I recall being a twenty-something woman and being tremendously attracted to one or another sexy, smart man. These men almost always friend-zoned me for being butch and sarcastic, saying how great it was to be friends with me because I wasn’t “really a girl” and whining about their far more conventionally feminine girlfriends. It hurt, a lot, and I eventually learned to avoid that particular sort of male “friend”. Somehow, though, I never ranted about how all men were evil or depraved or contemplated purchasing firearms to massacre popular students. This is mostly because I was never told that I had an inalienable right to male bodies. I was told instead that I should focus on enjoying life without a sexual relationship, that my sexual satisfaction or lack thereof was not the single most important fact of my existence, and that even good, fulfilling relationships were inevitably also complicated and painful.
When we teach boys (explicitly and implicitly) that they are incomplete or inadequate unless they have access to a woman’s genitals, that sexual relationships can be had by following certain manipulative rules, and that compliance with gender norms is required for satisfying sexual relationships, we teach children to become rapists and murderers. This is not to excuse men who perpetrate violence of the Isla Vista sort, but it is worth examining where such perpetrators come from.
Our collective failure to notice or address the prevalence of extremist misogynist ideology in mainstream culture creates more such men from today’s boys. Every time we hear and do not confront a child or youth repeating misogynist “humor”, and every time we avoid discussion of pick-up-artist ideas in our conversations about gender-related violence, we are each complicit in tomorrow’s Isla Vistas.
A few days ago, my 17-year-old son discovered “blond jokes”. I overheard him reading some off to his friends. Then I said, “That’s enough, honey – you’ve practiced your ‘sexist pig’ persona enough for one day.” When he then read one more, his dad said, “You heard her. Cut it out.”
THIS. A billion, gazillion-bazillion times, this. Thank you, Antonia.
It’s funny, I was thinking about this (this = Elliott Rodgers and everything related) at work, and the whole loneliness aspect to it… And I realized, it’s not lonely men who frighten me. It’s the ones who say things like “Maybe she got raped because of what she was wearing” at work, or the ones who say “Women’s rights are well-established in the law, why do you have to make a fuss about it?” at home, or the ones who say any number of things that make me feel afraid… Because they’re the good ones among my friends and acquaintances. Because even they don’t see the danger behind their lackadaisical and ignorant attitudes, because they don’t feel that visceral fear of the unknown quite in the same way. And that’s rather terrifying – that the very people who (I would hope) are there to support and recognize me as a person, don’t even realize that they’re not doing so.
What, then, can I expect from the ordinary stranger on the street?
When my elder son was in seventh grade, he had his first “girlfriend”.
Normally, this wouldn’t have been any big deal, but her mother was so over-the-top about it – I really felt sorry for the girl. For her, not having a boyfriend (at age 13) would have made her incomplete or inadequate.
Fortunately for my son, we had a transatlantic move at the end of the school year.