insults (“idiotic thoughts”) and superficial reasoning (must be “mental health issues of some type”) to debate an op-ed written in the Washington Post. (And would he have said the same to a male writer – that she was tying to “promote herself” by coming up with “idiotic thoughts” and personalizing it to only HIM getting girls in movies rather than, as Hornaday writes, the entertainment industry?)

Maybe Apatow should read ABC’s “insightful” article:

Chan said after they saw the 2012 film “Chronicle,” Rodger said he wanted to “dominate the world.” In the film, three high school students gain superpowers and one character – who’s bullied, shy and lonely – eventually uses them in a robbery and in an attempt to kill his father. He dies at the end of the film, killed by one of the other students.

One in four women abused

One in four women suffer sexual violence: study

Adele Horin
August 3, 2011 – 12:17AM

 

ONE in four women have been victims of sexual or domestic violence, or have
been stalked, according to a study into mental illness that found the median age
for being raped was 13.

It also found serious mental disorders and suicide attempts are prevalent
among women who had experienced these forms of gender-based violence.

Susan Rees, the lead researcher, from the school of psychiatry at the
University of NSW, said the impact of gender violence on women’s mental health
had been underestimated.

”This is a public health problem of some magnitude,” Dr Rees said.

The study, by a team of 14 psychiatrists, psychologists and statisticians
from the University of NSW and University of Melbourne, is published today in
the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.

It is based on a survey of 4451 women aged 16 to 85, drawn from the Bureau of
Statistics 2007 National Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey. The survey is
representative of eight million women.

Previously unpublished figures show 27 per cent of women have experienced at
least one form of gender-based violence: about 8 per cent have been raped, 15
per cent have experienced sexual assault that did not involve penetration, 10
per cent have been stalked, and almost 8 per cent have been badly beaten by a
spouse or partner.

However, what shocked the authors was the strong association between the
women’s experience and serious mental illness. It was especially noticeable
among women with exposure to two or more forms of gender violence.

For example, among women with no exposure to gender violence, 28 per cent had
a serious diagnosed mental illness in their lifetime. But among those exposed to
two types of gender violence, 69 per cent had a serious mental illness. Among
those with exposure to three or more types of violence, almost 90 per cent had
illnesses such as anxiety disorders, substance abuse, or post traumatic stress
disorder, and nearly 35 per cent had attempted suicide.

”The violence has a serious impact on women’s ability to function, to work,
to sustain relationships, ” she said.

Gender-based violence was more prevalent among women from poorer backgrounds,
and the first occurrence was early – a median age of 12 for sexual assault, 13
for rape, 22 for being stalked, and 22 for violence from a partner.

The executive officer of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre, Karen Willis, said with
counselling soon after the event and support from family and friends, women had
every chance of quick recovery.

”If women leave it for 20 years and blame themselves, or if others tell them
to ‘get over it’, it’s more difficult,” she said. ”It’s the same with domestic
violence. If women get away, that’s important for their safety. But it takes
more than a house to recover from the impact on their mental health.”

Dr Rees said women’s services needed adequate funding to deal with serious
psychiatric problems and public education was needed to alter attitudes that
sanctioned violence against women.

This story was found at:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/one-in-four-women-suffer-sexual-violence-study-20110802-1i9za.html