The Santa Barbara killings
 

I have been reading about the killings pretty closely. I have a distant connection to one of the victims (I never met him, but it made it all more real.) I think the recent experience here with Jet made me more attuned to it too. It's been a while since I have been verbally attacked for being a feminist -- and threatened and called misogynist names. While I know he is mentally ill, the form his abuse took wasn't random. It was hatred based on gender. Anyway, the Santa Barbara killings, the news coverage, and online discussions of them have been disturbing and thought-provoking.

I have to say that I appreciated the article in the Daily Beast called Let's Get Real: Santa Barbara was a Terrorist Attack.

I have also been both empowered and saddened by the #yesallwomen twitter feed.

Also disturbing was hearing someone on NPR say it was unavoidable. I think he meant as things are now. He was probably thinking specifically of gun laws and the criteria for 5150'ing people. But it was complacent in a way that gave me pause. People in the mainstream press are only now talking about misogyny, and that is because of #yesallwomen and the protest at UCSB. The New York Times published an article today.

And then I saw two of the youtube videos made by the shooter. I felt nauseated afterward. Actually sick to my stomach.

The worst thing was looking up incel -- involuntary celibacy -- which was referred to in an article about him, and seeing some twisted posts on a forum. I stopped reading pretty fast. But there is a community of folks who think like this young man did, probably few of whom are as seriously disturbed as he clearly was, but whose writings certainly helped him develop the fucked up ideology he used to fuel his rage. The language was very close to the language he used.

Then people have emphasized the fact that the shooter may have had aspergers, as if that explains anything. That came up with the Newtown shooter too. He was also white and male and young. That is far more predictive of being a mass killer than aspergers.

Some people were buying into his story and saying please don't bully or reject people with aspergers. And then there was the discussion of his growing up in a privileged household and how that may have made him more superficial and entitled. Stupid stuff. I am sure aspergers was a major cause of his being isolated. And privilege may have fed his sense of entitlement. But people with aspergers are not a social problem. They are much less likely to commit violent crimes than members of the general population -- and far more likely to be victimized. Also, rich people as a group are not any more likely to kill than anyone else. But every day, women are being beaten, raped and killed because we are women. Probably every single adult woman in the U.S. has been sexually harassed. Why did it take so long for people to discuss the blatant misogyny in every sickening line the killer uttered?

Anyway, is anyone else following this? What have been your reactions?

This is an important conversation I think no society on earth should avoid.

I think it is so very important that people start to recognize these kinds of attacks as terrorist attacks. Like those who kidnap girls beause they want an education, or throw acid on women who reject them or commid mass murder because women "gave themselves" to other men, and all the people who are quick to dismiss them as one offs, rape prevention being about how girls dress and act rather than who rapes, this all feeds into the same pattern and the same culture. Terrorist attacks are designed to control your behaviour through fear. Maybe the reason people focus so much on how women act to prevent violence rather than why men commit these violent acts is because they dont want us (even on a subconsious level) to dress a certain way, do certain things or go to certain places?

And I agree on the mental health part too. People with mental health issues are not more violent than others. Its true that certain kinds of mental illnesses, if left untreated, can lead to psychotic incidents that can lead to serious violence, this is not the case here. This was premeditated, it was planned and it was planned by someone who had great access to mental health treatment and care. He was on medication and was recieving therapy.

What he also had was deeply misogynistic and racists views. I remember something from studying psychology in high school, and I wish I could find it, but basically it talked about how people commit mass murder against certain people (for example WW2). Step one is objectify and take away their individuality, view them as something to gain and take from (example slavery). Second step is to dehuminaze them, for example give them animalistic traits or consider them less evolved, until eventually it ends in violent acts. If you consider some people less than human it is easier to commit violence towards them.
And there is a huge subculture of men (and sadly also some women) who think like this about women (google mra and pua if you dare but I recommend that you dont), and it is also in lesser ways part of our mainstream culture. It may not seem like a big deal to objectify and dehuminaze women, but it is poisenous. It may not make anyone who doesnt want to kill someone, kill someone, but it will fuel people who have that potential and give them a place and support to grow these dangerous thoughts. If you read comments on his videoes and on twitter, many people excuse his behaviour or even defend him. We should never underestimate the danger of ideologies who dehumanise one group of people.


But I think there is a brightspot, namely the YesAllWomen tags. I think people are finally waking up to this and starting to connect the dots. The most uplifting part of reading through the yesallwomen hashtag has been reading all the people who say they finally get it.

He didn't have asperger's. He had a sense of privilege and didn't like that it was challenged. This isn't the first example of this. Marc Lepine highlighted this kind of behaviour years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89c...nique_massacre The Montreal Massacre (a date I never forget and one that just highlights how horrible some men are in regards to their views of women) was one of the first searing examples of hatred towards women that society has an undercurrent for.

What's really horrible is that we see this again and again and yet.. do little, if anything, to address that sense of privilege. Losing one's privilege is not emasculating or horrible or anything. It's creating a society where everyone has a say and belongs. We really need to stop, IMO, spending so much time on sympathy for the killer and spend more time on what was lost, those women who could have changed the world in so many ways.

Martina and Silkpus I believe you said it all eloquently. I believe, though, that where privilege comes in is this: if he had been a black male the police would have stormed his apartment because, after all, the police and dominant society continue to dehumanize black people. The concept of privilege is how the press would cover it. I wonder if the women had been from a traditionally black sorority if it would be covered the same.

I am not minimizing the misogyny at all. But I do believe that one cannot be separated from the other. White men and boys, as in Steubenville get a pass. If Steubenville rapists were black they would have been given long, harsh sentences.

Just saying

I apologize if my previous post is a bit incoherent and full of grammatical mistakes. It's just I only learned about this last night and I feel like I have a million thoughts about it.

When I started reading the YesAllWomen hashtag, it reminded me of a conversation I had with two of my friends a few years ago. It was right after one of the scariest harassment incidents I have ever experienced. When a man started rubbing himself up against me and when I tried to get away he followed me while shouting at me for almost half an hour, I only got rid of him by going into a shop and hiding in a dressing room. I was pretty shaken by it, but I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid it might be an overreaction. But I told my friends and to my surprise both of them had similar stories, even worse than mine, and they too had been silent about it. And now women from all over the world are sharing their stories by the thousand. I don’t know quite how to react to it.

Also I agree that privilege has a lot to play with all this. Someone pointed out that if he had been a muslim this would be covered as a terrorist attack, but since he was a privileged american boy he was just a mentally ill person who should have gotten help

Silkpus, this is a very complicated area to explore because it is tinged with the personal experience of all women as #YesAllWomen indicates. Even with all our attempts to find "voices" they fall on deaf ears.

If they were boys in Nigeria they would not have been taken, etc. Everyday the press chooses to decide how to cover a topic and that coverage continues to influence others beliefs. Most of what the press reports is all through the eyes of misogyny, racism and privilege.

As #YesAllWomen, indicates this is endemic in our societies. You are in Sweden, so it seems, we are in the US, those young girls were in Nigeria...where has any of the change occurred? Frustrating, anger provoking and maybe social media as in #YesAllWomen will allow women all over the world to talk with one another.

I don't know...and added to this we have the component of being lesbians...I won't even go the implications of that at this point and how our voices are marginalized by heteronormative bullshit

I don't want to put too much emphasis on him as an individual, but he was of mixed race. His mother was originally from Malaysia. Or her family was. He identified himself as Eurasian. He thought that Asians from Asia were ugly and said extremely racist things about African Americans. He seemed to have a lot of shame about being small, which I think he associated with being Asian.

I do not know what his diagnosis will turn out to be.

I watched his Retribution video in its entirety.

His mother stated he has been going to therapists since he was 8 years old.

I see and hear a severely mentally ill young man.

Whether it is an axis I diagnosis or an axis II- a personality disorder- *I* see and hear mental illness.

It is so unfortunate the police (when his parents sent them for a welfare check) did not assess him as meeting 5150 criteria for involuntary hospitalization.

I ponder how so many mental health professionals did not "hear" what he was saying to the point of realizing that he needed major intervention.

Saying this does not change a thing about the dialogue going on here.

Martina said it best and I am going to paraphrase: every day women are beaten and killed. Misogyny is everywhere. Whether someone is mentally ill or a healthy male of sound mind: why is misogyny allowed?

Maybe that is part of the issue, we are all so numb to it (hatred of women) *we* can't even tell danger from someone running his mouth any more.

Maybe the professionals thought that it was just "normal", everyday, women hatred?

Anya, you are so right and given that you used the current dsm to diagnose him (potentially), he wouldn't fit any of the above criteria in the new DSM 5 because both personality disorders and aspberger's have been removed. The new DSM was created by white male psychiatrists. They never consulted more inclusive, progressive professionals like social workers, nurses, etc. So woman, once again will be diagnosed using criteria of male privilege.

***TriggerWarning****

I have been following this very closely. There is a lot of material to sift through i.e. facts and opinions.

It seems in any type of mass murder, the pundits and everyday people seek to find the answers behind such atrocious acts. We want to know the why behind the action so we can try and make sense of what seems senseless, and so that we can work to prevent such things in the future...kind of.

The reasons behind Elliot Rodgers rampage were clearly spelled out in his 140 page manifesto and his online videos. Hence, the sexist, misogynistic patriarchal thinking is hard to miss. The anger and frustration fueling violent revenge against those he believed wronged him was unmistakable.

Also unmistakable is the narcissistic thinking of privilege, entitlement, superiority.

Some of the LESS troubling excepts from his manifesto:

The most beautiful of women choose to mate with the most brutal of men, instead of magnificent gentlemen like myself. Women should not have the right to choose who to mate and breed with. That decision should be made for them by rational men of intelligence. If women continue to have rights, they will only hinder the advancement of the human race by breeding with degenerate men and creating stupid, degenerate offspring. This will cause humanity to become even more depraved with each generation. Women have more power in human society than they deserve, all because of sex. There is no creature more evil and depraved than the human female.

Women are like a plague. They don’t deserve to have any rights. Their wickedness must be contained in order prevent future generations from falling to degeneracy. Women are vicious, evil, barbaric animals, and they need to be treated as such. … All women must be quarantined like the plague they are, so that they can be used in a manner that actually benefits a civilized society. …

The first strike against women will be to quarantine all of them in concentration camps. At these camps, the vast majority of the female population will be deliberately starved to death. That would be an efficient and fitting way to kill them all off. I would take great pleasure and satisfaction in condemning every single woman on earth to starve to death.

Women’s rejection of me is a declaration of war, and if it’s war they want, then war they shall have. It will be a war that will result in their complete and utter annihilation. I will deliver a blow to my enemies that will be so catastrophic it will redefine the very essence of human nature.

Some boys randomly pushed me against the lockers as they walked past me in the hall. One boy who was tall and had blonde hair called me a “loser”, right in front of his girlfriends. Yes, he had girls with him. Pretty girls. And they didn’t seem to mind that he was such an evil bastard. In fact, I bet they liked him for it. … The most meanest and depraved of men come out on top, and women flock to these men. Their evil acts are rewarded by women; while the good, decent men are laughed at. … I hated the girls even more than the bullies because of this.

http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/0...ogyny-matters/



There is a scary place out there referred to as the manosphere, home of a growing amount of Mens Rights Groups (MRA's) who speak to what they see as their emasculation, their loss of power and control over women, their need to fight back against those pesky feminists who have disrupted the natural order of male superiority, power, and sexual entitlement.

An even scarier place where this is an ongoing theme is the US Congress where men are seeking to control women through regulating their sexuality and reproduction, amongst other things.

To address this rampage as a byproduct of a patriarchal society fueled by well taught and well ingrained misogyny is rather historic. I expect it will be short lived.

Already pundits and others are trying to downplay the connection and shifting both the blame and the discussions to something else to defuse the misogyny, sexism, patriarchal thinking i.e.

1. Elliot had aspergers.

2. Elliot had been prescribed an anti-psychotic he refused to take.

3. Elliot killed more men than women.

4. The police could have stopped this before it began if they were better trained, and clairvoyant.

5. We need to revisit the gun control issue again.

6. Shifting the talk to what would/could have happened if he was a poor black dude, rather than a white rich dude because we are more comfortable discussing racism and classism than sexism and misogyny.

7. Feminism as the root cause of everything that frustrates men and incites them to violence.

8. I havent seen it yet but I'm sure it is out there.....if the kid was so sexually frustrated, why didnt his rich father just buy him a freakin hooker?

Sometimes I think one needs to step back from the actual event and watch what goes on because of it. It is fascinating to watch how the reactions and opinions play out. It tells a lot about how people view and process information, and the factors they use to form opinions.

Our society is full of contradictions, which foster some weird thought processes that actually fuel and reinforce the very things we are trying to stop.

Most people think rape is horrible. Yet, we will blame women for being raped. What was she wearing? Was she drunk? Why did she choose to go to that party or club?

Most people think domestic violence is horrible. Yet, people will easily ask things like I wonder what she did to set him off?

And then, after a day or so, most of us will stick our head back in the sand and go about our daily business. In a week, Elliot will be old news. In a month or so, the incident will be erased from our memories.......until the next time it happens.

The demographics he came from have nothing IMO to do with the real problem. He needed help, his mother warned the authorities and under the circumstances they were unable to prevent this tragedy.
He was on a mission and would have gathered whatever he needed in order to carry his plan out.
I am always bothered with the stereotyping of any one because of demographics, gender, religion, sexuality, ethnicity and any other category that may be used.
What really lead up to him becoming this person is an answer we will probably never know.

I only added this because I had misidentified him as white in my original post.

I think thats a scary thought. There are people who are mentally ill, misogynistic, racist, hateful, have access to guns and dont kill people. And we can improve things in society to change all the things above. But can we ever change those people who are looking for excuses to be violent, if we cant even understand them?

One of the Steubeniville rapists is black -- Ma'lik Richmond


I don't want to steer this conversation away from the misogyny and culture of male sexual entitlement as the driving force of this man's violence, but I thought I'd clarify that point.

That may be true, but he would have killed and harmed fewer without guns. He did stab three people to death. But he would not have succeeded at harming so many without the assistance of legal firearms. This kind of statement -- the one you made -- is complacent and obscene.

Using this as a jumping off point.
 

But don't we understand them? I mean, I know on some level we can look at this guy like--omg how could a person EVER do this? What has to happen to them to create such a monster? And few people ever snap to the point of committing mass shootings. Yet, more and more and more shootings are happening. They are increasing exponentially and they all seem to have a lot in common.

I think the point of examining the rampant misogyny motivating Rodger is that it reveals EXACTLY how he got to be the way he was. We live in a misogynistic society where mistreatment of women is the order of the day. The #yesallwomen tag shows this. SOOO many women have shared their stories. I don't know one woman who hasn't at the very least been severely harassed by men, and most women I know have experienced severe abuse and violation. And no one cares that much. Sure, on a micro level we care but as a larger society rape culture and sexism are accepted. Misogyny is some ways, I think, the final frontier. People these days think twice about discrimination against lots of different groups of people but for the most part it's completely acceptable to be sexist.

Just as an example--The paycheck fairness act was blocked by senate Republicans. In what universe would it be ok to pay any other group of people differently than others? Well, it wouldn't be ok. And society as a whole just swallows shit like that up because it's just accepted that women are less than. And equal pay just scratches the surface. The acceptance of violence against women just blows my fucking mind. I hear the cis men I know talk sometimes and something will just slip out of their mouths that FLABBERGASTS me. And these are supposed to be the "nice guys". I honestly wonder what the worst one say...

Anyway--which is my roundabout way of making my point: that is how this guy got to be the way he is. In reading his manifesto I could see reflections of attitudes towards women in society at large. It was disturbing to me. Both because his views were extreme--but also because his views were FAMILIAR. They made the hair on my arms stand on end, not because I had never heard such vitriol aimed at women--but because I HAVE. And I have also experienced violence coming from that same place in my personal life.

So is it really such a mystery where a man could come to the conclusion that he was OWED the sexual attentions an affections from women? That he could be outraged when he didn't receive what he wanted? I mean, in our society that's what men are shown. They are entitled to the bodies of women. It's not mysterious to me at all why this guy was angry. It's more mysterious to me that people think this guy's views are so unusual.

We also live in a society that glorifies violence. TOYS glorify violence these days. But from video games to movies to TV to billboards to magazines to the freaking NEWS--we see violence around us constantly. I'm not in the mood to go look for references right now, but it has been shown that people get desensitized to violence the more they see it. So yeah--we're working on a recipe now. 1) The acceptable hatred of women + 2) Rape culture (the minimization of violence towards women) + 3) Living in a society that just further glorifies violence in general.

And let's see, add in: the bigger and bigger history of mass shootings and the ease of obtaining a fire am. Yes, I also call bullshit to the notion that someone will find a way to be violent no matter what so guns don't factor in. It's always easier to kill MORE people with a gun than with another weapon. Then throw in perhaps a dash of mental instability and BAM! you have what happened.

Oh, and plus--Rodger wasn't really taken seriously until it was TOO LATE. His own parents reported his YouTube videos weeks before the shootings happened. Additionally a social worker contacted the police about a week before the shootings. In an article I read (and yes being lazy about citing it) the police described him as polite and kind. So yeah--Also WHAT THE FUCK LAW ENFORCEMENT? I bet if his videos and issues hadn't centered around the hatred of women perhaps this stuff would have been taken more seriously.

I don't misunderstand this guy at all--I understand him more than I really want to frankly.

This kid was antisocial. Enter killing video games.
They get numb to killing and lose themselves.
They have no sense of reality and are very much
in their own head. That's not healthy even for grow ups.
Parents have a constant baby sitter now and the kid gets
50 points for killing a hooker. They get numb to the gore
and the idea of killing.
Enter the internet. A perfect venue for the narcissistic.
His sense of entitlement and grandiose narcissism grew
unchecked. A privileged brat who was not getting
his needs met. He wrote such detailed crap about his
growing up as if he was already famous. I think he
then decided this was the only way to become famous.
What is sickening is that girls are coming out of the woodwork
in support of him regardless of his violence. What does that say.
Kids are killing their parents , classmates and random strangers.
Any kid can get sick enough in the head to act out if no one is
paying attention. Grandma knew how "very disturbed" this kid/man was.
Why didn't his father? Why did his mom coddle him when he threw
temper tantrums? It's easier to buy him that video game , pay for his school ,
Apartment and BMW to keep the peace?
22 and never had a job. Got everything he wanted
except to be the alpha male--- insert puke here

:(

It's doesn't surprise me at all.
Having faced cis men's anger so many times because I "give off an intense sexual vibe" that they "have no control over" - I've been called a witch, a slut, an amazon ( :D ), a feminist cunt ( :D ), raped, stalked, assaulted, etc blah blah blah blah blah. Cis Men get very *very* angry and nervous when you have power over something they want - your own sexuality. Your ability to reproduce. Most men's rape fantasies, and I've heard hundreds of them, involve forcing pregnancy as part of it.

They like owning women because owning ourselves means we can choose not to have anything to do with them and the delicacy of the cis male ego is incredible. It's like a permenant state of being angry with the power mommy had.

I don't see anything suprising. Sex workers, the women who don't fuck for free and thus make it known they aren't owned in the slightest, are usually the most justify able targets for sexual murders. And the police and general public don't give a shit. They are prostitutes. They don't matter cause they take something that is supposed to be sacred (what the church told us only give to our husbands, vaginas are special and jewl like and can become spoiled and sullied if touched by too many and not within the sacred vows of love cause once someone loves you, they own your vagina. Apparently) and prozzies don't follow that model so they are dirt. And ok to kill. There is a hierarchy of acceptance of what kind of woman is ok to kill. Or, rather, it doesn't matter cause they were disposable to other men anyway. And up themselves.

I made the mistake today of reading news comments. And each news item had a depressing majority of very sexist and racist views on them. I see nothing new going on. Every time women are slaughtered, there is a surg of concern and then there is a sigh and then a helpless shrug.

I would like it if things changed, but personally, until things stop running according to the conservative free market, we will all be used like toilet paper and pick on those we think are lower than us. And try to gain the approval of those we believe are one up from us.

I agree with everything you said, my comment was more a response to okieblue that if we cant understand them, we cant ever change it.

I think saying we cant look at why because we just will never understand feels like throwing your hands up in the air and say I give up. I think there will probably always be unpredictable events that we cant stop short term. But we can prevent a lot by the society we build together. There is a reason why these things happen more often in some places than others and by some people way more than others.

And like you and honeybarbara said, there is NOTHING he said that has not been said a million times before. The things he believed about women is the same thing men everywhere think about women.

Also something that I find almost funny. These guys often refer to themselves as alfa males, and yet they are so fragile that even the slightest rejetion or just disintrest by women is enough to force them into a cloak of whining, self-pity and ego anger.