How do we safely and effectively mobilize women in objecting to the presence and practice of Men’s Rights Associations (MRAs), when the motives and actions being protested are those that place women at risk of physical harm and emotional trauma?

Many that sympathized with Elliot Rodger blamed the “friend zone,” blamed the women in Rodgers’ life for not having sexual relations with him – they blamed women collectively for the tragic events of Memorial Day Weekend shooting, suggesting that it was purely a response to the denied access to their bodies. If women had “done their job,” the sexual frustration, which caused the horrific events that took lives and compromised others, never would have occurred.

I would (and will) assert that misogyny, and not the resounding “no’s” from women in Rodger’s life were to blame.

The men that individually or in their association to others, that act as the performers and perpetuators of misogyny are to blame.

Elliot Rodger is to blame. His sense of entitlement and privilege, specifically to the body of another is to blame.

Instead of challenging the culture or examining the roots of Rodger’s evils, waves of commentary regarding social media activism run rampant. Even discourse of millennial hook-up culture has over shadowed in some instances the horrors of the actual event.

 

Misogyny is so deeply rooted within our culture, a constant thread in global and American history, that we may not even recognize when we are contributing to its ideologies.

And so, it is with this that I provide my own commentary to the pile:

The “Friend Zone” is a misogynist product living in a feminist ideology.

The innate and natural desires of men to engage sexually with women should be protected and honored – after all, it is the most natural of systems in the world, says they. When women “friend zone” men, they deny the natural progression of male-female dynamics, placing everyone, even themselves at risk.

This is where misogyny lives.

This is of course to say, that all male-female relationships begin with the assumption and presumption that sex is able to happen, and more likely than not will happen.

The “Friend Zone,” by our cultural standards isn’t where society in the masses begins, but instead where individuals seemingly end up.

Speaking from my living-that-twenty-something-kinda-life soapbox, I never hear of anyone “leaving” the “friend zone,” only of the definiteness of individuals being entered into it.

Rodger’s sympathizers blame this mental, emotional, and in relative terms, physical domain for the hurt and harm caused just a few weeks ago.

The Friend Zone is where sexuality goes to die, as one-by-one men are placed there by women (and in this regard we hardly ever hear of men placing women in this undesirable plot). A chosen few are moved from left to right – they are slid down the scale. 

This is where misogyny lives.

We are so culturally included to misogyny that we, collectively, have accepted this idea.

We have accepted, on some level, that men are moved into the Friend Zone, and not out of it. In doing so we have acknowledged that sexuality is the only dynamic in which male and female relationships develop.

In essence, the “Friend Zone” was developed out of the reality that women could in fact be friends with their male counterparts without wanting, needing, or exclusively seeking out a sexual relationship.

And it is in this that we must recognize how dangerous misogyny is. The term “friend zone” wasn’t popular identified until the early 2000’s. Coincidentally, language and dialog surrounding female sex and sexuality began to change as college campuses saw the beginning of the uptrend of women.

Misogyny kills. Literally. In the last three decades, all but one (61/62) mass murders have been executed by men. Of those sixty-one? 90% are white. 

“What are you trying to say?” you ask.

I’m trying to say: Misogyny kills. Literally. 

Most victims of such killings? Women. The most common target of these shootings? A current or former wife or girlfriend.

Misogyny is not a question for red states or blue states.

Misogyny is a culturally institutionalized hatred that has been so deeply integrated into our society that many can’t begin to see it, even when it's surrounding them. 

While women make up more than half of the global population, their status as a people, as a body, as a force has still more than not gone unchanged. 

Last week a high school in Utah came under attack for photo-shopping images of young women to impose more "modest" clothing on their photos. Shoulders were covered, sleeves were made longer, and any exposed cleavage was covered up.

Misogyny lives here.

For generations women have been told to cover their bodies. Student handbooks indicate that "too low" or "too short" is a dangerous distraction to the educational environment. And while the dialog surround the sexualization of children and related child psychology may validate the utilization of dress codes, misogynistic seeds are planted as one only side of the dynamic is addressed: there is no objection in our student handbooks to the objectification of female bodies by young impressionable high school men.(The “she was asking for it” mentality lives here.)

We fail to address this dangerous institution because more often than not conservative forces are quick to denote feminists as their ideological enemy.

We fail to address this harmful and hurtful status when we impose “traditional” notions of masculinity on young men, identifying sex as a status, and not as a privilege of consent in (or outside) the parameters of a relationship.

MRA leader, Paul Elam said to writer Jaclyn Friedman: “I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.”

This is where misogyny lives.

We fail to address this oppressive manic because while many are willing to say the elevation of ideologies of individuals like Paul Elam or Elliot Rodger are wrong, it is still a vastly radical notion to push for gender parity at home, in the work place, and on our city streets.