…well, I couldn’t help myself. I heard about this on the radio today:
George Sodini finally got the attention he wanted. After years of hoping women would take notice of him, Sodini allegedly entered a Pennsylvania health club Tuesday night and murdered three women in cold blood before turning a gun on himself.
Investigators need not puzzle over the motives for Sodini’s rampage; the 48-year-old suspected killer spelled them out in blood-chilling detail in an online diary.
“These are the rambling messages of a likely psychotic” and display characteristics of a man who has been “severely depressed for a long time,” forensic psychologist Naftali Berrill said of Sodini’s writing.
The image that emerges from his blog is that of a loner — a psychopath, routinely rejected by women who spent a year casing the gym and plotting his revenge on the “the young girls here [that] look so beautiful as to not be human, very edible.”
–and I really couldn’t help it–I thought to myself, I wonder what the good old Men’s Rights Activists think about that, hmm? I bet I can guess! But No, surely not!–not even those guys would excuse someone like this. So, after some internal squabbling, I gritted my teeth and nipped over to the foremost of MRAs, whose site I have not visited in a good seven months at least–Mr. Sacks.
Happily, neither Glenn nor the other dude who has apparently taken over much of his blogging activities seems to want to touch this one with a ten-foot pole. That was a genuine relief, and inclined me to think I was perhaps being overly hasty and judgmental in my assumptions regarding any general MRA opinion on the matter. With a somewhat lighter heart I typed in “George Sodini MRA” into Google and hit Search!–
Yeah, that wide-eyed optimism didn’t last too long. Very first hit?
George Sodini is an MRA hero!
Amanda already talked about the blog this was culled from, so I won’t reinvent her wheel. I did scroll down the comments, though, and plucked out the following gems for your indigestion:
George Sodini is an MRA hero as much a reason to learn game. Finally a mass murderer writes a relatively coherent manifesto. Could be better, but at least it is implied that feminism is to blame and he is taking a last stand. I had been waiting for this (almost thinking I had to do it myself) and I am impressed. Kudos.
–Arpagus, whose own blog links to the Men’s Activism News Network, among other things
One thing that might help prevent future incidents of this sort is repealing IMBRA, the federal law that essentially put the mail order bride industry out of business.
–Peter, who is probably too stupid to have a blog
I think every man DOES deserve to get laid.
For every nerdy, smelly, fat, or otherwise socially undesirable man out there, there is an equally unattractive woman walking around. (more than one actually because there are more women than men on the planet)
The problem is, our feminized society has given every woman the power to hold out for higher quality men than they deserve.
This creates an imbalance that leads to tragedies like the one in PA.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. (Newton’s 3rd Law)
If empowered women keep applying pressure, they will create an explosion.
–A.J. Travis, whose entire blog consists of (a) how to finely tune a woman’s 1-10 hotness rating to suit your personal life goals before you decide which one to like, devour or whatever and (b) a detailed dwelling on the flaws of the “9″ woman versus the flaws of the “6″ woman
Every man knows they have to EARN respect.
They DESERVE to get laid.
A decent looking man who earns a good living and does not abuse women DESERVES to get laid. Period.
The fact that so many do not, is a crime.
And in a just society, all crimes are eventually punished.
–More A.J. Travis, who I’m starting to really hope lives nowhere near me, especially since there is one non-woman post on his blog and it’s about guns
Have you guys noticed a trend in fat women? Some of the ones I have spoken to actually believe they can get alpha cock. They don’t want to hook up with beta men either. This is a troubling development.
–Game in BK, and nope, no clue what this has to remotely do with the thread, but I just had to reproduce his comment here ’cause can you believe that someone’s really that moronic..? LOL!
…and it goes on, and on, and on…there are a few dissenting voices in there, but mostly they’re drowned out by the angry horde.
Note to anyone who feels e-n-t-i-t-l-e-d to any type of use of my body for any reason whatsoever: No, You Aren’t. Get Over It. And if violence committed against my person of any description based upon this feeling of entitlement seems even remotely justifiable to you, you had probably better commit it like George Sodini did, with a distance weapon and without warning and resulting in me getting killed dead. ‘Cause otherwise, you’ll find out that I have an equally enthusiastic belief in and comfort level with extreme violence in cases of self-defense, and I do tend to hold a grudge.
‘Nuff said.
And in the long-running tradition of any type of police force not giving a shit about anything that could possibly lead to harm large of numbers of women, Arpagus’s threat will not be investigated. Yay patriarchy.
“Deserve to get laid”?
Try “deserve to become acquainted with the charms of masturbation.”
It was actually something they mentioned in Guyland- when these “boys” (over 18 but still acting immature) talk about enjoying watching “Trick the Bitch” pornography, or doing things that technically qualify as rape, or “tricking” women into having sex, or talking about how slutty the women they slept with are, it is always described as “getting back at women”. The woman, by being so hot, and existing, and not doing what the guy wanted, started it: to these guys, these women instigated the violence, and they were just returning it.
These guys think women EXISTING for themselves is a violence.
That’s terrifying to me.
To give your quote some proportion:
“And in the long-running tradition of any type of police force not giving a shit about anything that possibly leads to actual harm of any individual man by a woman, calls by men reporting DV will not be investigated. Yay Matriarchy.”
Sorry – really did feel that you’re being more than a little one-eyed in your earlier comment Erin. Having personally experienced how the police deal with woman-on-man violence, I can promise you that their lack of action has nothing to do with “the patriarchy.”
Police forces are routinely cr#p at dealing with threats. Hell, even your Secret Service admits it is being ‘stretched’ (for that read “can’t cope with”) the number of death threats that Obama receives.
That level of cr#p response is applied routinely to men AND women. Witnesses under threat of beatings or death get very poor levels of protection (certainly in this country) even after receiving threats much more credible than the inane ramblings of some sexually frustrated teenager.
Hunting the net for nutty comments on almost ANY subject is pretty easy. For every 3 Neil Armstrong fans posting out there, there’s at least one ‘tinfoil-hat-wearing “the moon-landing was staged in the Arizona”‘ nutter.
I could point you all to comments made by self-identified feminists that glorify violence done to men by women. You, I doubt, would associate yourselves with them just as I (and many like me) wouldn’t associate ourselves with the types of comments Lisa’s pasted above.
Glenn Sacks can speak for himself, but I know that he publicly disagreed with some of the positions taken by others regarding Darren Mack (as did I) and has often stated that violence is inexcusable. The right-wing rabble that tend to write this kind of rubbish are as far removed from what the MRM is about as the “castrate all men just for breathing” types are from what you consider to be feminism.
Fuck off, MRA. Seriously.
[...] more on anti-feminist reactions to Sodini, see Amanda, Elizabitchez, Lisa at PunkAssBlog, and [...]
It’s been said before, and it’s worth saying again:
That is the world we live in. Any man who lives in abject fear of women in general has a fairly rare pathology, and is not indicative of the vast majority of men. Men are not scared of the women they meet. They just aren’t. I am a guy. I’ve known a lot of guys. I’m pretty sure I know what I’m talking about here.
Fact is, I understand why a woman would be wary of men. And it isn’t even because of all of the women I know who have experienced violence by a man’s hand– though that number is pretty damn high. I understand because I know what it is to be a man. I know the entitlement we feel, and it’s not a pleasant thing. First of all, it’s not even pleasant for us. Feeling entitled invariably leads to frustration and emotional pain, because people who feel “entitled” are never gonna get all the things they feel entitled to. So we become bitter.
And if that’s not pleasant for us, think how unpleasant it is for the ones who we feel entitled to.
Erin, please bear in mind that any MRA’s we may have on premises are kind of here by our own invitation, ever since Lisa did a blog series intentionally engaging in dialogue with MRA’s. In other words, show them how they’re misguided, please!– but allow them their simple right to existence, at least until Lisa judges that they’ve crossed a line, and moderates them.
James, a post about over-the-top misogyny in the aftermath of a massacre with solely female targets is an awful, callous, and frankly egocentric time to pull out the “But what about the MEN???!!!” card. I understand you have personally experienced violence by a woman’s hand. Now on the one hand this could have given you empathy for the plight of women, and opened your eyes to the reality in which they live. Instead you look inward, somewhat narcissistically joining ranks with other men who, frustrated in their arrested entitlement, reinforce their faith in the comforting fantasy that men are society’s real victims.
Your claim that violent anti-male feminist commentary is both equally extreme and equally prevalent is dubious to say the least. Yes, there will always be extremists for every point of view. Their distressing prevalence in the MRAsphere, and the extent to which they are tolerated, does, in fact, say something about MRA ideology as a whole.
Quin, ftw.
Quin, I’m not going to spend my time explaining feminism to an MRA troll anymore than am I going to spend my time explaining feminism to Randall Terry. Neither deserve my respect.
Was just explaining the situation here in case you didn’t know, is all. I respect Lisa’s attempts at MRA outreach very much. Who knows whether that kind of engagement has any positive effect in the longer term, but at the very least it kinda feels like it might to me. Sometimes. This is not to say you are at all obliged to follow suit, of course.
I have never heard of this whole MRA thing until today. It’s not surprising, and I have to admit I sort of understand it – at least from a level of needing other men to be able to help you cope with girl problems. I’ll tell you ladies, even with as empowered as you seem to be from the little I have read on this blog the past week or 2…you have no idea how powerful you really are. Power to accomplish whatever you want in life, as well as an amazing aptitude for belittling men (often times very deserved).
What scares the hell out of me, though, is the anti-feminist thing. What is the greatest motivational factor in the lives of men? Women. Now, a man who would ever want to have anything to do with anything that opposed the general benefit of women is not thinking on the right track. A man who is opposed to the general benefit of women is at the least a total doucher, and usually much worse.
Quin, I guess almost every teenage boy has a rare pathology, because most are scared of women. I don’t know where you stand, but if anyone feels like they still need to promote Men’s Rights…they have either not concluded that they, too, are afraid of women, or they just haven’t found a woman that shows them the light.
And yet, I knew this was going to happen. Women get killed, it’s a hate crime, but it’s REALLY not a hate crime, because hey, cops suck.
Ben, that is one of the weirdest comments I have ever read.
Congratulations.
Ben:
*looks confused, takes deep breathe, tries again*
According to the anthropological evidence, the greatest motivator in the average American men’s life is the approval of other men. Women are only secondary, if that. Women, instead of being the person that motivates men, tends to be the object that motivates men.
And, again, teenage boys are not afraid that women will kill, hurt, or maim them. They are afraid that they will laugh at them. Women are afraid that a guy will rape, hurt, or kill them (and, that they will laugh at them- teenagers are very obsessed with what their peer group thinks of them). That is a very, very different thing.
“I know the entitlement we feel, and it’s not a pleasant thing. First of all, it’s not even pleasant for us. Feeling entitled invariably leads to frustration and emotional pain, because people who feel “entitled” are never gonna get all the things they feel entitled to. So we become bitter.”
Jeesh, speak for yourself there Quin. My Dad was taught that the only things he could expect in life were that he’d go nowhere without hard work and that no-one (male or female) owed him anything. It was a philosophy he handed on to my Brother and I.
Nobody amongst my relatives and friends feels ‘entitled’ to take anything from anyone else. Not money, not sex and not power. Perhaps my circle of friends is self-selecting that way, but I don’t recognise your description in them at all.
I concede that MOST men will not fear ALL women, but I’d disagree that most women fear most men in the way that you describe. I’ve no doubt that strong men and women can and do inspire fear in less powerful people, but that’s a function of comparitive strength, not their gender. Bullies come from both sexes – it’s something we humans seem to be inordinately good at. Name a female leader (current or historical) and you won’t have to do much digging to find evidence that she is/was just as brutal and dictatorial as her male contemporaries.
“I understand you have personally experienced violence by a woman’s hand. Now on the one hand this could have given you empathy for the plight of women, and opened your eyes to the reality in which they live.”
My intention in mentioning my own history wasn’t to highlight that men suffer from DV too (although that’s usually something that the ‘average’ feminist finds hard to acknowledge without immediately brushing it off as ‘unusual’ or ‘statistically inconsequential’ or worse), rather that the Police are pretty hopeless at dealing with threats accross the board.
I don’t like that situation, but the truth is that the police don’t neglect to follow up hate-filled rants because of the mythical ‘patriarchy,’ they don’t follow them up because they don’t have the time or resources to. From my own experience, and that of many other men caught up with the law, any institutional bias is firmly toward a) the rich (regardless of gender) and then b) women, in that order of priority.
“Instead you look inward, somewhat narcissistically joining ranks with other men who, frustrated in their arrested entitlement, reinforce their faith in the comforting fantasy that men are society’s real victims”
Aren’t we all, ultimately, narcissists? Isn’t the whole drive of feminism to do what’s best for women (as opposed to all people)? Is the G8 protestor who gets hit in the face for no apparent reason, and then starts a campaign to reform the Police as a result, a narcissist? By your definition, anyone acting in their own best interests (but co-incidentally or intentionally thereby preventing similar wrongs occuring to others) is just a narcissist and should (presumably) be side-lined as such. That would rule out a healthy proportion of those campaigning for all sorts of very worthwhile causes including ‘yours.’
I’m not “frustrated in [my] arrested entitlement,” I’m bloody scared that the way things stand (and continue to head) in the UK, my due-process rights (fragile as they are) can be casually tossed aside without any evidence of a crime being committed whatsoever. It scares me that that has become true of powers enacted after the ‘War on Terror’ started, and I’m equally scared at the way legislation enacted for (on the surface) the best of reasons has become warped to the point where a false allegation will get you arrested, DNA’d, publicly shamed and probably fired all in the space of a few days. Even CCTV and other strong evidence will not protect you from the start of that process.
I don’t think that men, as a homogenous group, are “society’s real victims,” but then I also don’t think that women, as a group, are victims either. Some men get shat on (usually the poor or other disadvantaged) and so do some women. In some areas of the law / societal convention less well-off women suffer disproportionately. I’d not stop anyone from trying to right their wrongs (although I may disagree with HOW those wrongs are addressed).
In other areas (and in particular those parts of the law / convention relating to the family) men overwhelmingly get the shorter straw. Those are the areas that particularly worry me, just as righting what they perceive to be the pay gap is something that exercises most of the other posters on here. That’s called enlightened self-interest. I’ll happily send off my monthly donations for famine relief in Africa now, but my priorities are likely to change if it ever becomes MY immediate family that’s at risk of starvation.
Finally to address:
“James, a post about over-the-top misogyny in the aftermath of a massacre with solely female targets is an awful, callous, and frankly egocentric time to pull out the “But what about the MEN???!!!” card.”
Lisa deliberately went looking for a certain type of reaction to the horrible and inexcusable crime that this guy committed. She went first to GS’ site and (somewhat begrudgingly) gave him ‘credit’ for not touching the story. She then found a bunch of adolescent comment about the incident and used it to paint a picture of the MRM.
That’s just as unbalanced as when MRA’s use the extreme nut-job end of feminist writing (and YOU may choose to shut your eyes, but there IS plenty of it out there) to label all feminists. I KNOW how irritated that leaves most of you, so why do you think that I wouldn’t get just as pissed?
Sorry that this ended up so long Lisa, but there were some pointedly personal comments that I wanted the chance to address.
Erin:
I don’t come here to ‘troll’ and I don’t come here to read your comments either. I’ll show the civility you’ve failed to display here, however, and simply decline to address you on anything other than a straight reply from you to my comments.
Mmm…James, I have to disagree that I looked for a “specific type” of reaction. My Google search term was “George Sodini MRA,” which I think you’ll have to agree absolutely does not predispose itself towards a positive or negative reaction–it simply searches for ANY reaction of an MRA to George Sodini. The very first hit I got was “George Sodini is an MRA hero!” (That’s changed now, though–since Alas did its piece, it is now the first Google hit. But at the time that blog article hadn’t yet been written.)
I also have to disagree that I was “begrudging” about what I said about Glenn–I was quite clear on how it made me feel happy and good to see that he had nothing, and until I did the Google search, opened my heart up a bit towards the likely MRA perspective on this situation.
Dude, I don’t appreciate ppl telling other ppl to fuck themselves in my blog comments, I actually appreciate your civility in reply.
And I hope Quin gets back to you on what you have to say, I think you guys have very interesting and differing male perspectives on what, exactly, the male perception of women is.
James, I’m sorry that I don’t have time or energy to respond to much until Sunday.
One quick question aimed at clarification: I want to make sure that we share the same definition of “entitlement”. Maybe it’s a misleading word to use. For instance, James, how much would you agree or disagree with the statement: “George Sodini felt entitled to sex with women, and eventually this frustrated sense of entitlement boiled over into murder.”
Lisa, if I continue the conversation with James or other MRAs, are you comfortable with this thread being the right place for it?
Thanks, Lisa! I think.
Antigone,
Yes, injury to body and injury to self-esteem are very different. However, injury to the ego is as powerful a fear to many males as injury to the body, and in many cases worse. Perception is reality, and cuts to the ego run deep and take a long time to heal.
I was trying not to go too long winded and keep things simple, so narrowed down to “women” as the motivational factor. The real driving force behind everything for a man is his ego. If his ego isn’t fed or worse – injured – he lashes out. Usually at the “other” who in this case the ego tells him is a woman or women, when in reality it is himself that is the cause of his pain.
On a basic level, he needs other men to approve of him to feed the ego. So, yes, that is a huge motivational factor and probably the most common. But the one thing that trumps all else is a woman. If a guy is generally unacceptable to his male peers, but he shows up with a hot chick…he has gained a new level of respect by the other guys. Once he is in love with a woman, he tends to forget the “man standards” he previously needed to uphold his reputation with the other dudes. A man will give another man a six pack and unsolicited advice, but he will give up his life for a woman. Please see – The Notebook.
I don’t think we are disagreeing 100%. I think we are just seeing it from different angles.
The Notebook? The shitty romance novel and even worse movie?
And, I don’t think we agree about one very important thing, and that seems to be the “Men just need a good women to love them, and they’ll find that women are people”. A) it puts too much pressure on women to “fix” men and b) lots of guys say they “love” women when really they just “love” parts of them, or “love” the idea of them. Humans are a little bit more complicated in regards to love.
The whole “men just need a good woman to love them,” notion also puts a huge onus on women to take a great deal on spec. What if the man in question doesn’t figure that out? Then the woman in question is stuck in an involvement with someone who hasn’t figured out that she’s a person. She has to get out, or hang in there hoping that someday he’ll figure it out—and what does she do while she’s waiting? Consign herself to being an object?
First of all, don’t be with a man that needs a woman to love him to understand that women are people. If you find yourself with this man (I would argue that he is not much of a man), he has some shit to figure out and the woman needs to decide when she has crossed the threshold between dating/friendship and wanting a more substantial relationship requiring emotional intelligence and actual partnership.
I think then she has to decide what she wants. If you aren’t getting what you want…change the relationship or end it. Easier said than done, but inaction won’t help and you can’t get that time back.
Ben, you are babbling. And it’s really weird. Giving relationship advice to a bunch of feminists who are in pretty good relationships on a thread about MRAs is weird.
Go to town, Quin.
I was just trying to join the conversation, and now it looks like I’ll be leaving it. I thought this would be an interesting blog to follow, but it seems a little too hostile. Later.
Wow, Ben, you think THAT was hostile? Are you new to blogging?
Antigone, don’t you know it’s your job/duty as a feminist woman blogger to hold the hand and kiss the ass of every dude that blindly wanders into a feminist blog and blathers the same old questions/talking points that have already been discussed ad infinitum for decades like they’re brand-new idears? Because if you DON’T, everything he says/does subsequently for the rest of his life that has remotely to do with women/feminism is your personal fault, c’MON now!
Right– this is going to have to be something of a hit-and-run. I’m leaving in a few hours for a week long trip to Yakushima, a rainy mountainy foresty island where blog-checking will not be my first priority, even if internet turns out somehow to be accessible.
James, you never answered my request for clarification about “entitlement”, and whether you thought that George Sordini was somebody who became violent out of frustrated entitlement. I brought this up, because you have claimed that you personally feel no sense of entitlement to anything.
Yet you self-identify as an MRA. MRAs — Men’s Rights Activists — only exist in the first place because of male entitlement. They believe that men, who since the beginning of recorded history up to the present day have enjoyed far more freedom, wealth, and privilege than women have, need to have all of these entitlements preserved and strengthened. Now, it will be a bit difficult having a decent conversation with you because you disagree that there is a Patriarchy (that there is a system in place which, at any particular level of society’s heirarchy, gives men advantages over women the majority of the time).
This is very important. It’s at the core of all of our disagreements. But it’s also an argument that never seems to get anywhere. So for now, I’ll take a different tack. Before, I wrote:
Your response was that Lisa unfairly filtered for the loonier responses. Lisa then denied this. If it could be shown to your satisfaction that MRA commentary does, in fact, tend to be filled with misogyny to a grossly unacceptable level, that it would be a valid way to judge that there is something rotten in the MRA movement?
Mind you, I already know that this would be impossible, since you are an MRA, you presumably spend more time at MRA blogs than you do here, and you already know intimately what goes on in the comment sections of MRA blogs. Either you turn a blind eye to the bad stuff, or worse, you don’t share my value system about which stuff is “bad stuff” and you like the bad stuff too.
Still, just as an exercise for my own entertainment, let’s look at some MRA comments. Since this is still Lisa’s thread, I’ll do this by Googling the search terms that Lisa said she used: “George Sodini MRA”.
Some time has passed, so the results have changed a bit. Now you have to wade through a lot of feminist blog posts, such as the one on this very page, which are all disturbed by the MRA reactions.
Editing out the non-MRA sites, here are the first five MRA hits.
1. Author engages in communal blame for George Sodini’s spree
On this page, I judge 6 out of 8 comments to be either showing undue sympathy for George Sodini’s situation or expressing hatred against women.
2. George Sodini and the contract between the sexes
It gets harder to judge here– I guess I shouldn’t count entries just because they believe that power is tipped in women’s favor (that is, deny the existence of the Patriarchy), but if the author uses words like “bitch” or “feminazi” or “whore”, I’ll count it as hateful. Counting the author’s own comments as hateful (because his thesis is), I call… aw, fuck, there’s 52 comments! And a lot of them are LONG! I don’t want to wade through them all…
Okay, this just ceased being fun. Forget about a proper tally. I don’t have time. Suffice it to say that there are already several comments not only feeling bad for that poor fella George Sodini, but also suggesting things like that women share the responsibility for Sodini’s crime, that he was a victim of women, etc. You can go look for yourself.
3. Sex-starved aerobics killer George Sodini was upset by women
An ugly, ugly thread. I mean, okay, feel sympathy for George Sodini– he was clearly a human being in pain– but, y’know, you men might try out feeling some sympathy for his victims too and see what that does for you. I’ll be generous and say only 11 out 17 are very objectionable. Though if you unpack the assumptions underlying nearly all of the others…
4. Author engages in communal blame for George Sodini’s spree (linking to previously cited article with same name)
Only one comment. Not particularly objectionable, though showing sympathy for Sodini.
5. Oh, brother.
This is on a blog entitled “Female Misogynist” with an address of “malechauvinist.blogpot.com”. Somewhat surprisingly, there is no irony here– the perspective it’s written from is precisely what you’d expect. Yes, he/she appears to self-identify as an MRA. Thankly, there’s only two comments. Then again, the author links here, to a Pick-Up Artist site which is just as ridiculously over-the-top, which has 262 comments. But as it’s not explicitly an MRA website, I won’t count its results.
I could keep going, but I have to hop on a train soon. So, anyway, point is– comments like the ones Lisa highlighted are not just the rare exceptions. Misogyny is the Men’s Right’s Movement’s mainstream. But of course, anyone who is an MRA already knows this, even if they won’t admit it.
[...] on rape culture! This movie has NOTHING to do with rape. And heeeeeeeeere’s more [...]
Quin, you and other feminists commit hate speech against men whenever you/they use the word “patriarchy” in the sense that feminism has given to it. That is enough to offset all your examples of MRA hate speech by a wide margin.
I beg your pardon BASTA!? Please explain how the term ‘patriarchy’ is hate speech.