Time is moving along. Planned to have this done already. I will just keep a running log here as time passes. Many of the young girls here look so beautiful as to not be human, very edible.
–George Sodini, December 22, 2008
George Sodini was, by some measures, a reasonably successful guy. He owned his own house, had a decent job, was able to take a vacation now and again. Only one thing spoiled it: he didn’t have a woman.
Now, you may think that’s an understandable pain. All of us have been alone at some point in our lives, all of us have wished we had a soulmate, someone to share our thoughts and desires with, someone to build a life with. To lack that is understandably painful.
But it was not a soulmate that Sodini lacked; he had no interest in such things. He didn’t want someone; he wanted a woman. He wanted a woman the way some people want a really sweet computer, the way others want a brand new car. His desire was not for a person, but for a thing, an object. And preferably a newer one, without too many miles on it.
A man needs a woman for confidence. He gets a boost on the job, career, with other men, and everywhere else when he knows inside he has someone to spend the night with and who is also a friend. This type of life I see is a closed world with me specifically and totally excluded. Every other guy does this successfully to a degree. Flying solo for many years is a destroyer. Yet many people say I am easy to get along with, etc. Looking back, I owe nothing to desirable females who ask for anything, except for basic courtesy – usually.
–George Sodini, December 29, 2008
If Sodoni had needed a car or a television or a computer to be happy, he could have bought one. But he needed a woman, and unfortunately for Sodini, women are not cars. They are people — fully human, living people, with their own wants and desires and needs. That Sodoni never really bought into that liberal bullcrap is clear; still, he had to deal with the laws of the land. He couldn’t simply buy the woman of his choice.
Adding to Sodoni’s problems was the fact that the woman of his choice was almost impossibly beyond his reach. He was a moderately successful 48-year-old who was not unattractive physically, but not especially attractive, either. Had he reached out to, say, fortysomething women who were moderately successful and of averageish looks — and had he not hated women in general — he might have been able to find a woman who would love him for who he was. But Sodini didn’t view women as people; he viewed them as commodities. And a 48-year-old woman has a lot of wear on the tires. No, he wanted a 20-year-old, and not just any old 20-year-old, but a pretty hot one, the kind the pick-up artists call a “9+.”
He went to PUA seminars — there’s video of him at one, the one guy not in a sportcoat — and tried to learn the secrets of winning the hearts of younger women.
It never seemed to occur to him that he was going about things completely wrong. Ironically, he would until the day he died.
Girls and women don’t even give me a second look ANYWHERE. There is something BLATANTLY wrong with me that NO goddam person will tell me what it is. Every person just wants to be fucking nice and say nice things to me. Flattery. Oh yeah, I am sure you can get a date anytime. You look good, etc. Pussies.
George Sodini, July 29, 2009
Sodini spent his last nine months on Earth plotting his revenge, his revenge on women for failing to simply be his through force of will. His revenge for women daring to have their own wants, their own desires, their own needs.
He hated them for it. Hated the sixteen-year-old girl he saw on an online forum having sex three times a day. “So, err, after a month of that, this little hoe has had more sex than ME in my LIFE, and I am 48. One more reason. Thanks for nada, bitches! Bye.” He hated his mother, saying, “Don’t piss her off or she will be mad and vindictive for years. She actually thinks she’s normal. Very dominant. Her way and only her way with no flexibility toward everyone in the household.” He hated his brother’s wife, a “Chinese-descent, petite woman with no body, no ass, no chest and no personality.” Though he admitted, as an aside, “But she is highly intelligent and an excellent cook. I can testify to that! She home bakes her own DELICIOUS wheat bread! But who cares about that type of small bull crap?”
That his brother seemed satisfied with his intelligent wife did not register with Sodoni. Who seeks out a woman for her brain?
I just looked out my front window and saw a beautiful college-age girl leave [redacted by editor]’s house, across the street. I guess he got a good lay today. College girls are hoez. I masturbate. Frequently. He is about 45 years old. She was a long haired, hot little hottie with a beautiful bod. I masturbate. Frequently.
–George Sodini, July 23, 2009
The girl leaving the neighbor’s house was the neighbor’s daughter; Sodoni can be forgiven for assuming that his neighbor had slept with her. After all, Sodoni was reading How to Date Young Women: For Men Over 35 by R. Don Steele, and attending seminars hosted by Steele. He wanted a young woman to fall in love with him, one who was attractive enough for his tastes. One who would be totally okay with dating a 48-year-old who had never been married, who hadn’t been in a serious relationship in 25 years.
In short, Sodoni wanted a figment of his imagination, the perfect woman of his dreams, to find him charming and attractive and perfect, despite his imperfections.
I actually had a date today. It was with a woman I met on the bus in March. We got together at Two PPG Place for lunch. The last date for me was May 1, 2008. Women just don’t like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one. Not one of them finds me attractive.
–George Sodini, May 18, 2009
It takes a certain ignorance to write that women don’t like you on the day you went out on a date; still, one misdoubts that Sodoni was right. The women he dated, however infrequently, likely didn’t like him much. But not for the reasons he thought.
Sodoni went to seminars where they told him to “kill the nice guy,” as if niceness was his failing. He read books telling him that if he was assertive enough, bold enough, that twentysomethings would be beating a path to his door. Meanwhile, he was convinced that he himself was unlovable. And he was convinced that women were out to get him, when they weren’t ignoring and/or laughing at him.
One can’t cover up that kind of toxic stew of hatred for long, and no doubt, women who came in contact with it fled, and right quick. And rather than addressing the root of his problem — his own misanthropy — Sodoni looked to charlatans and hucksters who claimed that you, too, can get the girl of your dreams if you just insult her enough.
And when even that didn’t work, Sodoni turned his rage outward, in one violent, bitter act, an act that transformed him from someone we might pity to someone we must despise.
I took off today, Monday, and tomorrow to practice my routine and make sure it is well polished. I need to work out every detail, there is only one shot. Also I need to be completely immersed into something before I can be successful. I haven’t had a drink since Friday at about 2:30. Total effort needed. Tomorrow is the big day.
Unfortunately I talked to my neighbor today, who is very positive and upbeat. I need to remain focused and absorbed COMPLETELY. Last time I tried this, in January, I chickened out. Lets see how this new approach works.
Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter. I was reading the Bible and The Integrity of God beginning yesterday, because soon I will see them.
–George Sodoni, August 3, 2009
On August 4, 2009, Sodoni walked into an aerobics class at a gym in suburban Pittsburgh, and opened fire. He killed three women, and wounded nine others, before turning the gun on himself.
His writing makes plain that he felt no remorse, no guilt, no doubt. He felt righteous. He was destroying the things that had failed to love him, no matter how much he wanted them to. The pretty girls working out in their leotards, going home to fuck their young boyfriends or husbands — they would pay for not fucking him.
Ironically, George Sodoni was able to kill those women for the same reason those and other women wouldn’t fuck him: because George Sodini didn’t see women as fully human. Didn’t understand that they have the same emotions he did, that they desire and hunger and despair too. He couldn’t imagine finding someone other than what our society deems “attractive” to be attractive, because he didn’t even find “attractive” women attractive. He lusted after them, yes, but he didn’t want their company, he didn’t want their friendship, and he didn’t want their love. He just wanted them to fill the space beside him, like a trophy on the mantle — a validation of his manhood, his worth.
Because he could not view a woman as his equal, he could not win the love of a woman. And so he fired dozens of shots in hopes of killing that which pained him, but in the end, only one found its true mark.
The one that killed George Sodoni.
Maybe it’s just me, but he looks pretty unattractive actually.
I said something to this effect in the previous thread, but I think it bears repeating. Sodini was a guy with no social network, lots of unresolved conflicts from childhood, sever mental illness, in addition to his horrifying misogyny. Guys with Sodini’s beliefs are problematic in and of themselves. What makes Sodini the monster he is is his mental illness. The odd way that Dan Savage and a few others are latching onto sex is sort of counter-productive. The guy had a history of untreated, mental illness. Sitting him down with a few feminists writers would do as much for him and society as sending him to some PUA jerkoff didn’t. The guy needed psychiatric intervention and a good friend or two, neither of which he had.
Not sex. The misogynist bullcrap version of sex that sexist assholes dwell on. (That romantic comedy pushing the sexists-g0t-sex-figured-out line—The Ugly Truth—looks even less cute now.)
I’m appalled that a man shows up at an all woman exercise class, kills 3 women and injures 9, and yet STILL the “there’s no such thing as sexism!” deniers will deny that sexism has any relevance here.
Maybe I keep on wording this wrong, but why don’t people recognize that the difference between extreme, violent misogyny and non-violent misogyny is a matter of degrees? To look at his life, it seems fair to attribute the degree of difference between the non-violent to the violent to mental illness. The internet is rife with men spewing the same bile as Sodini. What seperates Sodini from a Dr. Helen commenter was that he was far-gone enough that even the basic aspects of humanity were gone. It isn’t giving misogynists any credit, much less denying the ubiquity of their views, to say that people who say and think horrifying things are often distinct from people who do horrifying things.
Rootless, I think you are unfairly demonizing people with mental illnesses, who are more likely to be victims of violence themselves than the perpetrators.
I’m appalled that a man shows up at an all woman exercise class, kills 3 women and injures 9, and yet STILL the “there’s no such thing as sexism!” deniers will deny that sexism has any relevance here.
Not to mention that his manifesto specifically states that he was going to kill women because they were “bitchez” who he barely owed common courtesy.
But no sexism to see here. Move along.
Rootless,
From what I understand, you’re saying that it works like this:
misogyny but no extreme mental illness = average MRA jerk
misogyny + extreme mental illness = George Sodini
Yet you said @1, “Sitting him down with a few feminists writers would do as much for him and society as sending him to some PUA jerkoff didn’t. The guy needed psychiatric intervention and a good friend or two, neither of which he had.”
But the idea was to remove the misogyny from the Sodini equation. If he had just suffered from the extreme mental illness but minus the misogyny, he wouldn’t have thought that women as a group were to blame for his problems, and he wouldn’t have committed his crime.
I have heard the argument that he would have killed someone, eventually, but I find this implausible. People who act upon racist/sexist/anti-Semitic/etc. sentiments usually have been dwelling upon those ideas for years before they shoot up a Holocaust museum/ aerobics class. They have successfully convinced themselves that the Jews/ the women/ Group X are the cause of problems and therefore they should remove/revenge-themselves-upon Group X.
In contrast, if they never thought blaming an entire group was acceptable — if hatred toward a group, whether one defined by race or religion or sex, was not on the table — then that element never goes into their psychological makeup. Maybe they still would pick out an individual who they believed had harmed them: a boss, a parent, an ex. But the ability to exhibit bigotry by seeing some Other as an undifferentiated mass wouldn’t be in play, and the killing to target that Other wouldn’t occur.
What is a PUA?
Seems to me that misogyny, or mis-any-group, is a form of mental illness itself. Definition of mental illness might need examining. Wasn’t there just something, naturally I forget where, about how the bigshots who get to define what is a disorder or not, get to work in secrecy, with no scrutiny from us mere mortals?
I treat objects better that some people treat people.
@7,
PUA = Pick Up Artist.
I don’t think the various forms of bigotry in themselves make sense to classify as mental illnesses. We first got the concept of a mental illness at the point that we realized that being depressed, or schizophrenic, or what-have-you was not a moral failing but a physical problem in the brain.
Bigotry is a moral failing, and one with which we all struggle to some degree, just as we struggle with the moral failings of untruthfulness, lack of charity, excessive pride, etc. We have to recognize that we have these failings before we can improve ourselves, and we can get assistance in that improvement from religious leaders or others, but I don’t see it as something that an MD is going to be able to help with much.
Maybe I’m falling into too much of a mind-body dichotimization, but I am wary of moving what a society currently considers a moral failing into the realm of mental illness if there doesn’t seem to be any kind of physical aspect to the issue (e.g. there is no chemical that can alter it). This is how the APA ended up just now saying that they’re not going to get involved in any “gay conversion” therapy. Being gay used to be seen as a moral failing, then the more enlightened homophobes decided it was a treatable “mental illness,” and now the homophobes cloak themselves in compassion and claim that they just want to help those poor, ill gay people.
One thing that’s really pissing me off is the number of people saying he was a monster. If only. The scariest fucking PART is that this was a human being, who’d so lost himself in his entitlement that HE ceased to see people as human. He never stopped being one himself. Calling him a monster is just a way to try and distance ourselves from him, saying that of course our own issues could never ever lead to that end – in a way, denying that our own privilege and entitlement matter, because they’re not as bad as the monster’s. Hello, gimme a cookie.
Nuh-uh. Not a monster. A man, a human being, so drowning in his entitlement he had to drag some people down with him, and chose to end his life in subjugating others to his entitlement again: demanding sacrificial victims for his boo-boos, “OHNOEZ I’M NOT GETTING THE POWER THEY PROMISED ME!”, if he was going down, he wasn’t going to do it without seizing his power again.
Gross, yes. Monster? No.
I’m doing a terrible job at explaining my thoughts, so one more try….
I don’t deny his misogyny or consider it irrelevant to his crime. I’m just not convinced that a guy so severely mentally ill can be talked down from his beliefs with the means by which people usually communicate with each other. Had the guy been, hypothetically, more receptive to feminism or even just another loser bragging about made-up sexual exploits on the internet (as I imagine most PUA site commenters to be doing), he would have been a completely different person. In the latter case, still a horrible person, but a different person nonetheless. As with the Virginia Tech shooter, I don’t really see how something other than hospitalization could do anything to prevent what happened. I admit, given the tendency in the U.S. to minimize the pervasiveness and violent manifestations of misogyny, that discerning the violent and crazy from the merely myopic is difficult, but I do think a line exists somewhere.
I admit, given the tendency in the U.S. to minimize the pervasiveness and violent manifestations of misogyny
Oh, wow, that has to be the funniest, most ironic thing I’ve heard in a good while. You make a comment minimizing a violent manifestation of misogyny, and “admit” that it’s a problem that society does this?
Nurse, I need 50cc of Selfawarion, stat.
Well, saying that people who say and think horrible things are distinctly different from people who do horrible things might be true to an extent, but I don’t think the line that separates them is necessarily mental illness or that they need a friend or two. It is more a matter of degrees to which their hatred makes them bother to take action.
Saying there is this magic line between bigotted people who are nonviolent and those that are violent are monsters and mentally ill doesn’t make sense. So everyone in the last century that participated in a lynching of a black man was mentally ill? So everyone that participates in honor killings of women who have been raped are mentally ill? Was someone like Timothy McVeigh mentally ill? Or the 9/11 hijackers?
I would argue that, no, they weren’t. They just became so invested in their hatred of a class of people that they decided that acting out violently towards their subject of hate was worth more to them than whatever consequences those actions may cause. And one reason this worked for them is because at some level they didn’t see the consequences as being that much of a problem for them. They all were surrounded by a culture that promoted their hatred and accepted their actions sometimes as being “heroic” or at least justifiable. Perhaps Sodini was mentally ill and treatment would have helped him. I don’t think we will ever know. But we do know that his hatred of women was cultivated, promoted, justified and applauded by the culture he associated with. You think he didn’t get some pleasure from knowing some of these PUA/MRA assholes would be rooting him on like they are? Hell, that was probably his payoff.
I’m worried about his last paragraph, frankly. I’ve heard not an insubstantial number of people say that we need to keep religion around because that keeps people from raping, murdering, et cetera, but for this guy, he had the okay from the big-guy. And that’s what salvation by faith seems to be: a blank cheque to do evil.
@ Lexie: is it not possible that a difference between horrifying crimes that go against every societal norm (shooting innocent women in a gym) and horrifying acts that are routinely upheld or never challenged (honor killings, rape in the Congo, lynchings) exists? Moreover, I don’t recall arguing that mental illness and misogyny are mutually exclusive, much less than acknowledging one would necessarily minimize the other. I only wanted to say that uncoupling this guy from his horrible beliefs would require more than just a simple philosophical adjustment. I’m open to being wrong, so I guess I will just have to agree to disagree.
This. Exactly this.
Rootless, I think you are unfairly demonizing people with mental illnesses, who are more likely to be victims of violence themselves than the perpetrators.
This, SO much.
I was reluctant to tell my family about my own struggles with mental illness (I’m on disability due to schizoaffective disorder and PTSD), because of just those stereotypes. A HUGE number of people with mental illnesses are not violent at all, and numerous studies show that the presence of severe mental illness is a very poor predictor for violence (an article from the New England Journal of Medicine and one from the Department of Health and Human Services, just two examples).
And yet, every time something tragic like this horrible shooting takes place, the blame is placed squarely on mental illness. This sorry excuse for a man may have been mentally ill or unstable, but without his horrific misogyny, he would not have done this brutal thing.
How many mentally ill people live in that area of Pennsylvania who have never lifted a gun in their lives, whose only contact with knives has been in the kitchen preparing food, who might talk to entities no one else can see or dress themselves in clothes that do not meet the societal norms of fashion or cry when “normal” people wouldn’t but who would NEVER EVER hurt another person? I don’t know, and I’m not sure how to find out, but I’d be willing to bet that there are a fair few.
George Sodini may or may not have been mentally ill. He certainly subscribed wholeheartedly to the idea that women are objects, that women’s bodies are public property, and that those women who dare to assert themselves as human beings with the right to decide who touches them, how, and when are “bitchez” who just hate men and want to deny men their rights to do anything they want to any woman anywhere any time. Sodini’s misogyny cannot be separated from his crime; Sodini’s mental health status has very little if anything to do with his crime.
Rootless,
Desert Rose’s last paragraph is exactly what I’m getting at.
You and I might find going into a gym and taking out a roomful of women as payback for his hatred of all women to be a horrific crime. But in his social circle (and he did have one to some extent, as he went to conferences on how to get laid and read books and interacted online with other PUA on the subject) his crime was justifiable and in some cases, even applauded. And although not that extreme in its blatancy, the larger society as a whole is much more open and accepting in regards to violence against women. He is a product of his environment.
Now whether or not mental illness exacerbated that or not is another issue that we won’t know. But you are acting like commitment of a violent act automatically serves to diagnose someone with a mental illness. I disagree. We have little to no evidence of a mental illness beyond extrapolating that “only crazy monsters do those things.” We have a lot of evidence that this guy hated women and killed them in revenge of that hate. He tells us this himself.
I think this act was merely the extreme logical outcome of Sodini’s beliefs about women, just as the murder of Dr. George Tiller was the extreme logical outcome of the belief that abortionists are evil genocidal maniacs who are committing a Holocaust against America’s unborn children. Sure, the vast majority of people who have those beliefs will profess shock and horror that someone would go so far as to kill in fulfillment of those ideas. A small minority will say, “I wouldn’t do it, but it took courage for him to do it, and I don’t condemn him for ‘extremism in the pursuit’ of what we think is right.”
Was Tiller’s killer mentally ill? I suppose some will say so simply because they assume all murderers are mentally ill and they equate “mentally ill” with “insane.” But I think that’s an easy out, to avoid grappling with the possibility that people can be entirely sane and motivated by a belief most of us consider wrong or not justifying killing — and that a group of people without mental illnesses will pop up and say they think the belief is correct and does justify killing.
I’ve heard not an insubstantial number of people say that we need to keep religion around because that keeps people from raping, murdering, et cetera, but for this guy, he had the okay from the big-guy. And that’s what salvation by faith seems to be: a blank cheque to do evil.
Vox Day once wrote that if God told him to go kill toddlers, he would, because hey, God told him to, and therefore it was totally okay.
Now, he hemmed and hawed about how he’d have to know it was really God, but in truth, Vox expressed the precise reason why Cardinals broke nonbelievers on the rack, or why soldiers tried to clear Jerusalem of the Mahometans, or why terrorists were able to fly planes into skyscrapers. When God tells you something is okay, it’s okay. And if you believe in your minister or imam or rabbi, believe they are telling you the word of God, infallible and true, then it’s easy for God Told Me to become My Preacher Told Me. Gods need answer to no morality — and neither must their disciples.
@ lexis and desert rose
I see your point now. I had read in other sources, that sordini had no actual friends and spent the majority of his time alone. Moreover, his diary revealed a lot of unresolved anger about his childhood. All of which, I thought, indocates that he needed intensive psyciatric care, of not hospitalization. That might have been true, but nothing revealed so far should have made me so certain of that. And yes, I realize that iwas setting up a world where since violence is a symptom of mental illness, real culpability is lost.
I think this act was merely the extreme logical outcome of Sodini’s beliefs about women, just as the murder of Dr. George Tiller was the extreme logical outcome of the belief that abortionists are evil genocidal maniacs who are committing a Holocaust against America’s unborn children. Sure, the vast majority of people who have those beliefs will profess shock and horror that someone would go so far as to kill in fulfillment of those ideas. A small minority will say, “I wouldn’t do it, but it took courage for him to do it, and I don’t condemn him for ‘extremism in the pursuit’ of what we think is right.”
Was Tiller’s killer mentally ill? I suppose some will say so simply because they assume all murderers are mentally ill and they equate “mentally ill” with “insane.” But I think that’s an easy out, to avoid grappling with the possibility that people can be entirely sane and motivated by a belief most of us consider wrong or not justifying killing — and that a group of people without mental illnesses will pop up and say they think the belief is correct and does justify killing.
Exactly.
Furthermore, “insanity” is a legal term. It means “such unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from criminal or civil responsibility.” (Merriam-Webster online dictionary) VERY few people with mental illnesses are legally insane. This story (ETA: Trigger warning behind the link; case involves a mother mutilating and possibly partially cannibalizing her infant son) is probably a case of legal insanity. George Sodini knew exactly what he was doing. So did Scott Roeder (or whoever shot Dr. Tiller). Sodini and Tiller’s murderer were/are NOT insane; they were/are hateful and malicious. They may or may not be mentally ill, and honestly, it doesn’t really matter whether or not they have a mental illness.
What matters is that three women are dead and several more injured because George Sodini blamed all women for the fact that HIS behavior and demeanor repelled the kind of women he wished to attract. What matters is that Dr. Tiller was shot to death after years of death threats and at least one previous shooting. George Sodini and the person who shot Dr. Tiller knew exactly what they were doing; they hated their victims for whatever reason and they wanted their victims to die. Vicious hatred DOES NOT EQUAL mental illness.
DesertRose,
Might want to add a warning for the article at the link you provided; it made me feel literally nauseated.
Rootless, this: “had no actual friends and spent the majority of his time alone. his diary revealed a lot of unresolved anger about his childhood. All of which, I thought, indocates that he needed intensive psyciatric care, of not hospitalization” is simply not even close to being true. Unresolved anger + loner does not a psychiatric emergency make.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but it really seems like you don’t know much about mental illness, which leads me to suggest, as someone who actually has a mental illness, that you educate yourself about it before you draw such conclusions. You are speaking about a real group of real people, and you seem to be speakingn without doing the work to understand what you are speaking about first. We all do that sometimes, so really, I’m not trying to slam you. But comments like yours really can effect the quality of our lives and relationships, as has been mentioned upthread.
It is really upsetting to me that mental illness is getting infused into this conversation at all, since I’ve heard absolutely zero reports indicating anything that could be considered a symptom of mental illness, with the possible exception of personality disorder (which is even less understood than psychotic, anxiety, or mood disorders).
Sorry about that, PG. I should have known better than to post something that heinous without a trigger warning. Mea culpa.
@ Dymphna
I see that now. I apologize to you and anyone else I offended since, I will admit, my only experiences with mental illness is limited to psychotherapy and anti-depressants.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but it really seems like you don’t know much about mental illness
Gotta agree with that one!
Related note: As a rather internally-focused person who spends most of my time with books or online reading materials, I hate how “not social” is also demonized in this society. It’s not that I CAN’T get friends — I just like to be alone.
Clearly this is not the case with Sodoni (I doubt he could find anyone outside the self-hating PUA community to talk to him very long), but it’s still not a fair assumption that “loner” = “crazed murderer” (or psychiatric emergency).
The idea that Sodini and similar members of the RNA/antifeminist circles aren’t mentally ill strike me as very odd (I am aware that “legally insane” and “psychiatric practice insane” are different concepts – I’m going with the DSM IV on this one).
Antisocial personality disorder is a condition that weaves together narcissism, superficial charm, irritability, aggression, irresponsibility, lack of remorse, lack of regard for safety, and a “failure to conform to society’s norms in regard to criminal activity.” As far as I’ve read/heard, Sodini had no remorse or even a clear idea that what he planned to do was wrong.
I think one of the things that makes this complicated and scary is that we don’t know what to blame: Sodini himself? Sordini’s neurochemistry? His communities? Some traits of our society?
The PUA community has always disconcerted me – when I met my boyfriend he had one of the common books of that genre – The Game, perhaps? – and I argued with him a lot over it. He’d repeat something he’d read, like “Girls like it when you insult them because it shows your dominance!” or “Only accept the highest quality woman – kick anyone with issues to the curb.” And I would say, “Are you even listening to what you’re saying?” and “If you tried shit like that on me I would hit you with this textbook.” I don’t think I ever actually hit him though, and he threw the book away pretty fast :)
Actually, if Sodini’s illegal activity is limited to this crime that occurred in middle age, he probably did not have Antisocial Personality Disorder. Personality Disorders are by definition pervasive starting in childhood or early adulthood. We also have little evidence for some of the other factors you listed (e.g. charm).
He clearly has traits that are associated with several personality disorders (which we all do to some extent), most especially Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but it is very difficult to diagnosis a personality disorder without extensive clinical interviewing and knowledge of the person’s background. His behavior could be explained by a number of illnesses (and much better explained by something like PTSD, which can cause violent outbursts in some people who did not demonstrate such a behavior earlier in life, or even a head injury of some sort, which happens more often than you might think and can have the effect for some people of removing empathy and increasing impulsivity). But we don’t have sufficient evidence for any of these diagnoses.
Apologies, CMR, if you are knowledgable about these things, but many others are not so it helps to be really careful and really clear when we start tossing around diagnostic labels.
I wonder why we are so eager to find a DSM IV category in which to put him? If we read lists of symptoms superficially and do not root diagnosis in direct clinical evidence, I guran-friggin-tee you that we can find a diagnosis to fit him. And, for that matter, every single other person whose behavior we find odd. Or ourselves. Or anyone else.
From where I sit, the urge to find a diagnosis for someone who has committed a very violent act seems like othering, and I resent being in the “othered” category.
I think it is hard for people to think that there are some people who are just hateful bastards, or are just frustrated that we do not yet know why and how to prevent people from being violent hateful bastards. (Maybe someday we will understand the psychological links more than we do now.)
But people want a way to explain how this could be prevented. If only he had had mental health care, this wouldn’t have happened. (I’m guilty of this myself and in a lot of cases, that is true.) It is a way to try to have some control over a random act of violence that is so very out of control.
On another note, I haven’t read anywhere about anything that discusses the traffic his blog got. It seems to be assumed that he was so lonely, no one even read it and that is why no one did anything about it. But what if he did get some traffic, but what he said there was just sort of acceptable to the people who read it and they saw no cause for alarm?
@ Dymphna – my knowledge is pretty much limited to Intro to Psych, with a few exceptions, so I’m happy to listen to someone with more knowledge.
I definitely dislike it when, in court or on the news, people who have never met an accused start guessing what he or she probably was, but at the same time I think I’m guilty of wanting an explanation that sort of indicates, “This horrible thing wouldn’t have happened if Person X wasn’t ill in this way.” I know that’s not fair, or how the world works, but I think it’s where my brain goes on first leap.
As someone who also fits into the DSM, I respect the, “Stop saying this is what mentally ill people are like! Most of us are nice and normal and in no way going to shoot you” frustration. I can be treating my depression and working, I promise :)
Honestly, speaking as someone who works in the mental health field and is reasonably well educated on it, it disturbs me deeply when people armchair diagnose people with personality disorders, much less anything else, based on newspaper articles.
A diagnosis is not testable the way, say, the flu or strep throat is. There is not a “test” for antisocial personality disorder or even danger to self or others (which would make one liable for an involuntary hold of no more than 72 hours, fwiw). A lot of it is guesswork and interpretation, and there’s a good reason why the DSM is moving into it’s fifth revision in not very much time.
This all in addition to the notes above that people with severe mental health diagnosis who are in the system are more likely to be victimized than perpetrate violence, that the stigma against people with mental illnesses is part of what they/we struggle against in order to help them get basic needs met in the world, and that the majority of people with mental illnesses do NOT have an Axis II diagnosis.
i’m not gonna weigh in on the mental illness/lack thereof argument. but, i do think that blaming his actions on an egregious sense of entitlement is misplaced. calling someone out for having too much entitlement implies that they’re actually not entitled to what they think they are. e.g., i frequently get annoyed/angry at people’s sense of entitlement to take up all the space in a conversation since i believe that everyone should be able to weigh in equally and that everyone’s contributions are valuable. in terms of Sodini, i believe that he, and everyone else, are actually entitled to having their basic physical and emotional needs for affection, intimacy, and sex met. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to feel entitled about; it’s not, unfortunately, how the world works at present, and many, many peoples needs (for intimacy, sex, as well as lots of other things like food and shelter) do go unmet, and it’s totally reasonable to be angry about it when one’s needs are unmet. Sodini was only wrong in blaming women for his needs not being met rather than blaming patriarchy and the other kinds of power structures at play (ageism, abilism, lookism, and surely more) that actually cause those kinds of deprivations and zero-sum economies. It was the way that his deep seated and ultimately violent misogyny interacted with a perfectly reasonable and normal sense of entitlement that produced such fucked up results.
“in terms of Sodini, i believe that he, and everyone else, are actually entitled to having their basic physical and emotional needs for affection, intimacy, and sex met.”
You do realize that you are saying “I think people are entitled to access of other peoples’ emotions and bodies,” right?
No one is entitled to the bodies OR emotions of anyone else. We do not own or have control over other people. People think we could or should currently AND in the past, and this belief is commonly called SLAVERY. What you are asking for is brainwashed slavery, since peoples’ consent is not even asked for – since someone is entitled to their affections and body.
But tell you what – if you think this is true, then act on it. Volunteer your body and affection for people who post on the internet that no one loves or will have sex with them. Since you believe they are ENTITLED to “affection, intimacy, and sex”, then it is only reasonable for you to fulfill those needs for these poor, white men.
Meanwhile, I’ll be over here maintaining that I’m an individual, not an object someone is ENTITLED to.
I’m not sure if you read the rest of my comment or not, but i think it was pretty damn clear that i wasn’t calling for total non-consensual access to other people or some kind of compulsory prostitution program. I’m talking about a world where oppressions are sufficiently limited and resources sufficiently shared that it is possible for everyone to consensually have their needs for physical and emotional intimacy met, without resorting to compulsion, oppression, slavery, or zero-sum, hierarchical economies of desire. “Act[ing] on it,” as you say, means working against misogyny and patriarchy, not calling for volunteers to pity fuck everyone who asks.
No one is saying this guy is wrong for wanting, needing or feeling bad about the lack of intimacy, sex and affection in his life. That isn’t where the entitlement comes to play. It is perfectly understandable that he would want these things and no one is saying he shouldn’t have.
The entitlement comes to play in the actions he took to get what he didn’t have. From the less violent things like taking seminars to learn how to trick and manipulate women to his final solution of just deciding that if women (all 30 mil of the attractive ones he mentions in his blog) reject him then they deserve, as a class, to be blown away.
I want things, too. One thing I would really like is my own home where my entire family, now split into three households, could live together. Due to factors both somewhat within my control (money) and somewhat beyond my control (disability access and immigration laws) I cannot have this thing that I want very badly right now. And I think few people would blame me for wanting it. So I keep looking for solutions. I do not blame everyone else out there who has their own home, try to manipulate them into giving their home up for me, and failing that, go into random other homeowner’s homes and blow them to bits as if I am entitled to what they have as if I deserve it any more than they do.
That’s a perfectly good metaphor. And likewise if someone in a similar situation did commit an act of violence against some random other homeowners, i’m guessing that most of the commenters here wouldn’t leap to saying is was because they had an inflated sense of entitlement to having shelter, i.e. “how dare they believe they deserve an accessible house to live in with their family!” Rather they’d probably blame the workings of capitalism, abilism, and nationalism for the lack of access and maintain that everyone, in fact, does have a right to shelter. And that’s far from saying that everyone who doesn’t have a housing situation that they find adequate should up and move into someone else’s house non-consensually.
I’m not sure if you read the rest of my comment or not, but i think it was pretty damn clear that i wasn’t calling for total non-consensual access to other people or some kind of compulsory prostitution program.
Yes, I read the rest of your post It was, paraphrased, “If we can solve ablist/lookist/etc… discrepancies, then everyone will get laid and they should.”
And I disagree with that premise. I think we could have en entirely equitable world (whatever that would look like) and there would still be people who wouldn’t get laid.
I also disagree that people are ENTITLED to access to other people’s bodies and have the RIGHT to be angry at the system when that NEED isn’t met.
There are lots of guys out there who I’m attracted to who are not interested in me. Some of them are friends. Some of them wouldn’t give me the time of day. And yeah, some of the ones who wouldn’t give me the time of day probably do it for sexist/lookist/whatever reasons, but some of them JUST DON’T LIKE ME.
And that’s ok.
But according to what you’re saying, I should be angry at the system – or whatever – because these people I’m attracted to won’t give me the time of day, and others who like me don’t want to have sex with me.
And that just rings entirely false, untrue, and unreasonably entitled to me.
As for “compulsory prostitution program”, presumably, since you hold these views that people are entitled to love and affection, it wouldn’t be prostitution since charging would not be showing love or affection. I’m just surprised you balk at putting your body where your mouth is, if you really believe that everyone is ENTITLED in this manner.
I think we’re moving from different assumptions here.
One person is moving from the assumption that in a world without oppression, it’s unlikely that there would be someone who is such a paraiah (or so selective about partners) that it would be impossible for sie to find a partner.
I think the other person (and I tend to agree with the second person) is assuming that even in the near-absence of all sorts of oppressive nastiness, from time to time there may well be an individual who no one wants to get horizontal with (or at least, no one that the individual is also willing to get horizontal with).
It follows from (1) that people are basically entitled to sex because if there were no oppressions and we were all picking apples in Rousseau’s natural state then everyone would get sex, and the fact that we aren’t in Rousseau’s natural state is an insult to everyone’s humanity which we are entitled to be irked about.
It follows from (2) that there is no such thing as entitlement to sex, because even all the removal of all the injustice in the world won’t create sex for everyone, and therefore people who find themselves sex-minus will have to find other ways to cope with this eventuality.
Arguably, things that can be bought (food, health care, shelter) are things to which people should be entitled — that is, after all, why we refer to the programs that guarantee those things for people (welfare/Medicaid, e.g.) as “entitlement programs.”
You can’t buy people’s love and affection. You therefore cannot be entitled to them. You might be able to buy just sex, if you live somewhere that prostitution is legal, but that’s as much as you can buy and Sodini clearly expected that he should be getting laid for free.
I’m talking about a world where oppressions are sufficiently limited and resources sufficiently shared that it is possible for everyone to consensually have their needs for physical and emotional intimacy met, without resorting to compulsion, oppression, slavery, or zero-sum, hierarchical economies of desire.
It might be *possible*, but that doesn’t mean that it will *happen*. I’m sufficiently unoppressed and resource-accessing that it’s *possible* for me to have become a doctor, but that would have required me to overcome my own deficiencies of knowledge and character (I am lazy and don’t like to have to do stuff I’m comparatively bad at) and to have spent another 7 years after college in school and training before I could make a high income. No thanks, I’d rather have a job doing things I’m better than the average at, and where I have to spend only 3 years in grad school. That which was *possible* did not *happen* because I was unwilling to do everything necessary to make it happen, despite the total lack of oppression and great access to resources (my parents would have sold a kidney if necessary to put me through medical school — they were really upset when I refused to go pre-med in college).
So it is with love and relationships; they aren’t things you can buy, they are things you achieve by your willingness to work hard at them (I’m married, and trust me, it’s work) and sacrifice for them. To be honest, most of the people I know, who want to be in a relationship and never seem to have that happen, are people who are unwilling to work and sacrifice: they expect to meet someone who fulfills all the items on a checklist (right ethnicity, right religion, right education, right income, right appearance, right geography, right family, right job, right age, etc.) and are unwilling to give up on some of what they want in order to get their need for a relationship met.
Sodini, with his belief that he should be dating a hot 22-year-old, seems to fit into that category; he was unwilling to sacrifice his image of himself as The Kind of Guy Who Gets Hot Women Young Enough To Be His Daughter in order to obtain a relationship with a woman who realistically was likely to be interested in him. Instead of forming a relationship and working on being a good partner — patient, generous, forgiving, thoughtful, attentive — he worked on the PUA bullshit about how to manipulate women.
I think the distinction between those two different assumptions is a good one. And, yes, i do believe that in an oppression-free utopia, almost everyone could get their needs for physical and emotional intimacy met. However, that’s not why i consider it something that everyone’s entitled to. Perhaps it’s the other way around and i believe that because i consider an entitlement.
I consider it an entitlement simply because, for most people, physical and emotional intimacy are fundamentally necessary for well being. And everyone ought to feel entitled to things that are broadly understood to be necessary for human well being (food, shelter, meaningful work, education, leisure). That doesn’t mean there is a practical way to get everyone’s needs met (in the here and now, certainly, or possibly in whatever utopian scenario we’re considering), but it does mean that it’s ok to feel entitled to physical and emotional intimacy, just like any other needs, and it’s ok to feel angry when your needs go unmet. It’s totally not ok to externalize that anger at women in general, but that’s different than just feeling entitled.
Perhaps if Soldini had recourse to the idea that our whole socioeconomic structure is built on various groups of people having various kinds of needs go unmet, he could have found solidarity in his grief and anger and wouldn’t have blamed it all on women as a group.
I was hoping Rootless would have developed their arguments better, but that didn’t happen.
My understanding, which was something I had to internalize (try growing up a victim of sexual abuse when the media keeps talking about the “Cycle of Abuse” — that’s a major mind-fuck for a kid), is that people who are abused as children follow one of two paths — they are strong enough to take it out on others (Sodini) or they aren’t and they take it out on themselves. Compare the Columbine shooters to the girl who was harassed on-line by her friend’s mother, or any number of queer kids who grow up abused and harassed and take their own life.
It’s more a question of which path an abuse victim takes as to whether they turn inward into self-loathing, or turn outward into sociopathy. By all means, he was an adult, and he could have sought more meaningful help, but too much emphasis on his misogyny is likely to erase the abuse he apparently experienced as a child. More and better public education aimed at adult survivors of childhood abuse might go a long way to preventing the next notorious shooter. Putting an end to socially acceptable bullying would be even bettery.
Julie — I think you need to add a word to that argument — MANY people who are abused as children go one of two paths.
Ephraim:
I’d like to suggest that speaking in terms of people’s right to feel entitled to physical intimacy frames your argument in an awkward way because feelings of entitlement, at least in my experience, often involve the feeling that one shouldn’t have to work for what one is entitled to. Rather, it makes more sense to me–and I will grant that this might be a matter of my personal semantics–to say that people, all of us, deserve physical (and emotional, etc.) intimacy by virtue of being human and by virtue of the central role you rightly point out that such intimacy plays in human well-being. For me, though, you deserve something when you have done the work that merits it, and being human, once you have passed a certain age and can be held responsible for yourself (and people might disagree about what that age might be), is work. Sodini so dehumanized women (among others) that, for me, he called his own humanity into question, and if his own humanity was questionable, why would he have deserved something that one earns through one’s humanity?
That does not mean we should not have compassion for him, that we should not try, in our understanding of him, to see him not as some “othered” pariah, but as a deeply wounded human being, who probably deserved a better childhood and better advice and counsel from friends and others–because any one of us, given the right circumstances, could have ended up like (though not necessarily as violent as) him. Nor does it mean we should not try to learn from his experience and his actions, horrible though they may be, so that we can try to prevent others from getting to the point where they could do what he did. All of that, however, is the work of our humanity; that kind of work is what makes us human, is what makes us deserving. None of it absolves him of responsibility for the ways in which he did not deserve the physical intimacy he craved; and I mean this in the most immediate, practical sense: he thought and behaved in ways that rendered him undeserving. (And, Ephraim, please note: I am not saying that you in any way suggested he was not responsible. I am not arguing with you here; just thinking my way through the comment.)
I recognize that the language I am using here–humanity, being human–is very tricky and that there is probably a clearer way to say what I have been trying to say. I do think, however, it is important not to talk in these terms about “entitlement.:” After all, patriarchy, white supremacy, antisemitism–pick your form of oppression/discrimination–are, all of them, based on one group’s feelings of entitlement over and against what they believe other groups ought to be entitled to.
Ephraim–Sodini could have had his needs for companionship, intimacy, and affection met if he didn’t think he was too good for women his own age. Women who were of average looks. But Sodini and men like him feel they are too good for women their own age, women who match them in the looks department. That’s not oppression. That’s a grand sense of entitlement, and I have no sympathy at all.
What really strikes me is that the mainstream media hasn’t called this a hate crime–then again, in past mass killings of women and girls by men (the Amish shootings, etc.) no one has mentioned that term.
He was angry because the twenty-something hotties wouldn’t give him, a man pushing fifty, the time of day. I remember guys like him when I was in my twenties–they made my life miserable at times. I was either a stuck up, narrow minded bitch for preferring twenty-something men (but they were neither stuck up or narrow minded for rejecting women their own age), or I was a whore. That vibe, I’m willing to bet, is the he gave off which drove women away–or would have driven any woman interested in him away.
Again, Sodini could have had it, if he actually bothered to date in his age range, and give average looking women a chance. (And if he got therapy for his anger and entitlement–serious turn-offs.) It’s nice to have a relationship, but no one owes you. Women go through the same thing Sodini went through, yet I haven’t heard of a woman shooting a bunch of men because she couldn’t get the type of man she wanted. That’s grand entitlement, right there.
Mandolin,
Not sure of the study, because I read it many years ago, but there have been studies of outcomes of childhood sexual abuse, and the greatest predictor of “goes on to sexually abuse” is gender and sexual orientation, though the support for a “Cycle of Abuse” is itself fairly week.
Not sure what more words I can add — since the mid 90’s I’ve focused more on revictimization (as well as other social ills …) than on Childhood Sexual Abuse survivor becoming an offender as I was then involved in an emotionally abusive relationship, rather than the physically abusive one I’d been in from the mid to late 80’s.
It’s also known that children who suffer abuse of various sorts have better outcomes if they have a supportive family and environment, something Sodini did not have.
None of this is to excuse Sodini’s eventual behavior, rather I’d just like to make sure that his family of origin, and early life experiences don’t get dismissed.
@Richard Jeffrey Newman
I get where you’re coming from on this, though the difference between ‘entitled to’ and ‘deserving of’ really does strike me as semantic – entitlement, to my ear, can imply some sort of necessary effort also. I’m just not sure about how many and what kinds conditions we can put upon things that are really necessary to well being. Where do we draw the line between humanity and non-humanity? What does it mean that some actions or thoughts are so bad that someone forfeits all of their human rights? Do we make a distinction between needs that are necessary for immediate survival, needs that are necessary for long term survival, and needs that are necessary for quality of life and well being? Is it ok to put conditions on the latter but not the former?
It seems like a really fine line to me between “creepy misogynist jerks deserve to be lonely and frustrated because they don’t have the social skills and character traits that are considered worthy of intimacy” and “people with disabilities deserve to be starving and homeless because they don’t have the physical or cognitive skills to work”. And, again, that doesn’t mean forcing people to have sex or relationships with creepy misogynist jerks, but i think it does mean that it’s ok that people get angry when they’re not getting their fundamental needs met.
I’m not trying to defend Sodini. I think he was an awful person who made a lot of really bad choices. I just take more issue with where he put his anger than the fact that he was angry in the first place.
@Sheelzebub
I’d argue that patriarchy and misogyny have a whole lot to do with the culture-wide pattern of older men going after much younger women. (not to mention the whole concept of ‘being in one’s league’ or ‘matching in the looks department’) Obviously this dude was way more fucked up about it than most, but that didn’t come from nowhere. The fact that he had those desires in the first place is function of a system of oppression.
ephraim @ 47:
I disagree that his desires come purely from existing within Patriarchy. He was probably MORE at effect of Patriarchy growing up, due to his older brother’s abuse (don’t know enough about his mother’s abuse, but women allowing boys to beat up boys is part of the trope of boyhood — gotta let boys bully boys so they will become “real men”), but virtually all men grow up under Patriarchy, and a very small segment of men go on to so completely objectify women that they are no longer remotely human. I can well imagine that in a far more equal environment, a child who is abused is going to fail to develop empathy, and lacking empathy has to be a key ingredient here.
If he was motivated by rage at young women, why didn’t he take it out on young women? It isn’t as if he went and shot up a modelling agency. He killed a group of women in their 40s and late 30s. The amazing thing is that he went into a gym that must have been stuffed with hot 20-somethings and yet no-one under 35 died, I couldn’t find 3 women over that age in my gym if I wanted to. I think you’re projecting your own ideas onto this rather than looking at what actually happened.
I think you’re projecting your own ideas onto this rather than looking at what actually happened.
His online diary very clearly opened with the words, “Why do this?? To young girls? Just read below.”
Sodini assumed the women at the gym were younger than they were. He had a notion about what women his age looked like, and these women didn’t fit his notion, so he assumed they were young enough to shoot. It has been my experience that men tend to assume women without deep lines in their faces, who don’t have a “matronly” body shape or hairstyle, can’t possibly be over 35. That he would continue to think this after going to a gym of all places, is stunning.
Yes, my error. He clearly mistook the 38, 46 and 49 olds he killed for the hot 20 year old 9+’s he so hated.
James: Banned.
Ephraim, you wrote:
First, I agree that it’s okay for people to get angry when their fundamental needs are not met. It is always “ok” to have the feelings that are one’s own. It does not follow, however, that just because one’s anger is valid that one understands the nature of that anger, the circumstances that give rise to the situation that makes on angry, or how best to resolve that anger, accurately. There is a profound difference, not a thin line, between “creepy misogynist jerks” and “people with disabilities,” unless you are arguing (which I hope you are not) that misogyny is a kind of disability (because I don’t think you would argue that having a disability is an ideological position–though of course an ideology might devolve from having a disability and the experience of living with it.) That difference, I think, makes a difference in understanding the distinction I am making between “entitled to” and “deserving of.” The misogynist feels that he is entitled to something from women, that entitlement is part of misogyny, not separate from it. Not having the physical or cognitive skills to work is not a comparable circumstance. The misogynist can confront his misogyny; he can choose to act differently–Sodini could have chosen not to kill–and to be different. The person with a disability can’t choose not to be disabled. That difference, it seems to me, dictates and defines a difference in the stance–analytical, political and so on–that we can and should take towards what it means for those two kinds of people to have their basic needs met.
James,
Yes, it really does happen.
My mother — bearer of three children — graduated college at 33. As with most women on her side of the family, she didn’t show her age until she was over 40. (I didn’t start getting accurately perceived about my age until I was in my early 40’s and stopped coloring my hair).
Her father (my grandfather) came to town to attend the graduation. On a lark, because Granddad hadn’t attended her wedding (neither of their parents did — it was a very small and private affair), Mom got back into the dress she’d worn 17 years and three children earlier when she and Dad got married. I took photos of Mom in her wedding dress alone, with her father, as well with my father.
Dad had the prints enlarged and put one of them on his desk at work where he was a Marine Engineer. Dad would have been 40 at the time — seven years difference in age (not that atypical for married couples). Dad’s engineering coworkers immediately asked why Dad hadn’t told them about his “hot” daughter. Let’s just say that it stroked his ego pretty hard that Mom was thought to be young enough to be his daughter, AND that these guys were upset that he’d not mentioned her.
The same thing would happen with Mom and my older brother, even though they were 17 years apart. My brother would go places with Mom and his friends would want to know about his “hot” sister. This happened from the time he was 17 or 18 up until he was into his 20’s and married again. Keep in mind — when he was 20, Mom was 37 years old, and still a mother of three.
I’d tell you about a trip to took with my (then) boyfriend when I was 39, but it goes pretty much the same way — 39 year old woman who is easily mistaken for being 10 or 15 years younger.
So, yeah — the existence of MILF’s (not saying I like the term, just saying it exists and has a fairly well defined meaning) pretty much proves that Sodini was just WAY off on what “hot” women were available at his own age.
Mind you — the photo of Sodini up above doesn’t do justice to his appearance, but other photos I’ve seen of him shows that he was pretty easy on the eyes.
Yes, ephraim, what he did and what he thought was in the framework of patriarchy. I’m not saying it didn’t come from nowhere. No argument from me there. Where I will argue with you is that he was oppressed–pointing out a White, able-bodied man with financial resources is NOT oppressed. His grand sense of entitlement came from patriarchy.
But at the end of the day, there are what? Four dead women and five critically injured women, last I heard. So I find this detour of hair-splitting into how of course people can feel like they have a right to love and affection to be off-putting. It’s an interesting argument, or would be if it wasn’t on the heels of a hate crime, but I find that it erases the reality of the dead and injured women–women who were murdered and injured at the hands of a misogynist hateful prick who was given license by patriarchy to act out this way. It erases the reality of Sodini’s own entitled views and ridiculous choices. Again–he could have had those things if he didn’t feel he was too good for women his own age. All this talk about how everyone in this society would be able to find love if things were more equal strikes me as a way to avoid the actual subject, the crux of the problem–this man, who goes through what women go through all the time, felt entitled to kill and maim some of us. The dead and injured women. Remember them? Please don’t forget. Because honestly, I find the derails chilling. It seems that people want to talk about everything else but the fact that hello, THIS WAS A FUCKING HATE CRIME.
It was never about Sodini’s societal oppression or loneliness or alienation–it was about the fact that women have agency, women can say no, women can refuse, and it drives a lot of men (including Sodini) to rage. I find it disingenuous to tie this in with disability rights, given the fact that Sodini wasn’t disabled (and disabled people don’t typically feel empowered to kill people). Yes, this attitude is a function of patriarchy. Patriarchy makes a lot of men feel entitled to all sorts of shit. But like other hate crimes, the perp has to be held to account. The attitude that he had a right to young, hot women (and that these women were bitches for refusing him) is part of the continuum of misogynist violence. When women are things you have a right to, we aren’t people, and so it isn’t bad to kill us.
Maybe patriarchy hurt him. I don’t give a flying fuck. You know who was hurt worse? THE DEAD AND INJURED WOMEN. And women in general. This violence–and the lukewarm reactions to it–sends a message to women.
“Witnesses said that Sodini turned off the lights at the evening ‘Latin Impact’ dance aerobics class in a back room at the gym before opening fire.”
james evidently thinks that Sodini could see what women looked like in the dark.
It seems like a super-thick line to me. Most people can work on their social skills and character traits. They really can. I have a friend who as a child was an incredibly unpleasant person: she was smart, pretty and athletic, and taunted the kids who weren’t. She made it to college before she figured out that no one really liked her, despite her being smart, pretty and athletic, because she wasn’t a nice person. She decided that she wanted to have real friends, and actively worked to become a kinder, more thoughtful person who would let the opportunity for a clever remark pass by if it was likely to hurt someone (something she never would have done in high school).
And I really can’t emphasize enough the huge gap between “material goods that can be provided by the largesse of the state by imposing no greater burden on others than monetary taxation” and “emotional ‘goods’ that cannot be coerced and MUST be earned by individual effort.” Indeed, I am troubled by the commercialized sense of human relationships it requires to see the two as somehow comparable.
Sheelzebub @ 55:
Uh, it tends — IMHO — to reflect a difference in approach to solving the problem.
How would you change the outcome? And does it involve pretending that people who’ve been abused as children may grow up pretty messed up and go on to kill others need to be told “Don’t do that” and they just won’t? By the time a person is an adult, and carries a boatload of childhood baggage with them, “Don’t do that” isn’t going to work, short of a lot of time on a shrink’s couch.
What was needed to prevent Sodini from becoming the next household name from the 6pm news wasn’t “Don’t do that”, it was something entirely different, and that’s the point of looking at how Sodini became a future mass murderer.
Julie, stop putting words in my fucking mouth. I was reacting to the “patriarchy hurts men too” vibe in another comment. But since you obviously didn’t bother reading my comment, here’s a point you obviously missed:
It was never about Sodini’s societal oppression or loneliness or alienation–it was about the fact that women have agency, women can say no, women can refuse, and it drives a lot of men (including Sodini) to rage. I find it disingenuous to tie this in with disability rights, given the fact that Sodini wasn’t disabled (and disabled people don’t typically feel empowered to kill people). Yes, this attitude is a function of patriarchy. Patriarchy makes a lot of men feel entitled to all sorts of shit. But like other hate crimes, the perp has to be held to account. The attitude that he had a right to young, hot women (and that these women were bitches for refusing him) is part of the continuum of misogynist violence. When women are things you have a right to, we aren’t people, and so it isn’t bad to kill us.
The fact that this guy targeted women speaks volumes to me. The fact that very few people–if anyone in the mainstream media at all–are calling this a hate crime speaks volumes to me.
In any other hate crime, I don’t see so much sympathy for the perps. I don’t see any snotty comments about how we shouldn’t just tell them “not to do that.” Yet for this one, we must examine what drove him to kill women.
Yes, he was abused. So are a lot of women and girls. That he felt free to target and kill women–again–speaks volumes. You cannot separate the misogyny from the action in this case.
Again, this is on a continuum of violence. Maybe a man who wasn’t as badly abused wouldn’t kill women (though I know plenty of people who suffered abuse as children who didn’t go on to become mass murderers). However, plenty of men from functioning homes feel free to rape, to harass, and to bully women when we don’t do what they want. And others feel free to blame us for this.
You cannot separate what he did from misogyny.
Sheelzebub:
I don’t think the basic point that Sodini had a major hate-fest going towards women has been lost on anyone. What would the media calling it a “hate crime” accomplish?
That’s not true — usually when a crime like this occurs and it’s clear that the perp had a messed up youth, of some sort, the issue of “what drove him/her to do that?” comes up. Look, for example, at the difference in the Oklahoma bombing versus Columbine. And Columbine was NOT a kill-all-the-girls murder spree, so it’s definitely not true that killing women causes people to psychoanalyze the perp, looking for some way to justify killing a bunch of women.
So, Columbine is “Okay” because it wasn’t just women, but Sodini is somehow more of a monster? Or more pointedly, Matthew Shepard’s murder was doubly okay because no women were murdered?
I don’t ask these questions to make fun of you, but I ask them because I’m not sure that “ending violence (only) against women” is, like, a prime objective. I’ll bet that finding root causes produces results for women, queers, people of color, etc. than focusing exclusively on misogyny. I’ve actually sort of “made that bet” which is why I focus my interests in that direction — what leads people to go out and kill people.
Uh, no one has blamed WOMEN on this board for what Sodini did (and not been banned yet).
Different people have different bents. Mine is “What is the problem? How do we fix it? Is it going to work?”
Okay, in the post-feminist world where women don’t get treated like objects, do people like Sodini still exist anyway, and if so, who are they out killing this week?
What’s the plan, how do you implement this, how do you measure the results and milestones? That’s what I care about — actually stopping this from happening again, and I don’t see “You cannot separate what he did from misogyny” as a project plan.
Phrasing your point this way — as if Sheezlebub had said or implied that Columbine was “okay,” or Shepard’s murder was “doubly okay” — is needlessly incendiary and manifestly unfair.
I understood your point, but you should have phrased it in a less offensive manner.
Amp writes:
I’m not sure there is a less incendiary way to say “THIS DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN TO WOMEN” at this point.
Yes, Sodini killed women. Point made, loud and clear. But Sodini isn’t the only person out there who’s gone on a killing spree, targeting a specific group. I’m also not clear that
is responsive or non-incendiary. I admit to not having memorized the entire thread, but I don’t recall anyone, other than Clarence (and that’s a horse of an entirely different color) putting any actual blame on women.
As for the “fairness” of my characterization of her remarks, when acts of violence against a group are scoped to only be caused by some feelings towards THAT SPECIFIC GROUP ,it very much does imply that other actions against other groups are somehow “Okay”. That’s why we keep fighting for rights, one fucking group at a time. Loving wasn’t about the fundamental, unalienable, undeniable right to marry, it was about a subset of marriage. The CRA ’64 wasn’t about fundamental, unalienable, undeniable rights to housing, employment, etc., it was about specific groups rights.
So, yes, I think it’s fair to conclude that scoping Sodini’s actions in a way that binds them inseparably to misogyny is about giving tacit approval to actions against other groups which could benefit from fixing the problem of future Sodini’s. You might not like my conclusion, but I think the history and logic is pretty sound.
I disagree with the author’s observation that Sodini was not unattractive. Sodini was hideous. Take a close look at his photo. And it’s rather naive and insutling to suggest he would have been more successful with a woman in her 40s. Yes, he was looking for women who were inappropriate for his age. That was getting him nowhere. But men who look like monsters do not get dates with women who are age appropriate. And even if he had good looks he would still have the problem of being himself. He was shallow. Empty. Unemotional. Naive. Self righteous. Pathological. He was essentially “disqualified” for an intimate relationship with any women, regardless of her age. Have you seen the video of him showing off his living room? He points out that he has two matching sofas, and that a woman would like that. It looks like he found his furniture on a curb with a sign on it that reads, Free. Like women arent’ going to notice that he’s an ugly creep as long as he has matching couches. It’s creepy how he goes through his house pointing out his unimpressive possessions. It’s like he worked from a checklist, accumulating material goods that would improve his chances of getting laid. Wide screen TV. Check. Networked computers. Check. Finished basement. Check. And I don’t think he was looking for a friend either. He was looking for a vagina. He wanted to get laid. Unfortunately for him there are some steps that proceed sexual intercourse. He simply could not get them in the tent. His wide screen tv, networked computers and yard sale furniture were getting him nowhere. And in the end that’s all he really all he had to offer. There was nobody home.
And exactly where did you see anyone claim that he was?
Rubbish. If we were talking about someone who shot up a mosque, saying that it was hate crime against Muslims and that Islamophobia was key to the shooter’s actions would IN NO WAY legitimise violence against any other group. And the idea that it would is a complete nonsense.
And what’s more, I strongly suspect that most of the people here who are trying to insist that this “isn’t about misogyny” would have no problem in admitting that the above scenario was indeed borne of Islamophobia. Even Islamophobes would have no problem seeing that. It’s only when it’s women getting killed that you seem to have all these qualms.
Crys T @ 63:
Uh … BULLSH*T.
First, I know I’ve said that misogyny, Islamophobia, anti-Semetism, racism, etc. blah, blah, blah, are all involved in these sorts of crimes. Matthew Shepard’s murder? Definitely homophobia. Baruch Goldstein’s massacre at Me’arat HaMachpela. Definitely Islamophobia. Sodini’s attack? Definitely misogyny. Conceded years (literally) ago in some instances for those different attacks.
Where I disagree — very specifically — is that these crimes cannot be reduced to homophobia, Islamophobia and misogyny, respectively, because they are all crimes against the human-ness of the individuals. That what allows those people’s actions to happen, in terms of psychological problems, is not that homophobia, Islamophobia and misogyny are uniquely constructed issues, existing independently of each other, but that they have, as a common root, the objectification of the target — regardless of what unique characteristics the targets have.
Objectification and dehumanization is the only thing that is “inseparable” from Sodini’s actions. Here’s what I objected to —
Yes, women were murdered. In Hebron it was Muslims. Outside Laramie it was a gay man. They were not murdered for different reasons — they were all murdered for the exact same reason. Their killers had stopped seeing them as human beings.
All the stuff about “mental illness” is completely missing the point.
Andrea Yates is a good example of someone who committed murder as a result of mental illness. Her illness is extremely well documented. She literally had no idea what she was doing. This is why she was able to cop an insanity plea and wind up in a mental institution instead of getting the chair.
Sodini was no Andrea Yates. Hd he lived, he would not be able to cop an insanity plea (assuming Pennsylvania even allows this). He had no psychiatric or neurological issues that anyone had any awareness of, and if he did they would have nothing to do with the kind of overbearing rage and resentment and entitlement he betrayed in his writings. He knew exactly what he was doing.
The default setting for human brains is “if anyone gets in the way of what you want, kill or maim, and don’t even bother to think about why you want what you want or why someone else has to be harmed for you to have it.” Human brains have to be very carefully trained NOT to respond that way, from the very beginning. For people like Sodini, and Charles Manson, and gods know how many others, the training simply didn’t take. If anyone could ever figure out exactly why, they would be wealthy beyond measure. Even fucked-up family dynamics can’t explain it, because most people with fucked-up family dynamics don’t gun people down in cold blood. Depression might explain why Sodini killed himself, but it doesn’t do squat to explain the murders.
“I don’t think the basic point that Sodini had a major hate-fest going towards women has been lost on anyone. What would the media calling it a “hate crime” accomplish?”
For one thing, it would state the truth–there’s an awful lot of denial about what this is, and the extent of violence against women specifically because we are women. Why are you running from calling this a hate crime? What would it accomplish? I have no problems with calling assaults and murders against people of color, gays, and other groups who are not in power hate crimes as well. These women were killed for being women. Again–why is it so horrible to call it what it is–a hate crime?
And I stand by my assertion that you can’t separate his crime from misogyny. He hated women, he did not see us as human, and he killed women. (You very dishonestly tried to make this seem like I only considered it a hate crime if women were targeted. Seriously, you are full of shit. I had said that you can’t separate the misogyny in this case. He was a misogynist. He bought into the idea that women were not human beings, we were things he had a right to and then we were things that deserved to be destroyed when some of us (the very young ones, apparently) had the gall to refuse him. But do go on, and insist I said things I never said, and hold opinions I do not hold.
I NEVER said that Columbine was okay. I never even mentioned Columbine. Nor did I say that Matthew Shephard’s muder (yes, a hate crime) was okay. That was a disgusting tactic on your part. You’re being dishonest.
I think it’s fair to conclude that scoping Sodini’s actions in a way that binds them inseparably to misogyny is about giving tacit approval to actions against other groups which could benefit from fixing the problem of future Sodini’s.
I’m not sure there is a less incendiary way to say “THIS DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN TO WOMEN” at this point.
BULLSHIT.
You are reading assertions into my posts that I have never made. I NEVER said that women were the only targets of hate crimes–I said that when women ARE the targets of hate crimes (like in this instance) that many people do not want to call it what it is.
YOU seem to be happy to hand-wave away the reality of hate crimes. I don’t. I have NEVER said that it was okay to target other groups. If all you can do in debates in put words in my mouth, then you need to take up another activity. I would suggest reading–perhaps you can build your comprehension skills.
And if you’re going to reply to my posts, do so honestly. You haven’t been–you’ve been twisting my words, insisting I hold opinions that I have never stated, and basically been acting like a disingenuous assclown. Cut the shit.
Julie,
You are indeed being dishonest. Cut it out.
Sheelzebub,
In honor of Julie’s having cut that out, please stop calling her names.
Everyone,
Tone rhetoric down to Alas standards.
Sheelzebub,
Because “Hate Crimes” all have the same root. Because when you start enumerating the “causes” of “Hate Crimes”, you either realize immediately that the set of all possible “Hates” is the Infinite Set (Alef-0 for math geeks).
Sodini’s crime CAN be separated from misogyny and by doing so it can be looked at in the larger context of “Hate Crimes”. Crimes against women-as-women, when classified in the set of all crimes against X-as-X increases the scope, and the need, for action. Someone doesn’t have to sit around and decide if a crime against a Y, because they are a Y, is or isn’t a hate crime because it does or doesn’t fit a previously enumerated member of the set of all possible “Hate Crimes”.
Furthermore, to suggest that I’m somehow soft on “Hate Crimes” is the height of dishonesty. I’ve argued here, on other boards, I think even on my own blog, to my elected officials, etc. that “Hate Crimes” need to be classified as Terrorism. I stated clearly in the most recent thread on Hate Crime legislation that I told Sen. Cornyn (R. TX) that he needed to support the bill because Hate Crimes are domestic Terrorism. I’m not sure which is worse in the hierarchy of “crime”, but I think “Terrorism” trumps “Hate Crime”. If you disagree, then so be it. You keep calling it a “Hate Crime” and I’ll keep calling it “Terrorism” and we’ll just have to agree to disagree this time.
(edited to add)
I wasn’t able to find my post where I mentioned that I’d told Cornyn to support the Matthew Shepard bill, but I know I’ve mentioned it on-line before. Here’s the text of my letter to Sen. Cornyn —
Mandolin @ 68:
And her bogus claims that I’m dismissing hate crimes isn’t an utter fabrication?
Render unto me a fucking break. You can’t find a single word I’ve ever written on this blog giving hate crimes any kind of free pass.
Julie — you’ve been asked to leave by Ampersand for the space of two weeks. Please do so now.
Julie has asked me to make it clear that she does not dismiss hate crimes.
I don’t think she does, and would request that no one suggest otherwise here from now on. (But especially for the next two weeks.)
@Mandolin: In honor of Julie’s having cut that out, please stop calling her names.
I’m not going to apologize for calling someone who has twisted my words and lied about me a disingenuous assclown. Kindly don’t make it seem as though I used every chance I got to call her names. I told her she was being dishonest and arguing in bad faith–considering that she was posting repeatedly that I didn’t think other hate crimes counted as hate crimes, and that I thought Columbine was a-ok, I was fully in my rights to call her out. I stand by that. (Oh, utter fabrications, indeed, Julie. Check your own posts about my supposed positions for those.)
@Amp:I don’t think she does, and would request that no one suggest otherwise here from now on. (But especially for the next two weeks.)
I would suggest that Julie not lie about me and state that I give other hate crimes a free pass.
Sheelzebub:
I didn’t ask you to apologize. I asked you to stop in the future. Mostly because it’s against our policy and not because I didn’t think you were reacting appropriately, okay? She lied; she got called a name. Later, she also got asked to leave for a while so a note got put in this thread to basically let it lie.
I agree, Sheelzebub, you have said nothing to make it seem that you would not condemn other hate crimes. I do think JHC wrongly represented you.
Now, just for the sake of the discussion, it might be best to move on.
Regarding normal/not normal and being able to see things about people. My uncle worked with Sodini and saw him and talked to him on a daily basis. Said he was a jovial and friendly person. Said he never would have thought him capable of such a thing. Certainly not that he looked, on the face of it, like a monster.
(mostly for Martha @49)
I think women he tried to date or pick up may have thought differently, of course, but there was no giant neon sign saying “scary misogynist freak with major issues” blinking over his head by any means.
Because Pittsburgh is such a small big city, one of his victims was also the sister of a co-worker of mine.
There’s so many things to bandy about. My main take was that he was disturbed, yes, but his disturbance was projected onto a very receptive patriarchal society that allowed him to go unchecked and unchallenged in his assumptions on a daily basis. Everything he saw and heard in his day to day life affirmed that women were products for his consumption. Hence the entitlement. Most people manage not to go on hate-filled murderous rampages when denied products they want but at the most basic level, I think he was very much a product of the patriarchy.