The Broad Brush? Women and Men; Prejudice and Necessity

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Asguard, Jun 4, 2014.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    Of course you don't say it outright. No bigot ever does. They dress it up in how they talk about the target of their hate. To that end, there are examples of it in each of your posts. (For your insanely racist rants about white people, you'd have to go back--oh, why am I playing your game? You know who you are)

    And here's more of you trying to score points. Seriously, this is fucking disgusting. Stop using your trauma as a way to put other people down.

    No, you bring it up here to shame men into agreeing with you. That's what you do. You have no integrity.



    No, it just makes it more accurate.

    Look, am I supposed to just let you lie? Why would I do that?

    Just shining some light on the darkness, Bells. You're an awful person who uses some rotten tactics to score points on an internet forum, and as is evident by you constantly butting heads with sane and rational people, no one is willing to let that slide. For the third time, too bad for you.

    Hey, you're the one who brought it up.

    You didn't. I'm trying to figure out why you thought posting a transcript of a psychopath's internet video would be relevant to the discussion.

    Uh, you're the one who needs to provide context. I'm still trying to make sense of you bringing that lunacy into this thread.

    No, because there's no point. And this thread is not that thread.

    For the record, I sincerely doubt anyone in that thread actually defended his actions. Please, provide a quote of someone defending what he did.

    Flirtatious? Are you high, or just dreaming? I mean seriously. For fuck's sake, don't make me puke on my new keyboard.

    Bullshit. You know I'm white, and said that I had lived a life of white privilege. I'll have to dig up the quote now that you're denying it.

    See, here you go again! You're taking a traumatic experience and using it like it's some sort of weapon you can wield against people you disagree with. You should be ashamed of yourself. What an awful way to behave.

    You are so full of shit, your eyes are brown.

    Seriously, I don't need your pity. Unlike you, I didn't bring up the trauma in my life to score points. I brought it up to demonstrate that it doesn't give you an excuse to act like a monster. And it certainly doesn't excuse your misandry.

    I'm plenty sympathetic. To people who deserve it. You, on the other hand, are not the type of person I am capable of feeling sorry for. I almost said "I don't weep for bigots," but then I recalled several racists I knew growing up, and remembered the circumstances they were raised in and how they had no hope to be anything but what they were. So it's not entirely true that I don't feel bad for people who hate.

    But what people go so far out of their way to be bastards, there's nothing I can do. Remember when Fred Phelps died? Same thing. That's what you are to me at this point.

    I'm sorry, you think misogyny made him a killer? Seriously?

    Stick to whatever it is you do for a day job. Seriously, psychoanalysis is not your strong suit.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    So I have never said it outright but you just know it because of... Your spidey senses?

    In short, you have nothing and this is just yet another offensive and hateful accusation.

    Perhaps you can explain to me why you feel justified in putting me down because of my trauma?

    You remind me of Wynn, when she accused another victim of rape that she (the victim) was somehow at fault or to blame and how she was using it for her own means. You are doing the exact same thing. And frankly, it's kind of nasty, even for you.

    So sayeth the guy who is whining because he feels that I, am somehow benefiting from being raped because you feel that I am using it as leverage. Really Balerion, how can you sink so low?

    Because the 46% from that survey makes it better?

    I don't think I would classify you as being sane or rational at this point. Frankly, I am shocked at your responses in this thread. Had it been toward anyone else, I'd have banned you. And I say that with all sincerity. I have banned people who have abused victims of abuse and rape for much much less than what you have spouted in this thread.

    That you are supposedly a lovely human being? Mmm..

    Since you clearly have not bothered to see how and where this thread came from, why should I bother explaining it to you?

    Lunacy is the basis of this thread. As is misogyny and men who feel they are victims because of the misogyny of others. Perhaps you can explain your role in this thread? Aside for abusing me for daring to mention what happened to me because that somehow makes you such a great chap and all?

    This thread came from that thread and there is still a lot of conjecture about whether it should have been split in the first place. As for you "sincerely doubt anyone in that thread actually defended his actions", yet another mistake on your part. Not only did someone defend him, but clearly stated he stood with him, linked a site where he started a thread about how he stands with Rodger and defends him against people like me and then claimed how it was acceptable to murder Americans, especially American women who dared to speak out against misogyny. Defend it well, Balerion.. Seems that it's right up your alley.

    What was it that you said? Reading my posts made you wet or something along those lines? And then the whole "just call me [your name]".. Your vitriol started after I turned you down. Funny that.

    I assumed you were. Especially after you threw a wobbly and accused me of being racist for quipping 'Only in America' - your rant reminded me of those fools who demanded French fries be renamed to something American.. Whatever you are is no concern to me.:shrug:

    Okay.. You're insane. And I do think you need help.

    My eyes are brown. I suppose I could be like you and claim it was a bigoted attack against people who have brown eyes..

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    In short, you're making a fool of yourself. And you are doing it in the worst way possible.

    Whether you want it or not, you certainly have it. I was initially angry at your response and yes, very upset. Because frankly, what kind of guy abuses a rape victim for daring to speak out about what she experienced? Then I realised, you are that type of guy and you are clearly someone who needs help. I'd suggest you take it.

    Contrary to what you may believe Balerion and what you keep repeating over and over again like it is a mantra, I don't bring it up to score points. And I find your accusation that I am doing that to be very offensive.

    I am curious as to why you feel it is acceptable to shame and abuse a victim of rape for saying she has been raped? But I recognise that asking you that will only open the door for you to spout more misogynistic abuse.

    To you, you see it a benefit to women, that she was raped, as though this is what women have to fall back on in the face of this type of misogyny and you probably are sick enough to think that it is unfair.. It's not a weapon Balerion, nor is it leverage. It is a fact of my life and the lives of many many women out there. Are you going to abuse them and shame them as well if they speak out and think they are somehow benefiting in it? Does my rape make you a victim? Poor you. You have my sympathy Balerion. Because after this, you clearly deserve it. Because you are clearly someone who is damaged if you think that that kind of trauma can be beneficial, especially beneficial on an internet forum.

    Would you like an excavator? Because I don't think the shovel you are using to dig that hole is going to be big enough for yourself.
    Yes Balerion. So did his parents and everyone else. It was his hatred of women that ultimately led him down that path. And just so you are aware, there are many more like him crawling out of the woodwork and they praise him for his actions and want to go out in similarly spectacular fashion. This is misogyny.. The cry of the "incel", the poor desperate young men who feel they deserve women to fuck them and they are then hell bent on killing the women who do not want to have sex with them.

    I have spent a lot of time helping victims of abuse, Balerion. And I think you need help.

    As I said above, anyone who can do what you have done in this thread is clearly very damaged.. Get some help.

    And a word of warning.. You ever, ever, abuse another rape victim and say to them what you have said to me, on this site, I'll remove you from this site permanently. And I can assure you, not a single one of the moderators or administrators would disagree with that ban.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,938
    Entering this thread and reading some of what Balerion has said has been... enlightening. This kind of abuse of another will NOT be tolerated... yes, we Moderators are supposed to have thicker skins than the average user... the kinds of personal attacks he leveraged here have earned him another Red Card and a fourteen day ban. I am also petitioning the Admins to make this ban permanent in light of his constant use of incredibly personal, below-the-belt attacks and inability to hold a discussion in ANY sub forum without attacking the people presenting the arguments.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Thank you Kitta.. Much appreciated.
     
  8. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,784
    Mass murder is a crime against the masses. Elliot Rodger was not only a misogynist, but a spree killer. He hated humanity. He hated men and women. He killed men and women. He felt powerless and disconnected from society. He was a social outcast, who resorted to narcissistic defense mechanisms; denial, distortion, and projection. He was mentally ill.

    "Oh, you popular kids, you've never accepted me. I hate of all you. Humanity is a disgusting, depraved species. You never showed me any mercy. So, I will show you none."

    We have a fundamental need for inclusion, do we not? Chronic rejection is linked to aggressive and anti-social behavior. Social exclusion can cause people to lose the will to regulate their own behavior. Perhaps, if society were more inclusive, pathological and unhealthy behavior could be reduced.

    It wasn't just about women, Bells. He was right, though. Women do reward aggressive and obnoxious behavior, reinforcing the idea that manhood is attained through power. Most of them are drawn to men who demonstrate confidence, stubbornness, and risk-taking tendencies, i.e. the high Machs. Why? Because therein lies "the challenge".

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_rejection
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,893
    Two Kinds of People—de Beauvoir in Effect

    And that "challenge" is a product of societal conditioning and styling.

    One of the ironic tragedies of human relationships in history is that they don't change fundamentally nearly as much as they do superficially. The issues certainly change, but the underlying attitudes dictating the stakes perceived are fashioned in an image of society. In Emma Goldman's day, it was the right to not get pregnant. In my youth it was a woman's right to be treated as a human being. Now we're back to a hundred years ago, with arguments about the moral authority to forbid a woman from not getting pregnant. And the one thing that hasn't changed from Edwardian maidens to flappers to Rosie to the Revolutionaries and on through to today is an unmistakable undercurrent of female subservience.

    That Elliot Rodger was mentally ill is what it is.

    Neurotic manifestations of such imbalances, however, react and shape according to the dimensions of the affecting ideas within society. It is still stimulus and response.

    And it is one thing to point out his general misanthropy, but we should not overlook the specific misogyny. There are people who crack over medical bills, divorce laws, who got the promotion; certes we might question the life choices that landed one in such a position that these things are worth taking up arms over, but in the end these are far more practical realities than dating one's dream girl.

    And in the context of Rodger being a misanthrope in addition to misogyny, remember that part of what he was "right" about was the betrayal of the standards. In this ideology by which women are to baubles to be won like a Kewpie doll at a midway softball toss, yes, it is easy to see how his failure to be rewarded with a tanned, blonde white babe is the sort of thing to get an emotionally dysfunctional guy riled up at human beings.

    And as de Beauvoir noted, there are two kinds of people in the world—women and human beings.

    Rodger's misanthropy is indicatively derived in no small part from the perception that "human beings" (e.g., "men") have set him up to fail.

    Elliot Rodger's need for inclusion demands that he as a "human being" be rewarded with a woman. And not just any woman, but a custom-ordered stereotype. You know, like sure it's a new car for graduation and all, but it isn't the Scion tC 10 Series with all the bells and whistles. And it's black, not red.

    In a society that encourages "humans" to regard "women" in such a manner, there is only so far Elliot Rodger can be "right" before his correctness makes the point, anyway.
     
  10. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    This weekend, I made the enlightening mistake of participating in the #YesAllWomen hashtag. I call it a mistake because a depressing number of responses I got for my sub-140 character contribution to the conversation centered around the fact that ELLIOT RODGER DIDN'T HATE WOMEN HE WAS MENTALLY ILL AND BESIDES HE KILLED MORE MEN THAN WOMEN! which is an excuse that it seems gets made a lot whenever the guy (because it's almost always a guy) holding the gun (because it's almost always a gun) is white-looking rather than brown or black-looking. Mental illness. Not terrorism or misogyny or a metastacized perversion of mildly fucked up aspects of American masculinity culture that become massively fucked up aspects when they collide with mental illness or personality disorders. Rodger said he did it because he hates women.

    So do the other forum participants.

    [9:27 AM]: media doesnt aknolwedge the majroity of males' discontentment with current sexual distopia

    [9:27 AM]: its all about HATING WOMEN ​

    How many times do they have to tell us before we believe them?

    Perhaps we should stop making excuses and finding other reasons for his killing spree instead of the one that is the most glaringly obvious to the point that he said that was why he was going to do it?


    Rodger hated women, that much was clear. He told us again and again in the manifesto he circulated in advance of the attack, in videos he posted weeks beforehand, and on misogynistic message boards he populated for years. Women are “vicious, stupid, cruel animals,” he wrote. They are “spoiled, heartless, wicked bitches”; they are “a plague that must be quarantined”; they are “evil and depraved”; they should not “have any rights in a civilized society.” Rodger fantasized about herding all women into concentration camps, starving most of them to death, then farming out the rest of them for reproductive purposes in order to ensure the dominance of men. But men who loved women also incurred Rodger’s wrath. “I will destroy all women,” Rodger wrote. “I will make them all suffer for rejecting me. I will arm myself with deadly weapons and wage a war against all women and the men they are attracted to.” Rodger viewed women as objects, and he resented other men for hoarding what he viewed as his property. “If I can’t have them,” he wrote, “no one will.”

    [HR][/HR]

    Rodger was not a domestic abuser. He was a mentally ill young man who had better access to firearms than he did sufficient mental health care. But his stated motivation behind targeting both male and female victims—“If I can’t have them, no one will”—echoes the attitudes of the perpetrators of domestic violence. Conforming to Jane Doe’s framework, Rodger’s male victims included men he envied as well as roommates he perceived as getting in his way.

    [HR][/HR]

    A year before the murders, Elliot Rodger used this dynamic to his advantage when he attended a college house party that he later wrote in his manifesto was an attempt to give the “female gender one last chance to provide me with the pleasures I deserved from them.” But the female partygoers failed to satisfy, and, drunk and dejected, Rodger hopped onto a 10-foot ledge and openly attempted to shove off the women he disdained, and the men who had occupied their attentions. When police confronted him about the incident, Rodger claimed that it had simply been a boyish fight between men, who Rodger said had attacked him for acting too “cocky.” This excuse helped Rodger evade immediate punishment and allowed the misogynistic roots of his anger to go undetected.

    Elliot Rodger targeted women out of entitlement, their male partners out of jealousy, and unrelated male bystanders out of expedience. This is not ammunition for an argument that he was a misandrist at heart—it’s evidence of the horrific extent of misogyny’s cultural reach.



    No one is going to argue his mental illness. But what drove that killing spree? How many times does he have to say it before we believe him?

    It was not because he was not included in fun activities. He explained very clearly that it was because women chose other men instead of him. But women were the "animals", "wicked and degenerate"..

    When Elliot Rodger killed six people in Santa Barbara the other night, only two of them were members of the gender he loved to hate. But unlike previous young, male rampagers, whose rage is always fobbed off as mental illness and gun culture, Mr. Rodger left no doubt as to what drove him to kill.

    “Women are like a plague,” he wrote in a 141-page manifesto. “They are like animals, completely controlled by their primal, depraved emotions and impulses.”

    Misogyny in all of its forms, from mild to virulent to deadly, is so subtly thread into society that we do not usually speak of it. Mr. Rodger made it impossible to ignore.

    The sickening thing is that he was not alone. He was an active member of a vile website, since taken down, called PUAhate.com. PUA stands for “pickup artist,” and the hate part comes when women fail to respond to all of the charms—from roofies to fail-safe online advice for getting women “hot and horny in 10 minutes.”

    On the PUA website, Mr. Rodger was an “incel,” which stands for involuntary celibate. But while his fellow incels were content with masturbation and “lucid dreaming,” he styled himself as an online revolutionary—and now a martyr to their cause.

    At 2:48 a.m. on the night of the shootings, at least one other PUAhate.com user called him a hero, according to comments gleaned by Josh Glasstetter of the Southern Poverty Law Center before the site went dark.

    Having lost their website, its aficionados moved elsewhere. A Reddit poster named El_Robino wrote: “I heard that New Yorkers became a lot nicer after 9/11. Could this happen to women as a gender after today’s events? I’m seeing that some feminists’ subreddits are toning down their anti-male vitriol after today’s incident.”

    When someone pointed out the misogyny at the heart of the incident, El_Robino responded, “get shot slut.”

    I’ve often written about the crazy open misogyny of the Islamists who have codified control of females in laws so that children can be married off to old men, girls stoned for being raped, women trapped in legal child status for life. When Boko Haram got on the world map by kidnapping nearly 300 girls, I wrote that these men are like millions of other marginalized men around the world for whom feminism is a profound challenge because it takes away their birthright to treat women like property.

    But the Taliban and Boko Haram are part of a global phenomenon that rages beyond the third world, elements of which we have right here at home.

    Mr. Rodger and his cohorts in the men-are-victims-too crowd believe they are entitled to female flesh. In his manifesto, he wrote when he was 13 that he saw porn for the first time. “I’d always want it, like any other boy. … But I would never get it. Not getting any sex is what will shape the very foundation of my miserable youth.”

    At 15, he wrote about the daughter of a family friend, who was 14: “She was a total bitch anyway, and her attitude would only get worse. She is a true representative of everything I hate about women.”

    He despised girls in part for liking his oppressors more than they liked him. “One boy who was tall and had blonde hair called me a ‘loser,’ right in front of his girlfriends,” he wrote in his manifesto. “Yes, he had girls with him. Pretty girls. And they didn’t seem to mind that he was such an evil bastard. … This is how girls are, and I was starting to realize it. The most meanest and depraved of men come out on top, and women flock to these men.” Other online rants uncovered by the Southern Poverty Law Center targeted Indian and black men for getting more action than he did.

    Last spring, he found his online home at PUAhate.com. “It is a forum full of men who are starved of sex, just like me,” he wrote. “Many of them have their own theories of what women are attracted to, and many of them share my hatred of women, though unlike me they would be too cowardly to act on it. Reading the posts on that website only confirmed many of the theories I had about how wicked and degenerate women really are.”

    Soon, he styled himself a warrior, out to avenge the incels, according to his posts uncovered by Mr. Glasstetter: “One day incels will realize their true strength and numbers, and will overthrow this oppressive feminist system. Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.”

    By this time, Mr. Rodger had developed a habit of tossing coffee or iced tea on young people who were kissing in public. He wrote about watching a crowd of muscular guys and pretty babes playing in a park. The sight so enraged him that he went to a nearby Vons, bought a carton of orange juice and a Super Soaker and sprayed them, peeling out in his car when the men came after him.




    Yes, he was mentally ill. Yes, he was disturbed. Yes, he should not have ever had access to guns. Yes, he needed help, from a very young age. Yes, he saw himself as the loner. Yes he was angry at society. But what drove so much of that? What drove his hatred? Who did he hate? Why are we still avoiding the giant elephant in the room and calling it everything but what it is?
     
  11. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,426
    On Elliot Rodger, here's an interesting read on why he may have done it:

    Your princess is in another castle: misogyny, entitlement and nerd - Source: thedailybeast.com, 27 May 2014.

    Extract:

    "No, not the straw man that all men are constantly plotting rape, but that we live in an entitlement culture where guys think they need to be having sex with girls in order to be happy and fulfilled. That in a culture that constantly celebrates the narrative of guys trying hard, overcoming challenges, concocting clever ruses and automatically getting a woman thrown at them as a prize as a result, there will always be some guy who crosses the line into committing a violent crime to get what he “deserves,” or get vengeance for being denied it."​
     
  12. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,426
    Balerion:

    I suggest that you carefully consider whether you have something you ought to apologise for upon your return to sciforums from your ban.

    You're on a knife-edge here. When the entire moderator team is of a mind to permanently ban you, instead of lashing out again, please consider that it is just possible that you may have acted inappropriately.
     
  13. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,893
    Distillation

    It's a widespread attitude problem in society; it even has a media representative in George Will.

    The thing is that some people just take the easy route, and that is also complicated when their chief aim is to attack a person instead of an idea. But those are the components.

    Our neighbor has been on this trip for a while, with one observable result being the time that desperation drove him to declare an abstract moral duty (just don't call it "God") to support his point. The degrees to which his pride is responding to or shaping his principes remain unknown, but this is more about fighting with a person and expecting to win because everyone knows that the bitch he's arguing with is a bitchy-bitch-bitchbitch.

    And that's all he's got. It's enough to run with.

    It's true, as Bells noted, that I made a mistake in splitting this thread out. Indeed, I should congratulate Asguard on the maneuver; whether it was subtlety or just that I was stoned enough to not think it through, or whatever, he has certainly accomplished a rhetorical transformation of the subject.

    But this all comes together, anyway, sort of. It's just not a neat little package so much as a splatter-stain on the sheets. You know, it all (ahem!) "comes together".

    It's a circle jerk.

    Rhetorically speaking, yeah, it's kinda gay. But the more worrisome aspect is its misogyny.

    A post from last month included the following quote from Jess Zimmerman:

    "Not all men" also differs from "what about the men?" and other classic derails because it acknowledges that rape, sexism, and misogyny are real issues — just not, you know, real issues that the speaker is involved with in any way. The "not all men" man, at least in some cases, agrees with you and is perfectly willing to talk about how terrible those other guys are, just as soon as we get done establishing that he himself would never be such a cad. It’s infuriating and unhelpful, but in a way it represents a weird kind of progress.

    Lubchansky agreed that the shift from "but what about men’s problems" to "not all men are like that" paralleled his own gradual development into a decent human. Perhaps men arguing on the Internet (though not all men!) follow a developmental path that echoes an individual man growing a social conscience, which in a very simplified form goes something like this:

    1. Sexism is a fake idea invented by feminists
    2. Sexism happens, but the effect of "reverse sexism" on men is as bad or worse
    3. Sexism happens, but the important part is that I personally am not sexist
    4. Sexism happens, and I benefit from that whether or not I personally am sexist
    5. Sexism happens, I benefit from it, I am unavoidably sexist sometimes because I was socialized that way, and if I want to be anti-sexist I have to be actively working against that socialization​

    Is it possible "not all men" rose to prominence when the level of online discourse moved from stage 2 to stage 3?

    The Not-All-Man hero and his minions are paralyzingly obsessed with protecting their own self-concept, to a degree that prevents them from engaging in sincere discussion. But this contrast — between "not all men" and earlier derailing tactics — suggests that maybe they also represent a small and subtle shift towards good-faith argumentation.

    There is a lot going on, there, including the suggestion that the fundamental question of this splinter, "What about the men?" is something of a regression. But notice the response:

    GeoffP: When is a generalisation not a generalisation?

    Tiassa: When it is a customary obligation .... [diverse citations presenting context]

    GeoffP: It is not.

    It is hardly unusual that one might fail to connect these dots. Then again, that failure isn't usually one of ignorance, but neuroses. Of course it sucks to be seen as a potential rapist, but look at the practical reality; if we try to view this through a woman's eyes, it can seem pretty frightening.

    When a community's official response to a sudden spike in sexual assaults is to tell women what they're doing wrong? The infamous grenade remark (see [diverse citations presenting context], linked above) arose in response to the question of a woman's responsibility for a man's actions. I deride the outlook as IPA, "infinite protection advocacy", because nobody can describe the outer boundary between a woman not using her mobile phone while in public, or carrying an extra set of shoes for when she's not in the office so that she can run faster if attacked, and whatever the hell counts as unreasonable. We're assured that some sort of boundary exists, but nobody can define it.

    Matt Bors aptly summed up the situation of "your worst fear", and while the guy hoping she didn't give him a fake number might be a slight diminution of a guy's worst fear, "I hope he doesn't rape and murder me", to the other, is an ever-present spectre for women; and if she turns up raped and dead from the date, or simply from the journey to meet him at the pub, there will always be someone to ask what precautions she failed to take. And if you're potentially the next in line for the simple fact of your phenotype, the most obvious precaution is to guard against all men.

    This is nothing more than our society asks of women, and, indeed, is only a fraction of the sum. And maybe it sucks to be viewed as a potential threat to life and human dignity for being a man, but it's also nothing more than what we've asked.

    Then again, she won't give a damn whether or not it's all men if she's dead. And life goes on for the living, who will blithely argue about what she did wrong.

    Certes, you and I might recognize the elements of the process, but quite clearly there are others who do not. Of course, that's the thing: Take precautions, woman! Unless it hurts my manly ... (sniff!) ... feelings!

    In the end, one way or another, for these men the issue is all about them.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Zimmerman, Jess. "Not All Men: A Brief History of Every Dude's Favorite Argument". Time. April 28, 2014. Time.com. June 10, 2014. http://time.com/79357/not-all-men-a-brief-history-of-every-dudes-favorite-argument/

    Bors, Matt. "Your worst fear". Daily Kos. May 28, 2014. DailyKos.com. June 10, 2014.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/28/1302462/-Cartoon-Your-worst-fear
     
  14. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,784
    Well, I agree with Balerion. Bells is using the Elliot Rodger tragedy to push her own agenda. Why not just take the kid at his word? He told the whole world why he did it in his 137 page manifesto.

    He had a severe form of social anxiety. He was tortured by intrusive negative thoughts with an enduring tendency to suffer from negative emotional states, e.g. malicious envy, frustration, depression, anger, inferiority complex, etc. His thoughts may have been based solely on his interpretation and assumptions but that leads to feeling victimized and blaming others. It’s unfortunate that no one told him that his need for approval would lessen with age, and that all people struggle, even the beautiful and the wealthy suffer.

    I don’t think he hated women as much as he feared them. They became his narrative, a status symbol, an answer to all his problems. Just like most people feel that they can gain social status from material gains, he thought having a girlfriend would solve all his problems. He thought that if he had a girlfriend he’d be admired, respected, loved, and finally accepted. He falsely assumed that self-worth could be attained through possessions or achievements. His hypersensitivity to criticism and negative judgments caused excessive anger. Malicious envy played a key role throughout his entire life.

    "I started to feel something that has been lost to me for a long time: Hope. Without hope, I just couldn’t go on any longer. I needed to feel hope. Hope for the future, hope for a better life. Upon feeling this, I realized that perhaps it is possible for me to have the things I desire; to have a great social life again, to have a girlfriend, to have sex, to have all of the pleasures I’ve desperately craved for so long. It was refreshing."

    "The loneliness was suffocating. I could barely breathe. If only one pretty girl had at least given me a chance and tried to get to know me, everything would have turned out differently, but girls continued to treat me with disdain."


    And then he saw a beautiful girl while out for a walk.

    "I was scared. I was scared that she might view me as nothing but an inferior insect whose presence ruins her atmosphere. Her beauty was intoxicating! And then, just as we passed each other, she actually looked at me. She looked at me and smiled. Most girls never even deigned to look at me, and this one actually looked at me and smiled. I had never felt so euphoric in my life.

    One smile.

    One smile was all it took to brighten my entire day. The power that beautiful women have is unbelievable. They can temporarily turn a desperate boy’s whole world around just by smiling.

    I can only imagine how heavenly it would be to walk with a beautiful girlfriend down that street. My life would be complete if I get to do that. It would be the epitome of gratifying perfection. To have a beautiful blonde girl by my side, to feel her hand clasping my own as we walk everywhere together,to feel her love!

    After a while though, I ended up just sitting there awkwardly, and they eventually questioned why I was so quiet.

    I hated when people did that… no one ever understands the troubles of someone who suffers from social anxiety.

    I cursed the world for condemning me to such suffering. Ever since I was seventeen, I often fantasized about becoming powerful and inflicting suffering upon everyone who has wronged me in the past, but I never thought I would actually do it. At this point, after going through so much suffering and injustice, all of my innocence had been swept away. The world had been cruel to me, and it molded me to become strong enough to actually have the capability of returning that cruelness to the world. I had never been a violent person in nature, but after building up so much hatred over the years, I realized that I wouldn't hesitate to kill or even torture my hated enemies if I was given the opportunity."
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,893
    Look Away?

    It's not that he didn't suffer in his own context, but, rather, the fact of how that context was defined in the moment by the reality he experienced.

    But at no point, apparently, was he smart enough to figure out for himself that women are people—human beings—too.

    As Arthur Chu reminded:

    But the overall problem is one of a culture where instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to "earn," to "win." That if we try hard enough and persist long enough, we'll get the girl in the end. Like life is a video game and women, like money and status, are just part of the reward we get for doing well.

    There is a reason I focus on this point; perhaps at some point in this process Elliot Rodger was a victim inasmuch as anyone is a victim of poor teaching by family and community, but this is how it manifested. Romanticizing Elliot Rodger in order to look away from this reality is a rather striking phenomenon to witness.

    So what happens to nerdy guys who keep finding out that the princess they were promised is always in another castle? When they "do everything right," they get good grades, they get a decent job, and that wife they were promised in the package deal doesn't arrive? When the persistent passive-aggressive Nice Guy act fails, do they step it up to elaborate Steve-Urkel-esque stalking and stunts? Do they try elaborate Revenge of the Nerds-style ruses? Do they tap into their inner John Galt and try blatant, violent rape?

    Do they buy into the "pickup artist" snake oil—started by nerdy guys, for nerdy guys—filled with techniques to manipulate, pressure and in some cases outright assault women to get what they want? Or when that doesn't work, and they spend hours a day on sites bitching about how it doesn't work, like Elliot Rodger's hangout "PUAHate.com," sometimes, do they buy some handguns, leave a manifesto on the Internet and then drive off to a sorority house to murder as many women as they can?

    No, I'm not saying most frustrated nerdy guys are rapists or potential rapists. I'm certainly not saying they're all potential mass murderers. I'm not saying that most lonely men who put women up on pedestals will turn on them with hostility and rage once they get frustrated enough.

    But I have known nerdy male stalkers, and, yes, nerdy male rapists. I've known situations where I knew something was going on but didn't say anything—because I didn't want to stick my neck out, because some vile part of me thought that this kind of thing was "normal," because, in other words, I was a coward and I had the privilege of ignoring the problem.

    I've heard and seen the stories that those of you who followed the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter have seen—women getting groped at cons, women getting vicious insults flung at them online, women getting stalked by creeps in college and told they should be "flattered." I've heard Elliot Rodger's voice before. I was expecting his manifesto to be incomprehensible madness—hoping for it to be—but it wasn't. It's a standard frustrated angry geeky guy manifesto, except for the part about mass murder.

    I've heard it from acquaintances, I've heard it from friends. I've heard it come out of my own mouth, in moments of anger and weakness.

    It's the same motivation that makes a guy in college stalk a girl, leave her unsolicited gifts and finally when she tells him to quit it makes him leave an angry post about her "shallowness" and "cruelty" on Facebook. It's the same motivation that makes guys rant about "fake cosplay girls" at cons and how much he hates them for their vain, "teasing" ways. The one that makes a guy suffering career or personal problems turn on his wife because it's her job to "support" him by patching up all the holes in his life. The one that makes a wealthy entrepreneur hit his girlfriend 117 times, on camera, for her infidelity, and then after getting off with a misdemeanor charge still put up a blog post casting himself as the victim.

    The attitudes Chu describes are pervasive in our society. They have come front and center in American politics; people once again question a woman's right to not be pregnant, prominent politicians are advocating sex discrimination to force women into marriage and motherhood, and there are always plenty of people around to try their hand at justifying a misogyny so traditional it has been justified, for millennia, by God.

    What the hell does it take to bring this malady front and center? This objectification, dehumanization, de Beauvoir dichotomy, is interwoven with so many challenges facing our society that yes, its address does represent paradigmatic change; and we all know that people generally fear paradigmatic change.

    To look away? Certes, we might invoke Burk or Mill, Bondarchuk or Tolstoy, and even reach back to Plato. But even setting aside questions of the triumph of evil, there simply comes a point where looking away is absolutely untenable.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Chu, Arthur. "Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds". The Daily Beast. May 27, 2014. TheDailyBeast.com. June 10, 2014. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...er-castle-misogyny-entitlement-and-nerds.html
     
  16. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    But it is a little unusual that one takes the time to highlight their own failure to connect those dots, Tiassa: I mean, come on, there were only two dots. Who exactly is writing off misogyny by stating the freaking obvious? Rape culture (and this is a novel one, for sure) and guns and cowboys exist, sure: but the other point of a Venn diagram is recognising the space that exists outside the circles. It's like blaming an entire religious group for the excesses of those extremists within that group, and surely no one would think that reasonable on SF.
     
  17. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,784
    It’s not even all men, Tiassa. It’s women, too.

    Women objectify men, as well. They use men as tools, work horses, or as objects to gain hierarchy? Some men may reduce women to objects, but there are plenty of women out there that reduce a man’s worth to the objects that he can provide.

    There are women stalkers, murders, and even women pedophiles. They can be evil, aggressive, and master manipulators. We’re not all sugar, spice, and everything nice, you know. We’re really not all that different from men.

    In the United States, the young women today have really reaped what feminism has sown, and fortunately, there’s not as much peer pressure for them to have sex. Getting laid, that's going to be your downfall. It already is. Women are outperforming men at all levels of school. While the guys are out drinking beer and trying to get laid, the girls are back in their rooms studying.

    The next generation will be dealing with a whole new ballgame. There might even be a little role reversal. Women are no longer living with anger as marginalized or abused people as Bells portrays. They’re no longer victims, and they don’t have to make themselves into males to succeed. They are succeeding and surpassing men at a rapidly increasing rate. Pretty soon, men will be managing the household.
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Oh here we go..

    What agenda would that be?

    Yes, he did. And I am curious why you keep ignoring his reasons and trying to turn it into something else. Poor poor Elliot, loved by no one that he deemed should be fawning over his penis. Why do you deny his very words and the words of his supporters who see his reasons like you refuse to see them?

    Are you going to suggest all of those hundreds and hundreds of men who are jumping for joy at why he did it all suffer from his malady?

    I don't understand why you are so intent on demanding that it is everything but what he stated?

    Why are you so desperate to deny his misogyny? Talk about women objectifying men...

    Wow, could you make up more excuses?

    His problem, as he so clearly stated, was that the beautiful women he felt he deserved and should have and did not have were his problem. He didn't want a girlfriend. He wanted to own beautiful women, as he felt was his right as a male.

    He didn't want them to accept him. He wanted them to bow to him and suck his proverbial cock. Because he was the "superior one".

    He did not want acceptance. He wanted to dominate. The women he felt he owned and should have been allowed to control and the men he felt were inferior to his perceived superiority. He wanted to be adored and respected, while offering nothing in return. The thought that respect is earned was inconceivable to Elliot Rodger. He was entitled to a beautiful white girl because that was what he was entitled to. Those he felt were unworthy and beneath him who had what he felt he should have naturally were hated, and the women they slept with hated even more.. He was superior, of aristocratic birth, and so, he deserved it more. Just as he deserved to live a life of wealth and splendor but felt his mother was selfish for not doing what he wanted and marry someone rich.

    How can you read his manifesto and not see his actual hatred of women...

    It was all meant to be about him. The universe was meant to revolve around him. Women were meant to flock to him. Money was meant to go to him, just as he was obsessed with lottery tickets. It should all be his because he deserved it more than anyone else.

    Has anyone ever said this was not the case?

    I'm sorry, what? How do I portray all women as victims?

    And does this mean that women need to be taken down a few pegs? Shown our true place and self worth?

    So what if men manage the household? Many men do so now. You make it sound like it's something demeaning and insulting. You know, women's work.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    This is all true. But this isn't necessarily an either/or situation. Yes, Rodger was a misogynist. He also very likely had mental difficulties, and to say so doesn't diminish the part a misogynistic culture played in this tragedy. If anything, it emphasises precisely why this culture is so dangerous. Rodger had been in therapy since he was nine years old. Friends of the family have given numerous interviews testifying to his parents' long-term concern for him. His parents stayed in contact with mental-health professionals after Rodger turned 18, but there was little they could do: their son was now an adult, and he hadn't said or done anything that would have merited involuntary mental health treatment. It looks as if, at some point, Rodger found an outlet for his difficulties: misogyny. This is where the culture comes into play.

    Rodger was enabled in his misogynistic feelings by a culture that exists to validate the feelings of angry, lonely and sometimes mentally unwell men. Judging from the language Rodger used in his videos, he had been a follower of the pick-up artist (PUA) online community, which teaches men that they can and should trick and bully women into sleeping with them (Tom Cruise's character in Magnolia is an excellent representation of the PUA community). Rodger described himself as "an alpha" and "incel" – "involuntary celibate"; these are terms that come straight from the PUA textbooks.

    But Rodger was also a frequent contributor to the PUAhate online community boards, which are for men who find that PUA tricks don't work for them. These men spend their time on the internet railing against women who fail to appreciate their inherent goodness, and argue that women shouldn't be allowed to choose who they have sex with. Indeed, in his manifesto, Rodger wrote: "Women should not have the right to choose who to mate with. That choice should be made for them by civilised men of intelligence."

    This misogynistic culture exists, absolutely, and what's so dangerous about it is that it attracts potentially mentally unstable people, including Rodger, and validates their most extreme feelings. To say that mental illness played a part in Rodger's behaviour doesn't dismiss the culture that played a part in it any more than saying eating disorders are a mental illness (which they are) excuses the part played by the sick fetishisation of women's bodies in western culture.

    It's also worth pointing out that Rodger didn't just rail against women in his manifesto – he also spewed plenty of racist bile, which is getting far less attention, even though the first people he killed were his two Asian roommates and their Asian friend, whom he had specifically described as "repulsive". (Rodger was half-Asian himself and blamed this for his lack of success with women.)

    It is also worth pointing out that even if Rodger had been diagnosed with a serious mental illness he would still have been able to buy a gun, even in California, which has some of the most stringent laws about buying guns in the United States.

    Was misogyny the reason a 22-year-old man went on a killing spree? Hell yes. Were other factors at play here, too, such as mental health, a financially straitened mental health system and an American political system cowed by the NRA, leading to too much access to guns? Yes, yes and yes. And to say that doesn't diminish the part played by any of these reasons. In fact, they underline the dangers in one another.

    Perhaps people should start paying attention to what he said and wrote and stop trying to downplay his misogyny as though it did not really matter. And sadly, he won't be the only one. The online men's rights sites are full of praise for Rodger. We recently had to ban one such fellow who linked and encouraged members here to visit his site where Rodger's actions were praised and they even discussed why and how it was necessary and encouraged committing such acts. Even incited it against women who are sluts and whores. You know, the women who are feminists or believe in women's rights, the very women you commented are reaping from what feminism as sown. They are the targets of such men. And the internet is rife with it. Some are even typing up their manifesto for when it's their turn to be like Rodger or Sodini...

    Stop making excuses and denying what's right in your face Trooper and certainly do not blame women for the actions of such individuals.
     
  19. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,784
    You didn't even read it. You're just pulling bits and pieces from articles. Cherry picking, that's your thing, isn't it?
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Oh I actually did read it.

    In full..

    Which is why I cannot understand your denial that misogyny played such a big role in what he did. How can you deny it? Worse still, how can you excuse it and try and lay the blame on women? Poor Elliot, not given what he felt was his right.. He was given everything he wanted. The only thing he did not get was because no one could give it to him like his parents gave him everything he wanted.. And that was another human being that he could fuck. And that enraged him. That he could not just take a beautiful blonde woman and own her. That she had a say in refusing him.. Which is why he felt that women should be denied all say, that only intelligent men like him should have the say. That women should be removed from society, locked away so that they did not corrupt men with their filth and their choices.

    I would imagine his friend James had probably seen it and which it was why James broke off the friendship with him, that even though Rodger portrayed him as being very similar to him, that James recognised and saw his hatred - since he broke up that friendship after he started to rant about how he wanted to kill them and make them pay. Flay the skin off their backs. His hatred of women was the central basis of it. He blamed women for his exclusion, and he hated them for it. Because he felt that he deserved to be seen as great, recognised as great. Like the movie premier he went to with his father, when he thought about the fans behind the barricades and how he was the privileged one. And everyone else was simply common and not worthy enough of the status he felt he deserved.

    His obsession with blonde women. Notice how that was all he was attracted to? He was obsessed with it, like when he dyed his hair blonde at a young age and how his friend looked at him with surprise.

    He resented his mother for not marrying someone rich like Jack, the wealthy man she dated. He felt that was what he deserved, that pretty blonde women would then be his to command, because he would then have the money to command them. How he was offended and angry that his younger sister was having sex with a half-hispanic man, not only was she having sex, but she was having sex with someone not worthy, not pure and privileged which simply made her a slut and a whore.

    Just because you deny his misogyny does not mean I have not read it Trooper. Just because I don't excuse his misogyny and make excuses for his actions and blame it on women and people who did not accept him as he felt he should be not only accepted because he felt he was better than everyone else, does not mean I did not read it. Did you notice how he left out his therapy sessions from when he was 9 years of age? How he details his rages, fits of crying for hours on end when he did not get what he wanted? How he detested his father's wife because she appeared to be the only one who did not rush around and give him what he wanted like his mother and father did? How much he hated her, because "HE WAS THE FIRST BORN SON", the privileged one who should have had a higher say over the woman his father was married to? What? That's not misogyny either? How he loved his younger brother because Jazz looked up to him, saw him as being the great one he saw himself as being, and how he then decided to kill him because his brother was easy to get along with and made friends and was able to go up and speak to people? How he dreamed of stabbing his stepmother with his knife? How his brother became one of 'them' and stopped idolizing him?

    Are you going to claim it was not misogyny that led him to try to push women off that ledge at that party? You don't think it was misogyny that saw him see his father as a weak man, for letting his wife speak over him, as "FIRST BORN SON"? To have a say over their household and to not give him what he wanted when he wanted it? Don't you think it was strange that his mother hid her relationships from him? He even admits it. Why do you think that was? Don't you think that perhaps his mother recognised what he was?

    He was a spoiled brat. When he didn't get what he wanted, he openly admits to his tantrums, his fits of crying and screaming and his weasling his parents to get what he wanted, of making them feel guilty. The kid led a privileged life. His description of being poor.. Was the description of what normal people live like. But he did not want to be normal. He was the alpha. It wasn't about acceptance as it was that they did not recognise that he belonged on the red carpet side of the barrier. He even stated it, that if one of those beautiful blonde cool in crowd women in college had given him what he deserved and what was his right, then they too would be there, with him, on the privileged side.

    And that is clearly what you missed.

    He felt it was his right to own everything, including beautiful blonde women. And you don't think that's misogyny?

    Riigghhtttt..

    Whatever you say, Trooper..
     
  21. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,784

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  22. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Oh please..

    Had he been able to get into that sorority house, the men who died would probably have been his two housemates and their guest that day. He went there first. When he wasn't able to get in, he then went for a drive. But to deny that his misogyny was a driving factor and to then blame women... Come on Trooper, you're better than this. Accusing me of pulling bits and pieces from articles after the debacle you raised when you pulled a quote out of context? And then accuse me of having an agenda because I dare to discuss his misogyny? Oh noes! How dare I. Perhaps I should just return to the housework so that men do not feel as though their masculinity is being ripped from them if they have to clean the house.

    His fan boys even complain that he never got to fulfill his wish of killing more women and some even lamented on 'if only he had been able to get into the sorority house'..

    “Blond sorority sluts” must die, “virgin” Elliot Rodger vowed on video before slaughtering six innocents and injuring seven more in a Friday night drive-by shooting spree in California.

    “On the day of retribution, I am going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB,” seethed Rodger, 22. “And I will slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut I see inside there.”

    [HR][/HR]

    Rodger, the son of a minor Hollywood director and a self-described virgin who’d never even kissed a girl, made good on his threat, visiting the Alpha Phi *sorority house Friday night and pounding on their door.

    “They are all spoiled, heartless, wicked bitches,” he wrote of his “hot, beautiful blond” targets in a 140-page “manifesto” he’d sent to local news media.

    “He was, like, knocking on the door really loudly, and girls were kind of confused and didn’t know whether they should open the door or not, and they decided not to,” a 21-year-old Alpha Phi member told The Post, asking that her name not be revealed.

    “It’s a miracle no one opened up,” another Alpha Phi member said.

    Rodger instead fired away outside the sorority next door, killing Delta Delta Delta members Katie Cooper and Veronika Weiss, 19, officials said.

    He then hopped into his shiny black BMW sports car, running down two bicyclists and firing out his window, killing UCSB student Chris Martinez, 20.


    Spree killer huh? He hated women and he detested the men ("oafs") who slept with them.

    But it's best to just pretend it doesn't happen. That there aren't people like that out there. Or perhaps women can just do as the Washington Post suggested to end the violence. Just marry the men who feel so entitledhttp://jezebel.com/violence-against-women-will-end-when-you-sluts-get-marr-1588828277.

    So what agenda was I pushing again? More to the point, what agenda are you trying to foist here in this thread by denying what the whole world can see? Elliot Rodger gave his reasons for his "day of retribution". Why do you keep saying he was wrong? That he didn't really hate women, but was simply afraid of them? Do you know him better than he knows himself? Than the men in the men's rights groups he spoke to knew him for what he was?
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2014
  23. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,738
    You could say that he hates men more than women.
    By trying to ruin men's good name.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page