I am a feminist and proud of it. I have written about women’s rights and issues, marched and rallied for women’s rights. Hell, I was even an organizer of a couple of rallies/marches. When the Republicans vote against equal pay, it pisses me off and I’m not afraid to say so. When women’s reproductive rights are challenged, I am the first in line to fight. When women are mistreated in the United States and the world, I do everything I can to participate in the dialogue in hopes of being part of the change. Do I believe that women deserve better than what this world currently offers us? Hell, yes!
That being said, I am having trouble with the current dialogue with regard to Elliot Rodger that this culture of misogyny created his dysfunction. Is he a misogynist? Yes. Are his rants full of hate towards women and the men who get women’s love? Yes. Yet, if you look at everything from his ‘manifesto’ to the information his family has made public, you see he had mental health issues from a very, very young age. His family has stated that Elliot had been seeing therapists since the age of 8, sometimes multiple therapists simultaneously. This fact is a signal that his parents, by the time Elliot was merely eight years old, felt there were issues beyond what they could handle. It signals that they had exhausted all other normal parental instincts, common sense, advice, books, etc. and they needed professional help in hopes of helping their son. It does not signal that they were raising their son to reflect any misogynistic views they may have held, as the media has suggested. It signals that they were trying to help their son. It signals that there was something very difficult going on with what we now know was a mentally ill child. To suggest that all mentally ill people are products of their environment, upbringing, or a reflection of their family’s values is an insult to all the families worldwide who struggle to help mentally ill loved ones. Such a view does not reflect an educated understanding of the diverse issues comprising the mental health crisis.
If you take the time to read the entire manifesto, you may notice odd points that Elliot Rodger made throughout its entirety. Even when he is describing the blissful times of his life, he can’t help adding strange points that seem to make him a victim. For example, he claims that he was not the product of a planned pregnancy. He hated his preschool and the socks he was forced to wear there. He states that on his third birthday, his friend’s mother cut the cake and gave the first piece to his friend and not him…it was his birthday after all. He was uprooted and moved to the United States. His parents divorced and he was devastated. He mentions being annoyed because his sister was allowed to invite her friends to his ninth birthday party. He claims that everyone was mean to him or bullied him with few exceptions. He was moved from school to school over the years for various reasons that seemed to suggest his inability to fit in from very early on. Some of these bizarre memories this 22 year old shares as tragic events in his life occurred when he was as young as three years old. He claims to remember these events and finds them significant enough to share. Still, such events are not unique to him. Many similar things happen to everyone, but are either not seen as tragic or are not even in one’s memory bank.
Elliot Rodger also goes on and on about his family bloodlines, his travel, his social standing, his taste for the finer things, fashion, and opulence. He demonstrates an inflated sense of self and self-worth throughout the manifesto. He is narcissistic in his description of himself and his life (I’m not diagnosing, just describing his writings). He states all this while sulking about not being cool, not being popular, and not getting the attention he deserves. It is bizarre—from beginning to end. His perception of his childhood almost seems contrived—a picture painted to blame society, his family, his peers, anyone but himself or in reality, his mental instability. I don’t recall him mentioning that he was seeing a therapist as a young child. I don’t recall mention of a therapist at all until the very end of his manifesto. Reports credited to his family friends say visits to his therapists were almost a daily part of his life since the age of 8 and he omits this fact. It seems that Elliot wanted readers to believe that his life was perfect until the mean girls of his adolescence appeared—the scapegoat for his psychopathy.
Toward the end of his manifesto, I almost couldn’t read his repetitive and insane rants-though I forced myself to just to try to get some understanding. It didn’t work. I doubt that anyone who completely read the document came away with any better understanding of Elliot Rodger. It was like being in a tornado of disjointed ramblings. It was the first time I ever read something where I was able to see someone literally becoming more and more unhinged.
I agree that a conversation about the treatment of women needs to happen. It needs to be had for a vast number of reasons beyond Elliot Rodger's mental illness. In the 21st century, women are still being stoned, still have to cover their faces with hijabs, are raped, forced into marriage, kidnapped and sometimes killed for getting an education, and on and on. US congress people voted against equal pay for women. The fight for women's rights is everywhere. My fear is that dominating the airwaves and social media with misogyny rhetoric in response to the mass murders committed by Elliot Rodger, it overshadows the two points that I consider to be the root of this tragedy: mental illness and access to guns (an entirely different article to be written). I believe his mental illness caused his behavior, not a predilection for misogyny. I believe his fixation could have just as easily been to hate a race, religion, or any other random thing he chose.
I am not excusing his heinous crime in any way. His actions were disgusting, incomprehensible, and criminal. This does not discount the fact that this boy was mentally ill, an issue we must address as a nation if we want to be able to stop these violent instances from occurring around the country. Elliot Rodger was mentally ill and he was able to legally purchase guns. That is the issue at hand. This is the dialogue we need to have.