Abstract

This chapter discusses the killings by Elliot Rodger, in Isla Vista, California, in May 2014, and the widespread denials that his actions were symptoms of a culture of misogyny—or even involved misogyny whatsoever. This was despite Rodger’s primary, explicit, long-held intention of punishing the “hot blonde sluts” who refused to give him sex, love, and attention. Such denials owe to a “naïve conception” of misogyny, according to which misogyny is primarily a property of hate-filled individuals, who are hostile to any and every woman, or admitting only limited exceptions. The naïve conception is criticized for making misogyny a psychologically puzzling and predictably rare phenomenon in what ought to be its native habitat: social environments with patriarchal norms and expectations. For, when women know their place, what’s to hate, exactly? Why would even the least enlightened of men insist on biting the hand that soothes and serves him?