Toxic Masculinity Is Real

Jessica Valenti notes the not so secret thread behind the most recent U.S. shootings, misogyny:

"How many more tragedies have to happen before we recognize that misogyny kills? The longer we ignore the toxic masculinity that underlies so many of these crimes, the more violence we’re enabling.

Sadie Rodriguez told the LA Times that her daughter Shana Fisher 'had four months of problems' from the Santa Fe shooter.

'He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no.' A week before the shooting, she says, her daughter stood up to the shooter and 'embarrassed him in class.'

This comes not even a month after the van attack in Toronto that killed 10 people and injured 13 more – violence enacted by a man who was reportedly furious that women wouldn’t sleep with him. Before that there was the 2015 shooting at an Oregon college  by a young man who complained of being a virgin with 'no girlfriend'. In 2014, there was Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and left behind a 140-page sexist manifesto and videos where he warned: 'I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me but I will punish you all for it.' In 2009, George Sodini killed three women at a gym in Pennsylvania after lamenting online that younger women wouldn't date him."