However, these mental health issues really do play into information we have about the overall problem of violence against women. It's nearly impossible to talk about this specific individual and event fully without talking about the other, because they are intertwined in this particular instance.
Obviously, not all misogynists are mentally ill. And we know that not all misogynists commit violence against women. But what we do know is that the perpetrators of violence against women are pretty much all misogynists. And we do have information on how (at least part) of that subset of violent male perpetrators differs from the rest of the population of non-violent males (misogynists and non included.)
In the 1980s-1990s they started surveying the population to find information on undetected rapists who had not been incarcerated. They were able to do this because these rapists don't think of themselves as rapists, echoing much of the same sort of twisted logic you see come out of the mouths of child predators. These surveys provided them with data about the subgroup of undetected rapists walking around among us, and that data showed stark differences between that section of the population and the rest of the males. Found here (
Understanding the Predatory Nature of Sexual Violence , pages 6-7), this passage summarizes their findings on how exactly this group was differing from the "normal" male population:
This sounds exactly like the person we're discussing, point for point. We normally don't get such a detailed window into the way that a guy like this is processing his feelings and emotions through such a twisted lens, and that's why people are interested in discussing just how he developed these misogynistic views. How many threads on GAF have we had where a male poster is being made uncomfortable by a male acquaintance's problematic behavior towards women, where they'd like to be able to intervene and do something but aren't sure how to help (or if it's even possible for them to do so?) Discussing what leads to these men being drawn to these points of view and how you can help back them off of them is a good thing, because it gives people information they can utilize in order to push back against it.
In this murderer's case, it seems highly likely that without medical intervention, dissuading him of his viewpoints would have been near-impossible. Learning what behaviors, outbursts, types of writing, and loops of logic might be indicating that you have a ticking time bomb on your hands in need of intervention from either health or police authorities could help prevent people from getting hurt. This knowledge lets us put information in new perspectives in our daily lives- such as when I think we all were suddenly very concerned about the poster with the "Gets angry at sex roommate". I think we all are looking at that behavior in a whole new light after this. Thankfully, I believe that poster was confirmed to be alive and wellt.
However,mental illness is clearly not going to be a primary contributing factor for the development of misogynistic views in every person. Numerous posters previously in the thread mentioned that they were able to break out of a cycle of problematic emotions directed towards women via self-reflection. Learning what misguided feelings those people were having that were pushing them in that direction helps give us a way into their heads so that if we see a friend or sibling getting themselves into trouble. We even had a poster earlier in this thread admit that he was scared at how similar his thought patterns were to what he read from this guy, and asked for help. Hopefully he's been able to reach out to someone, either here on the forums or in real life, and I suspect there are many people here who'd be willing to do so if necessary.
Yes, a lot of male posters have been interested in getting inside this guy's head, along with the heads of others who have previously been living and breathing in the misogynistic jerk-zone. But this often isn't motivated by sympathy, but one of empathy, and an attempt to fully comprehend the tragedy that occurred in California. And I think that's where this discussion/argument is hitting a giant snag, because it's approaching the issue from the complete opposite direction. Instead of looking through the eyes of the victimized and trying to listen to their concerns, its trying to look through the eyes of the perpetrators and figure them out. At a core level, some of these initial emotions and feelings ring familiar to many other males, even if the thought processes that twist them into virulent hatred are completely foreign to them. This isn't always coming out very well, or very intelligently (the posts about "just needing sex" are incredibly reminiscent of the way most unfamiliar with the literature on rape would assume that rape is all about sex) but really does seem to be driven by the desire to understand what drew him to these viewpoints and websites. The idea that this came to him only because he was exposed to them externally rings hollow to many of us who never picked up those viewpoints despite being exposed to them, or those who have acknowledged holding them at one point without having ever visited an MRA website.
Those MRA websites were not magically deposited there on stone tablets by a divine being. Our society is made up of and created by people. It is a reflection of us. Sometimes that reflection shows the best parts of us. And sometimes that reflection is a dark, scary thing. The "obvious", easy answer is always to blame external forces, but those external forces originated somewhere. They originated with us. Our culture is an ever-evolving thing, changing as we mold it over the years, decades, and centuries. Part of changing that culture means making people aware of the need to change. But part of changing that culture also means that we need to learn what we can change and what we should change.
There was a very good Slate article (
here) on the difficulties men have viewing the world through women's eyes in various situations, as they're looking for masculine behaviors and will misunderstand the situation. How it makes it difficult for the men to realize and acknowledge when there is an issue because they live on the winning end of the physical power imbalance in our species and are viewing things through that perspective. However, once a person/group starts to realize there is a problem, the next question becomes "why is this happening?" And thus the spotlight then turns to the people most responsible for creating these problems for women, the men. Because if we don't figure out why some of us males keep hurting you, we're not going to learn what we can best do to stop it.