[Kobi]

***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.