On Elliot Rodger

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation” 

― Henry David Thoreau

THE STORY SO FAR: In California 22-year-old Elliot Rodger kills his three (male) housemates and takes to the streets shooting at people after posting YouTube videos online detailing his plans. Internet feminists immediately claim he was either an MRA or somehow influenced by the Men's Rights Movement.

So I went and checked out the Elliot Rodger 'Retribution' video (and others) just to make sure what it was he actually said, and it's unequivocally clear that the guy explicitly hated the entire human race, not just women:

"All of you men, for living a better life than me, all you sexually active men, I hate you, I hate all of you and I can't wait to give you what you deserve: Utter annihilation".

It's a sad thing to see, as the guy's clearly gone over the edge into maniacal delusion but the pain inside him is palpable too - his voice trembles with emotion as he describes what he feels to be a life of cruelly imposed isolation and rejection that he just can't take anymore. And then he does that eerie supervillain laugh and you realize just how completely far gone he actually is.

Just in case it needs to be stated, there is no connection of any kind to the men's rights movement. He never once mentions feminism in his videos or in his 137 page 'manifesto', which can be found online. Instead he speaks of being beaten up and bullied by males, the pain of seeing attractive couples walking along happily together, and the feeling of betrayal when a (male) friend told him he didn't want to be friends any more.

Elliot Rodger appears to have basically been an annoying, arrogant, spoiled and narcissistic brat - with a long history of mental illness and Asperger's - incapable of dealing with the jealousy and envy he said he felt since a child:

"Jealousy and envy… those are two feelings that would dominate my entire life and bring me immense pain. The feelings of jealousy I felt at nine-years-old were frustrating, but they were nothing compared to how I would feel once I hit puberty and have to watch girls choosing other boys over me."

He wanted women but he hated men, especially those he saw succeed that he believed to be lesser than him. Which is why four of the six people he killed were men. Five of seven if you count Rodger too. These weren't acts of misogyny but of revenge upon the entire world.

The feminist claims that these murders were motivated in any way by the men's human rights movement are without any doubt entirely unfounded and a pretty laughably shoddy attempt to scapegoat any opposing opinion on men and women and the state of modern society but their own.

On the other hand, perhaps someone should point out that the continued demonizing and vilification of all men (overwhelmingly emanating from feminism more than any other source) is the surest way anyone knows of to make a whole lot more Elliot Rodgers, and radical feminism in particular is basically a factory daily toiling towards no other purpose.

If you genuinely want to prevent more deaths such as these, sparked by rootless alienation and loneliness, consider leaving aside unfounded ideological models of 'male privilege' and 'patriarchal oppression' and try seeing the society that presently trivializes and mocks, ignores and dismisses all male disadvantage and suffering at every turn, instead of attacking those people trying to fix it.

The Myth of Patriarchy - Stefan Molyneaux in conversation with Paul Elam

Another Yewtree Pensioner Cleared of False Rape Accusations

In the UK the past couple of years just about every minor (male) TV celebrity from the 1970s, it seems, has been hounded and witch-hunted with accusations of rape or sexual assault by a police investigation called 'Operation Yewtree', at the behest of anonymous, identity-protected women who waited FORTY YEARS(!) to come forward and point fingers.

And of course, as I predicted, one by one they are all being found innocent. The latest faded pensioner to be falsely accused, arrested and then eventually cleared is comedian Freddie Starr. One look at the poor bastard’s face tells you what a year on bail for a sex crime can do to a human being. What an absolute nightmare.

One day people are going to look back at this Kafkaesque age of free-for-all false rape accusations and consider it one of the worst witchhunts and miscarriages of justice in all human history, and I hope those people responsible for the legislations which led to it are still alive to face punishment for it themselves.

 Freddie Starr, 71, pictured with his lawyer today.Credit: SWNS Group

"Freddie Starr appeared briefly outside his home in Warwickshire alongside his lawyer Dean Dunham, who condemned the investigation and said the entertainer’s health was now a priority.
Mr Dunham said “there was simply never any evidence in this matter that was anywhere near sufficient” to keep his client on bail for so long.
Mr Dunham went on: “At the moment we need to concentrate on getting Freddie back to his health.”The lawyer said there various courses of action open to Starr but now was not the right time to comment on them.
"He’s a man of good character, remains a man of good character, and I would ask the public now to stand by this man," he added."No doubt about it, his innocence has been proven."
Starr said he was “very relieved”, adding: “I’m not feeling well, really.”
Asked if he had a message for his fans, he said: “Thank you.”

A Feminist And Her Patriarchy

Janet Bloomfield Interviews Paul Elam

Excellent interview with the founder of AVoiceForMen by Janet Bloomfield, AKA JudgyBitch. This is the most in-depth interview with Elam I think there has been but it’s also a great introduction into the ideas and positions of the Men’s Movement as a whole.

Would be so great to see this on television. I guess that’s still a few years off now, but it'll come.

Wall Street Journal: 'The Pay Gap Is A Myth'

By Mark J. Perry And Andrew G. Biggs

April 8 is "Equal Pay Day," an annual event to raise awareness regarding the so-called gender wage gap. As President Obama said in the State of the Union address, women "still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns," a claim echoed by the National Committee on Pay Equity, the American Association of University Women and other progressive groups.

The 23% gap implies that women work an extra 68 days to earn the same pay as a man. Mr. Obama advocates allowing women to sue for wage discrimination, with employers bearing the burden of proving they did not discriminate. But the numbers bandied about to make the claim of widespread discrimination are fundamentally misleading and economically illogical.

In its annual report, "Highlights of Women's Earnings in 2012," the Bureau of Labor Statistics states that "In 2012, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings of $691. On average in 2012, women made about 81% of the median earnings of male full-time wage and salary workers ($854)." Give or take a few percentage points, the BLS appears to support the president's claim.

But every "full-time" worker, as the BLS notes, is not the same: Men were almost twice as likely as women to work more than 40 hours a week, and women almost twice as likely to work only 35 to 39 hours per week. Once that is taken into consideration, the pay gap begins to shrink. Women who worked a 40-hour week earned 88% of male earnings.

Then there is the issue of marriage and children. The BLS reports that single women who have never married earned 96% of men's earnings in 2012.

The supposed pay gap appears when marriage and children enter the picture. Child care takes mothers out of the labor market, so when they return they have less work experience than similarly-aged males. Many working mothers seek jobs that provide greater flexibility, such as telecommuting or flexible hours. Not all jobs can be flexible, and all other things being equal, those which are will pay less than those that do not.

Education also matters. Even within groups with the same educational attainment, women often choose fields of study, such as sociology, liberal arts or psychology, that pay less in the labor market. Men are more likely to major in finance, accounting or engineering. And as the American Association of University Women reports, men are four times more likely to bargain over salaries once they enter the job market.

Risk is another factor. Nearly all the most dangerous occupations, such as loggers or iron workers, are majority male and 92% of work-related deaths in 2012 were to men. Dangerous jobs tend to pay higher salaries to attract workers. Also: Males are more likely to pursue occupations where compensation is risky from year to year, such as law and finance. Research shows that average pay in such jobs is higher to compensate for that risk.

While the BLS reports that full-time female workers earned 81% of full-time males, that is very different than saying that women earned 81% of what men earned for doing the same jobs, while working the same hours, with the same level of risk, with the same educational background and the same years of continuous, uninterrupted work experience, and assuming no gender differences in family roles like child care. In a more comprehensive study that controlled for most of these relevant variables simultaneously—such as that from economists June and Dave O'Neill for the American Enterprise Institute in 2012—nearly all of the 23% raw gender pay gap cited by Mr. Obama can be attributed to factors other than discrimination. The O'Neills conclude that, "labor market discrimination is unlikely to account for more than 5% but may not be present at all."

These gender-disparity claims are also economically illogical. If women were paid 77 cents on the dollar, a profit-oriented firm could dramatically cut labor costs by replacing male employees with females. Progressives assume that businesses nickel-and-dime suppliers, customers, consultants, anyone with whom they come into contact—yet ignore a great opportunity to reduce wages costs by 23%. They don't ignore the opportunity because it doesn't exist. Women are not in fact paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men.

Administration officials are (very) occasionally challenged on their discrimination claims. The reply is that even if lower average female pay is a result of women's choices, those choices are themselves driven by discrimination. Yet the choice of college major is quite free, and many colleges recruit women into high-paying science or math majors. Likewise, many women prefer to stay home with their children. If doing so allows their husbands to maximize their own earnings, it's not clear that the families are worse off. It makes no sense to sue employers for choices made by women years or decades earlier.

The administration's claims regarding the gender pay gap are faulty, and its proposal to make it easier for women to sue employers for equal pay would create a disincentive for firms to hire women.

Mr. Perry is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan's Flint campus. Mr. Biggs is a resident scholar at AEI. 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303532704579483752909957472

 

Thunderf00t on the latest outbreak of mind-boggling social justice stupidity and professional victimhood.

TIME Magazine: It’s Time to End ‘Rape Culture’ Hysteria

The nation's largest and most influential anti-sexual-violence organization is rejecting the idea that culture — as opposed to the actions of individuals — is responsible for rape.

“Rape is as American as apple pie,” says blogger Jessica Valenti. She and her sisters-in-arms describe our society as a “rape culture” where violence against women is so normal, it’s almost invisible. Films, magazines, fashion, books, music, humor, even Barbie — according to the activists — cooperate in conveying the message that women are there to be used, abused, and exploited. Recently, rape culture theory has migrated from the lonely corners of the feminist blogosphere into the mainstream. In January, the White House asserted that we need to combat campus rape by “[changing] a culture of passivity and tolerance in this country, which too often allows this type of violence to persist.”

Tolerance for rape? Rape is a horrific crime and rapists are despised. We have strict laws that Americans want to see enforced. Though rape is certainly a serious problem, there’s no evidence that it’s considered a cultural norm. Twenty-first century America does not have a rape culture; what we have is an out-of-control lobby leading the public and our educational and political leaders down the wrong path. Rape culture theory is doing little to help victims, but its power to poison the minds of young women and lead to hostile environments for innocent males is immense.

On college campuses, obsession with eliminating “rape culture” has led to censorship and hysteria. At Boston University, student activists launched a petition demanding the cancellation of a Robin Thicke concert, because the lyrics of his hit song “Blurred Lines” allegedly celebrate “systemic patriarchy and sexual oppression.” (The lyrics may not exactly be pleasant to many women, but song lyrics don’t turn men into rapists. Yet, ludicrously, the song has already been banned at more than 20 British universities.) Activists at Wellesley recently demanded that administrators remove a statue of a sleepwalking man: The image of a nearly naked male could “trigger” memories of sexual assault for victims. Meanwhile, a growing number of young men find themselves charged with rape, named publicly, and brought before campus judicial panels informed by rape culture theory. In such courts, due process is practically non-existent: Guilty because accused.

Rape culture theorists dismiss critics who bring up examples of hysteria and false accusations as “rape denialists” and “rape apologists.” To even suggest that false accusations occur, according to activists, is to engage in “victim blaming.” But now, rape culturalists are confronting a formidable critic that even they will find hard to dismiss.

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is America’s largest and most influential anti-sexual violence organization. It’s the leading voice for sexual assault victim advocacy. Indeed, rape culture activists routinely cite the authority of RAINN to make their case. But in RAINN’s recent recommendations to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, it repudiates the rhetoric of the anti “rape culture” movement:

In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming “rape culture” for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campus. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important not to lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime.

RAINN urges the White House to “remain focused on the true cause of the problem” and suggests a three-pronged approach for combating rape: empowering community members through bystander intervention education, using “risk-reduction messaging” to encourage students to increase their personal safety, and promoting clearer education on “where the ‘consent line’ is.” It also asserts that we should treat rape like the serious crime it is by giving power to trained law enforcement rather than internal campus judicial boards.
RAINN is especially critical of the idea that we need to focus on teaching men not to rape — the hallmark of rape culture activism. Since rape exists because our culture condones and normalizes it, activists say, we can end the epidemic of sexual violence only by teaching boys not to rape.

No one would deny that we should teach boys to respect women. But by and large, this is already happening. By the time men reach college, RAINN explains, “most students have been exposed to 18 years of prevention messages, in one form or another.” The vast majority of men absorbs these messages and views rape as the horrific crime that it is. So efforts to address rape need to focus on the very small portion of the population that “has proven itself immune to years of prevention messages.” They should not vilify the average guy.

By blaming so-called rape culture, we implicate all men in a social atrocity, trivialize the experiences of survivors, and deflect blame from the rapists truly responsible for sexual violence. RAINN explains that the trend of focusing on rape culture “has the paradoxical effect of making it harder to stop sexual violence, since it removes the focus from the individual at fault, and seemingly mitigates personal responsibility for his or her own actions.”

Moral panic over “rape culture” helps no one — least of all, survivors of sexual assault. College leaders, women’s groups, and the White House have a choice. They can side with the thought police of the feminist blogosphere who are declaring war on Robin Thicke, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, male statues, and Barbie. Or, they can listen to the sane counsel of RAINN.
 
Caroline Kitchens is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.