The recent tragedy where college student Elliot Rodger, went on a shooting spree at the University of California, which left seven people dead including himself, has caused a media storm. We can’t know exactly why he did it, but this incident has drawn attention to cultural prob- lems far beyond this man’s misogynistic personal opinions.
According to his family, he was on the autistic spectrum, and he is being armchair-diagnosed with all kinds of mental disorders; for many commentators this illness has served to mitigate his women-hating blog posts and videos. However, as valid as noting his mental health may be, this case cannot be simply dismissed as an instance of where a ‘lunatic’ lost control.
Rodger may have been in a mental state where he was more receptive to extreme attitudes already present in society, and maybe mental illness fuelled his irrational thinking. There is an argument that he should have received better treatment and not been allowed a gun. Pointedly though, this is not the end of the debate, and we must consider the root cause of the opinions which drove the man to mass-murder.
Elliot Rodger was an individual with an inflated sense of entitlement, extreme views, and a strong violent streak. This first aspect has raised a lot of discussion, because a sense of entitlement to female attention, and the idea that there are, or should be, failsafe ways to get it, is common. He used to post on PUAHate, an online forum which rails against pick-up artists – those who discuss, or even make a living from, surefire ways of seducing women. On a forum, aimed at those ‘PUAs’, I was immediately shown an advert offer- ing me ten ‘FREE’ videos, including ‘How To Approach Any Woman With Zero Chance Of Rejection… This Works EVERY Time!’ and the unsettlingly titled ‘The Secret To Developing Emotional Addiction In Women (That Makes Them Loyal And Obedient)’. In light of this misogyny, PUAHate doesn’t seem such a bad idea – sadly though, members of this forum didn’t seem against the concept, just disillusioned by the failure of its techniques, viciously critical of each other, and overwhelmingly misogynistic. The issue for these self-titled ‘incels’ (involuntary celibates) is injustice; they believe that they should be entitled to sex, and that women are breaking some unsaid promise by not giving it to them.
This attitude can be traced back to our cultural tropes; we are all taught that a good heterosexual man is entitled to a woman. There are countless films, books, sitcoms, and more, where the hero saves the world, or just does good, and then by default gets the girl – she’s a prize awarded by the justice of the universe. Men are told, through media like this, that they are the active ones, and that if they are successful people, or fol- low certain measurable steps, they can have sex with a desirable woman. This illusion of control has the potential to cause frustrations and become very dangerous, especially when the illusion falls apart.
On a similar note, I have often heard men complain about the ‘hoops’ that they have to jump through in order to get female attention: Buy them a drink; make the first move; spend money on them. It’s ludicrous that there are culturally expected hoops to jump through, yes. What is just as ludicrous though, is the assumption that once you have jumped through these ridiculous hoops, you will then get female attention, and that if you don’t, the women are at fault. (“You did what you were meant to.”) It is the hoops that are wrong in this paradigm.
That being said the hoops have some appeal. We all want a set of
rules to follow to gain rewards. The problem is that a woman is not a reward. A woman is not a concept you can deserve. A woman is an individual. Every single human being is. We all have our own desires, our own personalities, and make our own decisions, none of which anyone else can or deserves to control, no matter how many hoops they jump through.
The very concept of ‘Pick-Up Artists’ suggests that women are a homogenous, predictable mass. This lie also underpins countless films, books, TV programmes, articles, pieces of advice. (Not all of which are aimed at men.) This lie is ridiculous, so why is it so prevalent? Perhaps because it’s easier to blame a single, bitchy mass for your rejection than to analyse the motives of an individual, or to accept that maybe you’re not such a nice character after all. Perhaps because it’s easier to feel angry and entitled than be afraid that there is no effective system and you’re not in control.
There are those who feel entitled to sex just by being a ‘nice guy’, because apparently kindness is not the default way to treat someone. Comments on his videos include “well girls, keep that in mind the next time you friend-zone somebody!” and “I don’t blame guns, I blame blondes for this one.” I’d like to think they’re joking.
Be it in Internet forums or everyday gossip, abusive tweets or pop songs, there are echoes of this sense of entitlement all around us. No, not all men have malicious, extreme views that lead to violence. It takes more than entitlement to actually shoot someone. But this sense of entitlement in itself is something we are all taught to believe, and it should be discussed and refuted more openly.
This idea that ‘nice guys’, or those who follow all of our culture’s horrendous ‘pre-scribed steps’, are entitled to sexual attention from those they desire needs to end, or people will continue to get hurt.
