In the presence of misogyny

Sometimes, I despair of this world and the people it contains.

I try to work hard, to take responsibility for my mistakes, to be grateful for my privileged life, to see the world from other people’s vantage points. I try to raise my children to do the same. I try to remember that most people in my life do so, too. I try to remember that there are many, many decent and reasonable people in the larger world. And then something like the Isla Vista killings occurs – only a month after the terrorist kidnapping of some 270 Nigerian schoolgirls. I haven’t a single wise thing to say about either.

Here’s an excerpt from one of the most insightful responses to Elliot Rodger’s killings I’ve read so far, by Laurie Penny in the New Statesman. (Thank you, Vee, for posting this to Facebook.)

The ideology behind these attacks – and there is ideology – is simple. Women owe men. Women, as a class, as a sex, owe men sex, love, attention, “adoration”, in Rodger’s words. We owe them respect and obedience, and our refusal to give it to them is to blame for their anger, their violence – stupid sluts get what they deserve. Most of all, there is an overpowering sense of rage and entitlement: the conviction that men have been denied a birthright of easy power.

from “Let’s call the Isla Vista killings what they were: misogynist extremism”, 25 May 2014

The Belle Jar is equally thoughtful:

We don’t know if Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. We don’t know if he was a “madman.” We do know that he was desperately lonely and unhappy, and that the Men’s Rights Movement convinced him that his loneliness and unhappiness was intentionally caused by women. Because this is what the Men’s Rights Movement does: it spreads misogyny, it spreads violence, and most of all it spreads a sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies. Pretending that this is the a rare act perpetrated by a “crazy” person is disingenuous and also does nothing to address the threat of violence that women face every day.

from “Elliot Rodger and Men Who Hate Women”, The Belle Jar, 24 May 2014

I hope you’ll read both linked articles in full. I’d appreciate knowing what you think.

My overwhelming sense is of a need for urgent action: we have to push back. We need to weed out any sense of entitlement in ourselves and in our children. We need to speak up in the presence of misogyny, and do so persistently and constructively and fearlessly.

And that is always the hardest part.