Elliot Rodger’s fatal menace: How toxic male entitlement devalues women’s and men’s lives
SALON
Sunday, May 25, 2014 09:13 AM EDT
Elliot Rodger’s fatal menace: How toxic male entitlement devalues women’s and men’s lives
In moments after unspeakable tragedy we must not rush to conclusions. But here's one thing we already know too well
by Katie Mcdonough
We don’t yet know much about the six innocent women and men who were killed in Isla Vista, California late Friday night, but we have come to know a few things about the man who is alleged to have murdered them. Hours before he is believed to have fatally stabbed and shot six people and wounded 13 others in that coastal college town, Elliot Rodger filmed a video of himself — palm trees behind him, the glow of an orange sun highlighting his young face — and vowed to get “revenge against humanity.”
There’s a lot more in the video, and the 140-page “manifesto” he left in his apartment. Rodger felt victimized by women, whom he appeared to desire and loathe simultaneously. He expressed anger and resentment toward other men, often because of their relationships with women. He seemed to be a profoundly troubled, profoundly lonely young man. According to a statement from the Rodger family’s attorney, he was receiving care from mental health professionals after his parents were alarmed by his Internet footprint — a series of YouTube videos and men’s rights chat groups where he expressed his violent views about women, men and himself.
It’s hard to say what any of this actually tells us. Maybe nothing. I won’t pretend to know. What role did Rodger’s misogyny play in this tragedy? And what about his apparent struggle with mental illness — that big, blanket term we never talk about except to throw it around as if it explains why someone would murder six people? And what about guns? What of our cowardice — the cowardice of our elected officials — when it comes to regulating deadly weapons so that we stand a better chance of keeping them out of the hands of men like Elliot Rodger? What about these things? As a friend and I discussed earlier while trying to grapple with the tragedy as we learned each new chilling detail, all of these things matter, but none seem sufficient to explain what happened. They couldn’t possibly, and yet they’re all we have.
It would be irresponsible to lay this violence at the feet of the men’s rights activists with whom Rodger seemed to find support for his rage. Rodger is alleged to have murdered six women and men. No amount of Internet vitriol — no unfulfilled threats of violence — can equal that. But it also denies reality to pretend that Rodger’s sense of masculine entitlement and views about women didn’t matter or somehow existed in a vacuum. The horror of Rodger’s alleged crimes is unique, but the distorted way he understood himself as a man and the violence with which he discussed women — the bleak and dehumanizing way he judged them — is not. Just as we examine our culture of guns once again in the wake of yet another mass shooting, we must also examine our culture of misogyny and toxic masculinity, which devalues both women’s and men’s lives and worth, and inflicts real and daily harm. We must examine the dangerous normative values that treat women as less than human, and that make them — according to Elliot Rodger — deserving of death....
MORE at link posted above.
= new reply since forum marked as read
It may not be "socially acceptable" in your world to have a love/hate relationship with men, but I am pretty certain that a lot of men have a love/hate relationship with women, and whether that's "socially acceptable" is entirely beside the point. We will be better off when we accept one another for what we are (rather than trying to force one another to be things we are not).
Just a few examples from a quick Google search:
Do you call those "socially acceptable"? Personally, I don't care whether they are socially acceptable or not. I think they reflect something important that it is dangerous for us to ignore.
-Laelth
That, in truth, I don't think women hate men, and I don't think men hate women, either.
From my experience (and it's a male experience), men hate themselves precisely because they love and desire women. Desiring and needing women makes us weak, easily manipulated, terror-stricken (sometimes), vulnerable, and occasionally pathetic. It's not that we hate women. It's that we love and desire them, and we hate that perceived weakness in ourselves. Many of us come to the conclusion that we'd be much better off if we did not desire women, but most of us can't help it. It seems to be instinctual. Testosterone is an evil master.
Ultimately, though, this is all self-loathing, not hatred of women. In part, this explains why most of us become better people as we age. Once those testosterone levels start to drop, people become much more calm, stable, sane, and reasonable ... or, so it appears to me.
Thanks for the response. 
-Laelth
I think humans are social and sexual animals. I think we all want touch, love, affection, communication, and sex. Of course, people can live healthy, happy, and productive lives without a partner, but I think we're all healthier and happier when we have a partner (and numerous scientific studies support this belief).
I have no desire to shame people who are alone, and I think it is wrong to do so, but I think it is both unhealthy and unwise to pretend that people are not both social and sexual.
-Laelth