OK, I am once more wading into the murky waters of the "Dear Men, STFU" kerfluffle, but after some reflection I think I understand now what's really been ticking me off about the reaction developing to the Isla Vista shootings here.
Misogyny was clearly a prominent feature of Elliot Rodger's character. That makes this an appropriate time to think about and talk about misogyny. But reducing Isla Vista to nothing but misogyny is wrong. Saying that discussing violence against men at a time like this promotes some kind of "false equivalency" narrative misses a very important fact about this incident. Four of the six victims (not counting the perpetrator) were young men: James Hong (20), George Chen (19), David Wang (20) and Christopher Michaels Martinez (20).
If now is not the time to think about what happened to these young men, then when will their time come?
These boys had parents, families and friends. They had plans of the future. Yet the narrative we're building about the Loma reduces them to an insignificant side detail; collateral damage that doesn't signify much. And now that I've thought about it, I realize that this has been making me furious.
So what about Rodger's two female victims, Katherine Cooper (22) and Veronika Weiss (19)? Does that mean I don't care about them?
This kind of thinking always mystifies me, like when somebody inevitably says of an animal rights protest "Ha! Why aren't they protesting about abused children?" It's as if the only way you could care about mistreated animals would be to take away some of the caring you'd otherwise have used on the kids. It just doesn't work that way. Caring isn't a finite resource, it's a habit. The more you put caring into practice, the more caring there is to go around. I wouldn't trust someone who was unmoved by an abused animal to be able care enough to actually do something about an abused child.
So yes, of course I feel just as strongly about the deaths of Katherine Cooper and Veronika Weiss. And I think that reducing them to props in the sick drama of misogyny Rodger prepared for the media's consumption does those women a disservice too. So much more has been lost.
This incident was not just "about" misogyny. As with caring, "about" is not some kind of limited resource we have to conserve, so real world events can be about more than one thing. This one was about misogyny, and misanthropy, and mental illness, and access to guns by someone who shouldn't have had them. And undoubtedly other things I haven't thought of yet.
And because compassion isn't a finite resource, I even feel compassion for Elliot Rodger, although that will probably be a less popular position to take. One of the most devastating and painful things to experience is rejection, and Rodger was someone who found rejection everywhere he turned, yet was unable to see why. I think I can see why he turned to hatred. That does not mean I take his lunatic ideas seriously, but I think I can understand him in a way I don't understand Adam Lanza or Eric Harris.
And I especially feel compassion for Rodger's parents, who evidently tried to do the right thing, but weren't counted when Rodger was toting up people who cared about him and came up with zero. The pain, loss and disgrace must be unbearable.
And that's the way of real world misfortune. It's seldom just one story; it's usually the intersection of several stories that we should care about.
So yes, this is a good time to talk about misogyny -- in fact when is not? But lets allow this is a particularly good time And this is a good time for women to share their experiences without being harassed or disrespected. What time is not? But this is not a special time in which only misogyny should be talked about. In fact I think there is likely to be no such time, because caring is a reflex we need to cultivate across the board, and not just save for special occasions.
Of course, that doesn't mean you should express your caring about anything you please in other people's diaries or in response to other people's sharing of painful experiences. But you should care somewhere.
Now is a good time to keep everyone affected by Isla Vista in our thoughts.