Society Cannot Create Misogynists Without the Help of Abusive Mothers

Elliot Rodger and Family

Some of life's problems are not about to be solved. It is not because they are not being talked about.  It is rather because all the discussion takes place in a fairytale universe as real as the one Superman and Lois Lane inhabit.  Yes I'm talking about "misogyny" and what at first appeared to be an opportunity for a genuine  national conversation  after the Elliot Rodger mass murder.   But that moment has been lost amidst feminist handwringing and proclamations that we women must unite to excise this cancer from the American soul.   I also see myself as a feminist. But I say none of this talk makes sense.

Misogyny is certainly a reflection of societal values.  But the kind that sits in a BMW vowing to kill every blond female in sight is the kind of narcissistic implosion that can only come from one place -- home.    Elliot Rodger's parents created a monster.  They didn't do it on purpose. They obviously had their own unresolved emotional issues.  But the more I think about it the angrier I get.  It should have been obvious to the public that something was haywire when we learned how the mother interacted with her son.  When she was worried about threatening videos, she didn't make the hour's drive to Isla Vista to check on her son herself.  Instead she called a therapist, who called the police to make a health check.  This was apparently the woman's modus operandi in raising the kid.  She and her husband spent Elliot's childhood "psychiatrist shopping."  They were looking for someone who would give them a diagnosis that did not make them culpable for his bizarre behavior.  This kid was as autistic as Oprah.  He suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which unlike disorders on the autism spectrum like Aspergers is not something a child is born with.  Undoubtedly the mother was dealing as well with an ass of a husband, who ran off when the psychopath they were creating became too much, found himself another wife and truly believed he had wiped his hands of the whole traumatic mess.  Well Elliot saw that such would not be the case.

But let's get back to my original point.  Whatever sexist, misogynistic nonsense goes on in society, a loving and emotionally healthy home life is what insulates children from those raw, outside messages.  If as mothers we wish to instill sensitive, feminist-affirming values in our sons, then we need to spend at least as much time nurturing our children as we do shouting anti-misogynist slogans in public. We don't even need to sit kids down and give them lessons in how to treat women. This they will absorb in a million unspoken ways through how we treat them as powerless, emotionally dependent little boys.