Femicide crap.

NOTE: May 27 2014: I wrote the following post in frustration because this one's been bugging me so much. However, it doesn't express all my thoughts and opinions, nor does it express any of my opinions very clearly. All I can say is this: the combination of misogyny, mental illness, and easy access to firearms is stupid. Our society can do better than this.

Click "Read More" to read my ranting.

Last night, as I drove my daughters home from Chilliwack, the radio bombarded me with news of multiple mass shootings. The news of the recent deliberate murders in California even brought a few tears to my eyes. As an feminist with two daughters sleeping in the back seat, it seemed too much to bear that one man's hatred and sense of entitlement could lead to such meaningless murder.

Today I saw this article at Feminist Current, titled "Male entitlement begets male entitlement: On Elliot Rodger, misogyny, and the sex industry." A few of the sentences in the article stood out to me. After a quotation from Rodger's infamous video, now removed from YouTube, the article reads,

This is male entitlement. You’re looking at it.

Rodger was so enraged that he had not been given that which he deserves, as a man — sexual access to women — that he killed.

In a world wherein men learn they not only deserve, but have the right to women’s bodies, Rodger’s behaviour isn’t really all that surprising. From the time they are young, boys are offered women’s bodies. They are provided with pornography, told that this is what women are for: your eyes, your pleasure, your dick.

Men and boys learn that what they want, they should have. That their every fantasy should be fulfilled. That prostitution even exists is proof of this message. That we live in a rape culture and a porn culture is further proof. What exactly did we think would come of telling men that sex is a right? That women owe it to them?

My dear friend, Elizabeth Pickett, wrote, of Rodger: “Real women failed to live up to the expectations created for him by pornography. So he killed some.” We offer men this fantasy — it’s no wonder they become enraged when women don’t perform as expected.

You’d think that the logical conclusion of all of this would be clear: male entitlement begets male entitlement.

Of course people only see what they want to see.

Numerous people appear to have come the entirely backwards conclusion that more prostitution is the solution. Of course! What could possibly be a better cure for male entitlement than more male entitlement! What could possibly be a better cure for male violence than more male violence! If we tell men their dicks are the number one priority, maybe they’ll stop thinking their dicks are the number one priority! Right? Right.

Reading Rodger's quotations put a pit in my stomach. It's pretty obvious that he had some pretty severe entitlement issues; he blamed women for the fact that they did not throw themselves at him. If the videos are evidence, I'm not surprised that he didn't have women falling over him; he was obviously more egotistical than most people would be comfortable with. But just the idea that he imagined a world where women throw their bodies at men, well, shows a serious lack of a grasp on reality. We don't live in that world. So I can see where this Feminist Current writer made the connection to pornography. That world's a banal fantasy.

Rodger complained that women didn't throw themselves at him. He complained that he was not invited into the fantastical hedonistic parties that focused on the pleasing of his eyes and cock. He felt he was owed some hedonism. What a mess. What a selfish asshole. What type of reality did this guy live in? I mean, he was the son of a Hollywood director; did he think that everybody in Hollywood gets women thrown at them? Did he think that everybody in Hollywood doesn't have to do work to get laid? How many blind spots can one person have? Everybody has to work for it, even the biggest Hollywood stars.

I don't understand how our world seems to hate feminism so much. It's the only empathic, caring option. This is a world where women kill themselves due to shame about participating in pornography; this is a world where women are arrested because they express their happiness; this is a world where people still argue over what they can legally impose on women's bodies. We still need feminism; we don't have equality yet. We're better than we were, but there's a long way to go.
Laci Green makes a good contemporary case for feminsim here:

And this fella' makes a good case for the idea that men's violence against women (and this Elliot Rodger fell' certainly perpetuated some explicit violence against women)

And Steve Shives always articulates this stuff clearly: "It's the blindness, the insensitivity of men who can't or won't look beyond their own interests." It sounds a little like Elliot Rodger would fit the bill for a Men's Rights Movement member, no?

I can't say things as articulately as Meghan Murphy, Steve Shives, or any of the folks above. But I can say this: I am a feminist. I want my daughters to have a good, fulfilling life where they get an equal deal. I want them to know how to stand up to those jerks who will try to use them as objects for their gaze and pleasure.

And I wish we could just get one with it so that this femicide crap doesn't keep happening. Really, people. Women don't owe you anything.