The Santa Barbara killings

[Linus]

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.

[silkepus]

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

[ProfPacker]

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

[Martina]

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.

[*Anya*]

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?

[ProfPacker]

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.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by Martina

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