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Posted on 05/25/2014 5:57:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
n Friday evening ahead of Memorial Day weekend, a drive-by shooting near the University of California, Santa Barbara, left seven people dead, including 22-year-old suspect Elliot Rodger.
Just as past school shootings in America, the media has reacted by isolating the event as a monstrous and heinous act with no precedent. Rather than seeing Elliot Rodger as a product of society, the media has depicted him as a bloodthirsty madman, a mere glitch in the system. And yet the facts show a very different story.
Judging by the chilling YouTube video Elliot Rodger left behind, the gunman knew exactly what he was doing when he went on a shooting rampage with a semi-automatic. Frustrated by the fact that women, inferior creatures he felt like he was entitled to, rejected him romantically, he decided to get even. An excerpt from the video and a transcript from the Daily Kos show how deeply misogyny informed his worldview.
"It's not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls have never been attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It's an injustice, a crime, because I don't know what you don't see in me. I'm the perfect guy, and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men, instead of me, the supreme gentleman."
"I will punish all of you for it," he said before erupting in an almost satanic laugh.
"On the day of retribution, I will enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB, and I will slaughter every single spoiled stuck up blonde slut I see inside there. All those girls that I've desired so much, they would have all rejected me and looked down upon me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them. While they throw themselves at these obnoxious brutes. 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."
What happened in Santa Barbara is nothing less than a hate crime, and yet mainstream news outlets are distilling the issue to "mental illness" and "premeditated mass murder." Although we should be shocked by Elliot Rodger's actions, we should not be surprised. In fact, most school shootings share chillingly similar characteristics. It's time we stop treating these incidents as anomalies and start recognizing the deep societal issues at play.
1. Men commit most school shootings
All but one of the mass murders in the U.S. over the last 30 years has been committed by men. The fact that gender is often omitted from the story speaks to how we still see the masculine as the irreproachable and invisible standard. As Michael Kimmel notes in his extensive research on school shootings, if the genders were reversed and most school shootings were committed by women, you'd bet gender would be part of the analysis.
We often instead shift the conversation to "mental illness" and describe shooters as madmen, while the characteristics they exhibit are often an extension of toxic masculinity ideals that are institutionally reinforced.
Details are still emerging, but according to the Daily Kos, Elliot Rodger subscribed to many Men's Rights Activists' (MRA) websites and may have adopted their radical ideology about women. The comments that motivated his killing spree were not far from many of the ones that are openly made by men in those communities. Even in the aftermath of the tragedy in Santa Barbara, a pick-up artist group (many of which often classify as MRAs) left a horrendous comment publicizing their services, as if their view of entitlement to women were valid in the first place.
2. Most school shooters are white
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Although it's rarely addressed by the media, most victims of school shootings are female. Indeed, according to a blogger at RadFem Reader who compiled the sex of school shootings, female students are twice as likely to be injured than male students, but news outlets often rarely even bother to give the sex of those who were injured.
Although we often talk about the fact that men perpetuate most violent acts, we rarely acknowledge the other side of that equation: Women are most often victimized by men.
4. Many school shooters target females who have rejected them in the past
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A study that looked at 15 school shootings between 1995 and 2001 found that romantic rejection was a common feature in most gun-related incidents. It is not uncommon for perpetrators to target ex-girlfriends or classmates who have refused advances. Elliot Rodger cited this frustration openly and specifically went after "sluts" who weren't interested in him.
5. Most gunmen exhibit a large sense of entitlement
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Like many other school shooters, Elliot Rodger displayed a colossal sense of entitlement in his unsettling manifesto. He describes his inability to attract women as something he needed to "punish" them for. He describes the fact that women are not interested in him as an "injustice" and a "crime" because he is the "perfect guy." In an attempt to prove that he is the "alpha male," he decides to slaughter them. He believes he is entitled to women's bodies and, when denied access, he retaliates. "It's not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls have never been attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it," he says.
This kind of attitude toward females can be seen in bullying patterns too. Although we tend to believe that girls bully girls and boys bully boys, cross-gender bullying is much more frequent than we think. When it occurs, it is often "unpopular boys" who are not deemed to be the Alpha Male by their peers who bully "popular girls." These boys seem to use bullying to prove their manhood.
We live in a society where being white and male affords one with countless privileges and, for some, a toxic sense of entitlement. As Michael Kimmel explains, "righteous retaliation is a deeply held, almost sacred, tenant of masculinity: if you are aggrieved, you are entitled to retribution. American men don't just get mad, we get even."
6. Many school shootings could qualify as hate crimes against women and girls
You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists."
This is what Marc Lépine said before killing fourteen women at a school in Montreal in 1989. Since then, similarly chilling school shootings have specifically targeted women and girls. In 2012, for example, when a 42-year-old man entered Oikos University, he only targeted women and killed six females. The only male casualty was the person driving the car he carjacked.
Although these were classified as school shootings, they are should also be considered hate crimes against women.
Although the gender of all the victims in Santa Barbara is not yet known, Elliot Rodger's motives seem to have been rooted in a profound hatred for women. Despite having killed three men, his intent to "slaughter" female students at the sorority house he entered were detailed in a gruesome 140-page manifesto released online. So far, two women have been reported dead, with more victims still in serious condition.
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Elizabeth is the Executive Social Editor at PolicyMic. She has a Masters degree from the London School of Economics and has experience in the field of behavioural science and women's advocacy.
She says that being white and male gives one countless privileges. What universe is she living in?
You read how the real mother cherishes many loyal friendships with the parents of his schoolmates to give support to Elliott, hosting other kids at her home and taking her kids to other families' homes for meals and holidays. She carts Elliott back to England to visit both his grandmothers, and arranges other trips and treats even when she hasn't much to share. Among her family friends is a very stand-up wealthy guy who consistently tries to help and mentor Elliott and look out for the mom.
As Elliottt becomes a late teen and the time has come for him to emancipate, the mom has lost momentum with his growing neediness and gets therapists for him, but she is at a loss and begins to fail him as well. She apparently doesn't stop him from staying at the computer gaming arcade until 3 AM. She moves house again several times. She has advanced enough at work to start throwing money at Elliott -- new laptop, Gucci sunglasses, etc etc, and then replaces them when he breaks or loses them. And although she is the one who called the alarm at the end, it is too little, too late.
My heart just breaks for her. The guilt over having a mixed-race, multicultural child who feels isolated because of it, and who manifests mental illness but then is dumped by his father; an ex-husband who goes on to have another, "normal" son with the young hottie; these things must already have been too much to bear; but now the DailyMail is spreading every salacious detail of this story all over UK, with large photos, so that she won't even be able to go home to mom for respite.
This is like a gigantic, Hollywood-decadence-fueled pus boil that has burst all over Southern California's sun-tanned hedonist money-and-looks plastic culture. But my heart goes out to her. And like the Sandy Hook dad who abandoned his mentally ill son to marry again and live higher up on the hog than his abandoned wife and children, I wouldn't pee on the dad if he were on fire.
This one and the Sandy Hook shooter had lousy fathers. This one's mother failed, but had tried very hard. Sandy Hook's mother was quite deficient, IMO.
When a mentally ill child has moral betrayal like divorced parents, no male role model in the home, no religious instruction and abundant access to violence porn, sexual porn and computer gaming, it's a surprise more sociopathy hasn't happened.
See post 42.
Nailed it totally. And the perp was not only British, he was about as white as Barack Obama.
I substantially agree with your post's indictment of society; that said, the individual is still responsible for the murders.
And she does not account for the higher number of white shooters is because of a higher number of white citizens to begin with. I don't see what race has to do with this issue. The Virginia Tech guy and this guy were both Asian; yet Asians are high-achievers academically. The two things are not causation, any more than race is causation for shooting when the race is the mainstream majority.
My first thought. This characteristic has been studied by psychologists and is either deeply encultured or actually hard-wired.
[ Frustrated by the fact that women, inferior creatures he felt like he was entitled to, rejected him romantically, he decided to get even ]
How very Moose-limb of him....
Soo was this waste raised to think that “everyone gets a trophy” so that in his twisted thinking he though that everyone is entitled to a boy/girl friend?
He wasn’t just a shooter, he plotted to and did use his SUV to kill people as well.
Some other rampage killers have deliberately driven their vehicles into crowds to kill large numbers of people.
But it’s all about the scary guns.
LOCK UP THE CRAZY PEOPLE. The medications only make them PASS for normal. If they cannot be held criminally accountable by reason of insanity then they must have a legal guardian accompany them at all times (or be locked up). THAT would do a bit to keep them from obtaining their deadly weapons (of any type).
[ She says that being white and male gives one countless privileges. What universe is she living in? ]
I wonder how much the liberal “Everyone gets a trophy” leftist mentality actually CREATES their own “White Privileged” problem.....
So I blame “White Privileged” on the “Everyone get sa ribbon/trophy” Liberal disease!
[ Did this woman miss his rantings about wanting to kill all the men? ]
I find it funny how these men haters never actually take action, I mean she could fund a kickstarter project to genetically engineer their own sub-race of genderless amazons that can hermaphoritically reproduce and then go find another planet to live on.
Instead they stay here and whine about poor me this and poor me that.... meanwhile the rest of us are saying ... ow my head, pour me another drink.
Yep. And you can’t judge black men just because half of all violent crimes are committed by them.
He killed three guys too, so I’m not sure stamping out misogyny is really the answer.
Apparently you did not read the article to which I pinged you.
Sounds like Taylor Swift is getting indoctrinated by the left with this BS as well judging by her recent Billboard awards speech where she blamed criticism of her music on misogyny. Yes, Taylor, it’s all because you are a woman not the fact that your songs sound like shampoo commercials. “Shake it off shake it off...Shake off that dandruff with Head and Shoulders shampoo!” Can’t say I’m really not into that when it comes to music so I guess that makes me a misogynist. You know what’s really pathetic is she has so many teen fans and they are going to believe that crap she said.
If “progressives” were consistent, Ellot Rodger would be one of their heroes.
Can anybody tell me why I am getting this?
Well, one could hope he has had many boyfriends during his incarceration...
If not, one could hope some of the “victims” could raise some money and buy him some male companionship...
It only seems fair...Why deny him his deep seeded desires, right???
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