<p>Reading the articles I can’t disagree with the concept of misogyny in society, but I also think this is a typical case of trying to take something very real and simplify it into a straightforward principle that of course is always true…</p>
<p>I would be the last person to say that ‘casual misogyny’ doesn’t exist, it does, and it is still prevalent enough that my observation (as a man) is that it is an issue. Men’s attitudes towards women have changed a lot in my lifetime, and laws and cultural shifts have allowed women to achieve things they never were able to before, so some of the structural misogyny is gone. A manager who showed a pattern of discriminating against women, then defended himself by saying ‘women don’t have the ability to do the job’ would find himself on the unemployment line pretty fast these days, but that said, there are still a lot of men (and women, sadly) who judge other women by how they look, assume things about them, and it is often hidden. Likewise, though ‘out and out gropers’ that you would see years ago, don’t happen, but a lot of men still will touch women, or stare at them, and think nothing of it, so it is out there. The problem is that on the surface it looks like it doesn’t exist, but it is there, and I suspect women reacting to Elliot Rodgers will tell you about it, the little things, and so forth.</p>
<p>Woman out having a drink with friends often have to face men who won’t say no, who think so much of themselves they won’t take no for an answer, and when a woman turns them down, you see the guy turn around (if with friends) and call the woman names, most of which I can’t use here</p>
<p>And it isn’t limited to nerds/geeks/whatever, that bothers me, because as another poster put it, those who think that have never been around testosterone fueled jobs like trading, investment banking, and the like. These guys, many of whom were jocks, make good money, and are quite full of themselves, they are full of all kinds of privilege from being the popular crowd, having probably gone to a top notch college, gotten recruited by an “a-list firm”, and get them out and drunk, they act like everything revolves around them. They see women as conquests, to be bought, and if a woman turns them down they are like “who the he** is she to turn me down”…talk to women who work in those fields, and they will tell you what it is like , while the “Boom Boom” rooms and such at places like Morgan Stanley are not quite as wild, a good part of the culture exists. </p>
<p>Then you have the rich nerds, the guys who make it in silicon valley/alley, and you have it doubly so in some cases, because they weren’t the popular kids, they were generally their own subculture, and now suddenly they have achieved success, they have 7 figures in the bank plus who knows how much in stock, etc, etc, and they get the same attitude as the jock/financial guys have, except even moreso, because they have a chip on their shoulder, so in some ways, they are even more prone to a**hattery IME. </p>
<p>Add to that the culture of ‘male whining’ you see from doofuses like Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the loony right, how the world has been feminized by ‘feminazis’ feeding fuel to the fire, and it is a big issue. One of the things that has fed fuel to this fire is that women are a lot more confident and self assured than they were when I was growing up, they have different expectations, and that feeds into the fire some of these clowns feel. Elliot Rodger had this idea of privilege, that being a man meant he had certain rights when it came to women, the violence was the mental illness, but the rage that triggered him to do it was fueled by misogyny. He wasn’t misogynistic because he was mentally ill, he was misogynistic because he grew up somehow learning that women were meant to be his, that he was driving a nice car, had social status of some sort, and couldn’t believe they wouldn’t play the game, the mental illness fueled how he played it out. </p>
<p>Sometimes I understand the anger in one sense, young women can be pretty cruel if someone approaches them they don’t like or look down on, but that cannot justify what goes on, and certainly not violence or acting out of any kind. BTW I do think there are issues men have that are quite real, our legal and court system, when it comes to divorces or things like spousal abuse and child custody, are still living in the 1950’s, with assumptions of parenting and being the father or mother and so forth, so I am loath to support someone saying “what do men have to complain about?”, there are some issues…but it doesn’t justify the kind of backlash I see. Put it this way, I accidentally have had a talk radio station on (they are the home station for the NY Mets) and after the shooting, I was shocked at what I heard from men, and saddened. </p>
<p>What to me is sad is that people like Elliot Rodgers or the moronic set I mentioned above, don’t simply ask themselves what would they be looking for is someone asked them out? That part of the problem is they focus on sex, as some sort of prize, instead of being something that comes later after having the fun of getting to know one another. I am no prude, but unless you are in a place where people are there to hook up for casual sex, it seems to be that is the cart before the horse…</p>