I teach remedial English to students in a community college who are not native speakers. They are mostly international students from Asia or Saudi Arabia, with a scattering of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia/Eritrea, or Mexico.
Today, when I overheard some of the "residents" chatting about the Elliot Rodger's case before class began, I was inspired to throw out my lesson plan du jour and focus on the sad story that has been so much in the news. I am always looking for those "teaching moments," always cognizant that people remember best that which is emotionally arousing, and... I was honestly interested in their opinions.
Had they watched Elliot Rodger's "retribution" video? A Russian woman confessed she had not, but her mother in Ukraine had e-mailed her about the story. She squirmed uncomfortably at the prospect of watching the video. (She is a young widow with an adolescent son.)
Ad hoc, I hastily scrawled three questions for students to discuss in groups after they'd watched the video:
1. Why was Elliot Rodger angry?
2. Was Elliot Rodger "sane" or "insane" (according to the legal definition of being responsible for his own actions)?
3. What could have prevented this tragedy?
Then, courtesy of Youtube, I played the video. The students watched with apparent interest. Rodger spoke slowly and dramatically, so he wasn't hard to understand, although I quickly realized that "slaughter" and "slay" were probably not within my students' lexicon and had to stop the video to define these verbs.
When Rodger spoke about how his virginity at age 22 was "a crime," many of my Chinese male students began to giggle uncontrollably. The notion that their own (probable) virginities constituted "crimes" that merited punishment of the female sex was thoroughly risible to them. What was Rodger's problem? He was good-looking, he was rich, his dad worked in Hollywood... In short, his complaints were ludicrous. Elliot Roger was living exactly the "student lifestyle" they could only dream of.
The middle eastern students put the blame on Rodger's family. Clearly, his parents had not exerted sufficient control over, or provided adequate nurturing of, this wayward son. They also speculated that Rodger had been exploited by girls who were only after his money. One Saudi student astutely pointed out that it wasn't "sex" Rodger yearned for; it was love.
The North African refugees viewed the issue mostly in terms of gun control. Why had Rodger been permitted to own a gun? Would their own children ever be safe in a country that allowed anyone to obtain firearms?
Some of the students thought Rodger was both "crazy" and "sane." In other words, while only a mentally disturbed person would do what he had done, he should have been held accountable for his actions in a court of law (had he lived). I let this slide because I myself cannot reconcile the inherent contradiction between the "intuitive" and "legal" definitions of "sanity."
The student from Cameroon was very skeptical that Rodger had killed himself; he was certain that the police must have shot him on the spot.
Only one lone Korean girl ventured that Rodger had been motivated by a sense of masculine entitlement. She didn't use that exact language, but her message was clear: "He kill because he think all girl must love him."
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Doubletree, MRAs, and Bedbugs
I have such a small readership (I like to think of it as very select of course) that when I get even a modest uptick in hits, I'm curious. I noticed a couple of days ago that I was getting referrals from a blog called "Just4Guys," which I had until now never read (although I have to say, How cute is that name, "Just4Guys"?) Of course I popped over for a look-see.
The referral was from a comment regarding the Elliot Rodger story; someone had posted a link to my own initial response two days ago. Nothing scary or dramatic in the comment, just one of several "feminist" links that had brought a couple dozen viewers my way.
Today I note that Obsidian, the webmaster of "Just4Guys," was pretty unhappy about a change.org petition that has been started to protest A Voice For Men's plan to hold its First International Conference at the downtown Detroit Doubletree Inn in June.
How did this event escape my notice? I briefly considered registering on the spot. This would be, after all, a rare chance to get up close and personal with the MRM Grand Pooh-bah (and MC of My Nightmares) Paul Elam himself. Imagine the thrill of accidentally-on-purpose brushing bellies with Dean Esmay in the bar after a stirring workshop on grass-roots activism. Would Karen be there? Cuz I'd love to buy Girl Writes What a drink! What about John the Otter -- what would he look like after a couple of dry martinis, or three? And don't these sorts of affairs always hold a Disco Night? What fun that would be, boogying down into the wee hours with Atilla Vinczer and the young studs of CAFE!
I can't say that a weekend in Detroit is on my bucket list, but the price of admission certainly accommodates my modest budget.
The event is only a month away. Here's a link to the petition, which has of this moment gotten over 1000 signatures. Here's the link to Doubletree / Hilton's contact page.
My partner and I often stay at Doubletree Inn when we're traveling because they're convenient and offer nice weekend packages. I don't think I'd feel the same about Doubletree after it had hosted AVfM though, despite the paper band across the toilet seats reassuring me "has been sanitized for your protection."
The referral was from a comment regarding the Elliot Rodger story; someone had posted a link to my own initial response two days ago. Nothing scary or dramatic in the comment, just one of several "feminist" links that had brought a couple dozen viewers my way.
Today I note that Obsidian, the webmaster of "Just4Guys," was pretty unhappy about a change.org petition that has been started to protest A Voice For Men's plan to hold its First International Conference at the downtown Detroit Doubletree Inn in June.
How did this event escape my notice? I briefly considered registering on the spot. This would be, after all, a rare chance to get up close and personal with the MRM Grand Pooh-bah (and MC of My Nightmares) Paul Elam himself. Imagine the thrill of accidentally-on-purpose brushing bellies with Dean Esmay in the bar after a stirring workshop on grass-roots activism. Would Karen be there? Cuz I'd love to buy Girl Writes What a drink! What about John the Otter -- what would he look like after a couple of dry martinis, or three? And don't these sorts of affairs always hold a Disco Night? What fun that would be, boogying down into the wee hours with Atilla Vinczer and the young studs of CAFE!
I can't say that a weekend in Detroit is on my bucket list, but the price of admission certainly accommodates my modest budget.
The event is only a month away. Here's a link to the petition, which has of this moment gotten over 1000 signatures. Here's the link to Doubletree / Hilton's contact page.
My partner and I often stay at Doubletree Inn when we're traveling because they're convenient and offer nice weekend packages. I don't think I'd feel the same about Doubletree after it had hosted AVfM though, despite the paper band across the toilet seats reassuring me "has been sanitized for your protection."
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Forney Hits the Big Time
There's a certain irony that Taki's Magazine has elected Matt Forney to write a piece castigating liberal media reactions to the Santa Barbara shooting. After all, this is a guy who feeds, literally and figuratively, on the outrage of normal decent people "liberals" and "feminists" by writing the same kind of vile, misogynistic and racist screeds that apparently helped warp Elliot Rodger's worldview.
Forney predictably attempts to distance himself (and his manospherean cronies) from the site Rodger's is reported to have commented on: It isn't us, it's them! He even manages to insinuate that anti-misogynist sites such as David Futrelle's We Hunted the Mammoth and the Southern Poverty Law Center were somehow culpable for failing to warn the public of the real danger of PUAHate.
I mean, just look how spiteful and scurrilous the PUAHate boys were, trying to dox and intimidate Matt's pals (never mind that is precisely what Matt has been doing for the past few months).
Of course, PUAHate may have been at odds with pickup artists, but they were very much part of the "manosphere" at large, that loose confederation of malcontents that are united in their shared hatred of women and minorities. The distinctions between these factions and these individuals are virtually insignificant to anyone outside their 'sphere. Whatever their purported aims, whether a return to patriarchy, or a pussy in every pot, the blame for the disappointing ways of the world is always to be placed squarely at one source: the autonomy of women. And they are willing to employ the most violent language and imagery to achieve dominance over those uppity western females (who really haven't understood their rightful place since either 1920 or 1420, depending on who'sfantasizing talking).
How dare the SPLC name Matt Forney and his friend Roosh's blogs as "hate groups." Didn't they see that PUAHate was just as bad? (Waah, waah, it's so unfair!)
"Could it be that feminists ignored PUA Hate out of a fatuous “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic? If so, their negligence just cost at least six people their lives."
Not bloody likely. Even for a paranoid manipulator of facts like Forney, this is a bit of a stretch. If PUAHate was overlooked before the shootings, it is because it was a relatively unknown site that did little to grub for attention from the mainstream, unlike Forney himself -- an indefatigable and shameless self-promoter who basically lives and breathes on twitter, re-tweeting his admirers and his critics with equal relish -- or other, more organized or widely read hate sites like A Voice for Men, Vox Day, Heartiste, etc. ad nauseum. PUAHate was just one of literally hundreds of misogynistic blogs, with the sole distinction that it hated the "game gurus" who had failed to deliver them the promised sex-on-demand they'd paid good cash money for, almost as much as it did the women whose favors they furiously insisted they were entitled to.
Show me a comment left by Rodger on PUAHate that suggests he was ready to commit mass murder, and I can show you scores more on Return of Kings or The Spearhead that are even more ominous.
All of these sites are the same, and they're all horrible.
Even a dedicated follower of the manosphere like Futrelle cannot possibly monitor them all. (And it's hardly necessary to do so, since they are all croaking in unison in the same fetid bog.)
Forney predictably attempts to distance himself (and his manospherean cronies) from the site Rodger's is reported to have commented on: It isn't us, it's them! He even manages to insinuate that anti-misogynist sites such as David Futrelle's We Hunted the Mammoth and the Southern Poverty Law Center were somehow culpable for failing to warn the public of the real danger of PUAHate.
I mean, just look how spiteful and scurrilous the PUAHate boys were, trying to dox and intimidate Matt's pals (never mind that is precisely what Matt has been doing for the past few months).
Of course, PUAHate may have been at odds with pickup artists, but they were very much part of the "manosphere" at large, that loose confederation of malcontents that are united in their shared hatred of women and minorities. The distinctions between these factions and these individuals are virtually insignificant to anyone outside their 'sphere. Whatever their purported aims, whether a return to patriarchy, or a pussy in every pot, the blame for the disappointing ways of the world is always to be placed squarely at one source: the autonomy of women. And they are willing to employ the most violent language and imagery to achieve dominance over those uppity western females (who really haven't understood their rightful place since either 1920 or 1420, depending on who's
How dare the SPLC name Matt Forney and his friend Roosh's blogs as "hate groups." Didn't they see that PUAHate was just as bad? (Waah, waah, it's so unfair!)
"Could it be that feminists ignored PUA Hate out of a fatuous “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic? If so, their negligence just cost at least six people their lives."
Not bloody likely. Even for a paranoid manipulator of facts like Forney, this is a bit of a stretch. If PUAHate was overlooked before the shootings, it is because it was a relatively unknown site that did little to grub for attention from the mainstream, unlike Forney himself -- an indefatigable and shameless self-promoter who basically lives and breathes on twitter, re-tweeting his admirers and his critics with equal relish -- or other, more organized or widely read hate sites like A Voice for Men, Vox Day, Heartiste, etc. ad nauseum. PUAHate was just one of literally hundreds of misogynistic blogs, with the sole distinction that it hated the "game gurus" who had failed to deliver them the promised sex-on-demand they'd paid good cash money for, almost as much as it did the women whose favors they furiously insisted they were entitled to.
Show me a comment left by Rodger on PUAHate that suggests he was ready to commit mass murder, and I can show you scores more on Return of Kings or The Spearhead that are even more ominous.
All of these sites are the same, and they're all horrible.
Even a dedicated follower of the manosphere like Futrelle cannot possibly monitor them all. (And it's hardly necessary to do so, since they are all croaking in unison in the same fetid bog.)
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Roosh Helps Me Keep Up
Typically, I rely on the manosphere's tweets to keep me abreast of what feminists are saying. Seriously, they do a phenomenal job of keeping track of the feminists, not only the big up-and-coming voices, but also the most obscure. Back before they doxed me, I don't think I'd ever had more than twenty readers at a time -- but one of them was Mattie, who apparently read everything.
Suffice to say, they take theirenemies opponents verrry seriously, which is a measure of both their thirst for recognition and their paradoxical fear of being exposed. They're always "collecting names" and compiling dossiers in the form of accusatory tweets. But the upside of their paranoia is that they are always a good place to start whenever you want to know who's-new-in-the-zoo of young female media presences.
I'd never even heard of Elizabeth Plank, for example, until Roosh twittered, "I would not have shed a single tear had misandrist & anti-white racist@feministabulous been one of Rodger's victims."
It's hard for me to imagine even lachrymose Roosh shedding a genuine tear for anyone except Roosh (in which case, I expect he can shed a bucket). But my imagination was piqued -- who was this radical feminist that had Roosh's blood up? -- so I moseyed over and took a look.
Nothing very inflammatory about her post, unless you think it is "misandry" or "racism" to point out -- and support statistically -- that mass murderers are overwhelmingly white males with huge reservoirs of entitlement. (In other words, the very same demographic group that composes the "manosphere.") And that we, as a society, need to start addressing misogyny as a systemic disorder.
Suffice to say, they take their
I'd never even heard of Elizabeth Plank, for example, until Roosh twittered, "I would not have shed a single tear had misandrist & anti-white racist
It's hard for me to imagine even lachrymose Roosh shedding a genuine tear for anyone except Roosh (in which case, I expect he can shed a bucket). But my imagination was piqued -- who was this radical feminist that had Roosh's blood up? -- so I moseyed over and took a look.
Nothing very inflammatory about her post, unless you think it is "misandry" or "racism" to point out -- and support statistically -- that mass murderers are overwhelmingly white males with huge reservoirs of entitlement. (In other words, the very same demographic group that composes the "manosphere.") And that we, as a society, need to start addressing misogyny as a systemic disorder.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Manosphere Back Pedals Furiously
This evening, in response to the Santa Barbara shootings, the sages of the manosphere are offering up their little turds of "wisdom" and "insight":
A♠ @whiskeyandashes
No one, regardless of gender, is "entitled" to sex however much we may desire it; yet all people have the right to safety. Now go back to nursing your whisky and mourning your childless, uncoupled state, sir...
If one positive thing comes of the unfolding tragedy in Santa Barbara, it may be that the manosphere is subjected to more public scrutiny and widespread social condemnation. In the wake of the news that UCSB student Elliot Roger participated in the forum puahate, other New Misogynists have scurried to deflect negative attention onto that site. One blogger has even pondered if puahate and manboobz are somehow in cahoots with one another to bring the manosphere down. Or with the Southern Poverty Law Center. As if.
He talks of keeping the "haters" out, as if their network of angry blogs were some sort of gated community. In fact, while the accessibility and anonymity of the internet has allowed the "manosphere" to blossom, it also works against it, by effectively rendering the "movement" it claims to represent transparent and its "leaders" accountable for the ideas they promulgate.
From my point of view, there is little difference between puahate and any number of other misogynistic watering holes. All of these sites are social cesspools that are brewing the same poison, whether it is Roosh ("Women are lubricated holes for my pleasure") and Return of Kings, Paul Elam ("I want to fuck their shit up" or "Bash A Bitch Week"), Bill Price or Vox Day ("Rape is our marital right"), or Matt Forney, who famously wrote that women needed to be beaten because "it's the only way to make them behave better than chimps," and who posted a piece about how men could get away with rape by murdering their victims and dismembering their bodies (oops, that was "satire," wasn't it?).
The manosphere is an aggregator of isolated, angry, socially maladjusted and mentally disturbed men -- and the (handful of) women who love them. It creates an echo chamber that allows these men to delude themselves into blaming women and minorities for their own inability to adapt to a changing world of greater diversity, social inclusion and economic competition. It breeds real, physical violence by promoting violent language and violent fantasies of retribution. Their impotent dreams of achieving dominance will inevitably end in the deaths of others; the blood will be on their hands. And the world will keep turning.
A♠
It would appear that men
aren't entitled to sex; women aren't entitled to safety. One might be
led to believe that fact brought us together.
No one, regardless of gender, is "entitled" to sex however much we may desire it; yet all people have the right to safety. Now go back to nursing your whisky and mourning your childless, uncoupled state, sir...
If one positive thing comes of the unfolding tragedy in Santa Barbara, it may be that the manosphere is subjected to more public scrutiny and widespread social condemnation. In the wake of the news that UCSB student Elliot Roger participated in the forum puahate, other New Misogynists have scurried to deflect negative attention onto that site. One blogger has even pondered if puahate and manboobz are somehow in cahoots with one another to bring the manosphere down. Or with the Southern Poverty Law Center. As if.
He talks of keeping the "haters" out, as if their network of angry blogs were some sort of gated community. In fact, while the accessibility and anonymity of the internet has allowed the "manosphere" to blossom, it also works against it, by effectively rendering the "movement" it claims to represent transparent and its "leaders" accountable for the ideas they promulgate.
From my point of view, there is little difference between puahate and any number of other misogynistic watering holes. All of these sites are social cesspools that are brewing the same poison, whether it is Roosh ("Women are lubricated holes for my pleasure") and Return of Kings, Paul Elam ("I want to fuck their shit up" or "Bash A Bitch Week"), Bill Price or Vox Day ("Rape is our marital right"), or Matt Forney, who famously wrote that women needed to be beaten because "it's the only way to make them behave better than chimps," and who posted a piece about how men could get away with rape by murdering their victims and dismembering their bodies (oops, that was "satire," wasn't it?).
The manosphere is an aggregator of isolated, angry, socially maladjusted and mentally disturbed men -- and the (handful of) women who love them. It creates an echo chamber that allows these men to delude themselves into blaming women and minorities for their own inability to adapt to a changing world of greater diversity, social inclusion and economic competition. It breeds real, physical violence by promoting violent language and violent fantasies of retribution. Their impotent dreams of achieving dominance will inevitably end in the deaths of others; the blood will be on their hands. And the world will keep turning.
Rejected Incel Finally Has His Way
It seems like a parody: A good looking, articulate UCSB student sitting in his glossy black BMW, announcing plans to "slaughter" the popular blondes who have rejected him because they preferred to bestow their favors on the alpha "bad boy" losers instead of "a perfect guy... a supreme gentleman" like himself. Except, unfortunately, it is real. Anyone who follows almost any part of the manosphere (he was allegedly an active participant on sites such as bodybuilding.com and puahate.com) will recognize the cold rage and the overweening sense of entitlement Elliot Rodgers displays as he justifies the murders he is about to commit. Yes, he will be "a god" and they will die "like animals" through this act of "restorative retribution." Too bad he didn't think of starting his own blog instead of buying a gun. It would probably have been a big hit and then he could have had all the groupies he wanted.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Facebook Justice?
Facebook has banned Matt Forney's fan page and is preventing posting to his personal account. It wasn't my doing, BTW. They must have gotten tired of dealing with the avalanche of complaints from young women still outraged about his "self-esteem" post months ago.
And he's promising to leave the country (at least temporarily). Fortunately for those students with more money than brains, the Internet will allow him to plagiarize essays from anywhere in the world.
Bon voyage, Matty!
And he's promising to leave the country (at least temporarily). Fortunately for those students with more money than brains, the Internet will allow him to plagiarize essays from anywhere in the world.
Bon voyage, Matty!
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