What I'm going to write about is the reactions and ramifications surrounding the event. George Sodini shot and killed three women at a Philadelphia gym, wounded others, and killed himself in the process. In spite of apparently longing for a real relationship, Sodini harbored a tremendous mounting anger towards women and at the surface level, it would seem that he had scapegoated them not just for his alleged lack of success, but failure to have a deep bond with one in many years.
Much has been written about the act and the hows and whys. Much of the responses are typical---that we still live in a misogynist culture that breeds or instigates men perpetrating violent acts towards women. Or that Sodlini was a mentally imbalanced misanthrope that would have done this eventually, and who women have to guard themselves against male malevolence and aggression even more.
Clearly, this is faulty because most men obviously don't go on mass shooting sprees towards women. The whole thing raises the spectre of Marc Lepine, which has been a cypher, a symbol for feminists who want to prove that male hatred of women is alive and well although most men are reluctant to vent their spleen on women even in a far less extreme manner. Listen up feminists and you chivalrous men---most men don't like hurting women or get off on it.
The other remarks have been rather unfocused and simply not correct. Being socially awkward, possessing a background of a convoluted family history, living a rather isolated life, and being rather hung up on appearances describe a plethora of men, and yet there are so many critical comments to paint Sodini as a Stephen Kingish bogeyman that (by all purposes rendered) looked like the guy next door. There's also some conversations about the psychosexual development of Sodini, although his rage unleashed is not the same as the sexual sadism of certain serial killers. Far from it.
Now, perhaps, every man is suspect, no matter how affable and successful he is, or possessing the mask or normalcy.
There's a number of things that may have prevented Sodini's violent outburst and suicidal end. I honestly don't think he was born evil nor wanted to harm women for a good portion of his life. Obviously, he had worked himself up to enact and expunge what he felt was his vindication for being marginalized, even though (apparently) he did attract some female attention. I don't approve of his actions and maintain his own responsibility for it, but I can't help but wonder something.
Years upon years of feeling unwanted and undesired in a culture that is patently anti-male in more that one aspect didn't help this at all. I realize that the crime against others and himself rests on his shoulders, and no matter how much one can rationalize it, it's still tragic and ugly in of itself.
But I don't think many want to understand how crushing feelings of alienation, chronic, deep rooted emotional pain, and the sense that you are not a potential mate and a object of desire truly is. And lack of a support network compounds that. Most people who experience this don't engage in mass murder. But they often live sad and unfulfilled lives, drowning themselves in addiction or materialism, and our society does little to lighten the load---including branding those as different as creeps and losers even if they would never step forward and do what George Sodini did.
Is this what contributed to his personal malaise to finally lash out? I've been wrong before, but I do believe it's a crucial element.
I've read on a couple of feminist blogs that a few MGTOW men view this has a victory of MRAs. They are wholly wrong. If anything, it makes it more difficult for men's rights proponents to place men in a positive light. We are not going to bear the collective guilt here, but the cloud of darkness remains. Sodini is not a posterchild whatsoever, and yet despite the "gender is a social construct" crowd and claiming the damage he had done is the result of patriarchal oppression, more than few have expressed glee at Sodini being demonstrative of male hate and that maybe there is even something wrong about masculinity.
And as the owner of Toy Soldiers blog has pointed out, there are feminist-minded blogs that have shown their own colors and jumped on this for their own cause:
Real people were hurt. Real people died. Yet, instead of even trying to discuss that in a rational way, feminists resort to the typical “blame it on teh menz” nonsense. It is beyond disrespectful to the victims to do that, just as it is beyond conceited to view oneself in a “holier than thou art” grandiose manner. The victims deserve much better than to have their injuries and deaths reduced to an infantile attack on people who had nothing to do with Sodini’s actions.
That is, by far, the greatest irony of this. Sodini reached his final point by scapegoating and blaming an entire group of people for all his problems while demanding quite a lot from them. Yet some of his critics seem, rather stupidly, content to engage in the same ill-conceived logic.
I've always said if gender feminist and enablers couldn't find a nemesis, they would have to invent one. And now, for years to come, George Sodini will be one that they can point to for their smug attitude to condemn and slag masculinity no matter how good men struggle or their protests and ordeals legitimate.
I find that repellent as well.
Oddly enough, the real danger here is that if our environment does create George Sodinis, the disparaging output is that men that do go through emotional torment and isolation from intimacy and love from women is not violence and hatred---it's turning their backs on women when more anti-male sentiment and agendas get credence because of situations like this.
Shame, blame, and embitterment toward men after events like this do not create amends and forgiveness between the sexes---it further continues the chasm. And those who have been mistreated throughout a lifetime don't celebrate. They either understand that it's another battle to forge forward, or acknowledge that any healing is questionable, and instead of risking being stigmatized, coldly go forward and rather than protecting and praising skankdom and female supremacy, let themselves drift further rather than be lumped with fringe individuals.
That's something the detractors should learn. Maybe they never will.
