Misogyny as the Weapon of Choice Why Elliot Rodger is a Case of Male Entitlement, and His Victims Are the Consequences

Misogyny as the Weapon of Choice Why Elliot Rodger is a Case of Male Entitlement, and His Victims Are the Consequences When it comes to misogyny, the victims are always the ones blamed.Photo Via YouTube If it wasnt already a fact embedded in our deeply sexist and oppressive culture, misogyny kills. On May 23rd, Elliot Rodger murdered six people and injured thirteen in Santa Barbara, first stabbing three of his roommates at his apartment before driving off to commence a shooting spree at the local university. As much as mental illness is being investigated as a factor in this horrific news story, another main factor, one that often goes forgotten and shoved under the proverbial patriarchal rug, was his intense hatred for women. In “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution,” a nearly seven minute long YouTube video he posted before the shooting, he describes his “revenge against humanity” and his years of enduring “an existence of loneliness, rejection and unfulfilled desires” due to his lack of sexual activity from women. Due to this “tortuous” state of affairs and blatant “injustice,” Rodgers states that the entire female gender should suffer. So what do all women inevitably deserve? According to Rodger, “utter annihilation.” When considering this intense hatred for females and the animalistic need for adoration and sex, it is clear that this is a case of misogyny and the Men’s Rights Movement, an anti-woman hate organization founded on the beliefs of anti-feminism, pro-domestic violence, pro-rape, pro-sexual assault, and the undying love for  ad hominem attacks. While it is apparent Rodger is suspected of being mentally disturbed and had been mandated by his own father to attend mental health counseling in the past, how much longer can violent sexism be excused and even, dangerously enough, socially acceptable? To excuse this as a crime due to mental illness and not misogyny further aggravates the underlying issue in this case. This is a man delusioned into embedding himself into the culture of hypermasculinity and victim-blaming; women are regarded as objects to him, and he demanded that these objects be available for use and his use only. This is a case defined by male dominance and female submissiveness, as Rodger states, I’m going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB and I will slaughter every single spoilt, stuck-up, blonde s**t that I see inside there, as a blatant indication that women deserve death if they cannot act as human sex toys. The Mens Rights Organization, or MRAs as they are individually called, is a delusional hate organization that encourages these acts of Rodger, and sympathizes with this mentality of misogyny. This is not an isolated incident, this is the reality of female oppression. According to author  Michael D. Kelleher, who writes in this 1997 book Flash Point,  mass killers, such as Rodger, are rarely insane, in either the legal or ethical senses of the term, and they usually dont display debilitating delusions and insidious psychotic fantasies of the paranoid schizophrenic. Instead, killers are usually marked by their personality disorder, often displaying signs of narcissism, grandiosity, resentment, a sense of entitlement, adoration, and violent fantasies.  James L. Knoll IV, the director of forensic psychiatry at the State University of New Yorks Upstate Medical University, calls these killers collectors of injustice who nurture their wounded narcissism. The typical mass shooter intends on nursing his personal tragedies and displaying them to the public, sometimes through video manifestos and other mediums, in order to create a narrative used for a public airing. And what exactly causes these violent massacres justified through the minds of narcissisti c mass killers? The concept of male entitlement. #YesAllWomen comments inspired by Rodgers anti-woman and male privilege rantings.Photo Via Time.com This is the reality of a 16-year old girl being stabbed to death after refusing a prom invitation. This is the reality of a rape list being spread around the Columbia University campus in order to prevent future rapings from occurring and to alert all students of sex offenders and predators. This is the reality of fourteen  female students being shot to death by a murderous anti-feminist after he was denied admission to their school, claiming women were taking positions only men should be allowed to have. While Rodgers mental illness is still being further investigated at this time, it is clear that women exist in a society that hates them and does not allow them the privilege to feel safe due to their biological bodies. The true problem with this behavior is that it is not seen as a problem at all. This is normative, socially acceptable behavior; this is males claiming womens bodies and their lives, this is males blaming women for shooting sprees, this is males living under a patriarchy designed by their own gender, for their gender, and blaming their behavior on rejection by women who, as females, were inevitably rejected from existing in a society that treats them as inflatable sex dolls and not  human beings. This is a case of misogyny in our rape culture, and mental illness can no longer be used as its scapegoat. As the body count rises, so does the need to reevaluate male entitlement and the prominence of anti-woman mentalities in order to medicate these festering open wounds that, consequently,  infect the lives and perceptions of females worldwide. Murderous misogyny is not a symptom of mental illness, it is a symptoms of male entitlement.