It’s all because she said no
The people in charge of news headlines and first paragraphs and the like really need to stop doing this:
Spurned advances provoked Texas school shooting, victim’s mother says
“She provoked me so I killed her and nine other people.”
Also? Simply saying no to a guy’s invitation or request is not “spurning” anything. It’s just not accepting an offer you don’t want. Women are allowed to do that. Women are allowed to say no. Women are allowed to say no without being killed or raped or beaten up or blamed for it. Women are not walking talking merchandise that is there for the use of other, more important people called “men” – women are themselves people, and they are allowed to determine for themselves whether they want to be friends or lovers with Mr X.
A teenaged boy who shot and killed eight students and two teachers in Texas had been spurned by one of his victims after making aggressive advances, her mother told the Los Angeles Times.
That’s not a thing. Being “spurned” is not a thing. Making it a thing just buys into the “incel” logic that women have no right to say no.
Sadie Rodriguez, the mother of Shana Fisher, 16, told the newspaper that her daughter rejected four months of aggressive advances from accused shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, at the Santa Fe high school.
Fisher finally stood up to him and embarrassed him in class, the newspaper quoted her mother as writing in a private message to the Times.
Reuters could have headlined and written this story as being about Pagourtzis’ four months of harassing Fisher, culminating in his murder of her and nine others after she (clearly in desperation) publicly told him to stop.
He’s a guy who shot up a school, yet Reuters presents it as culpable that Fisher said no to his aggressive demands. Isn’t it just barely possible that he has an unpleasantly belligerent and demanding personality? And that she had glaringly obvious reasons to say no to him? Quite apart from the fact that she gets to say no for any reason or none, because she is a person and not public property.
It’s curious the way that mass murderers get valorized in news media. They’re in the news precisely for crimes, to be condemned, and yet the treatment is almost as of heroes – it’s certainly glamorous.
Some of it may be the unfortunate way we shift from trying to understand people to empathizing with them – empathy is one tool for understanding people, but it sets us up for a more positive relationship with them than we really ought to want in cases like this. But even that can’t account for the way these accounts get framed in terms of the killer having some sort of justification for gunning down students and teachers there to get and provide an education.
The new word for this is ‘himpathy’–sympathising with a male perpetrator rather than a female victim.
https://jezebel.com/philosopher-kate-manne-on-himpathy-donald-trump-and-r-1822639677
Not sure if Manne mentions this in this article, but someone else I read points out that this is probably at least partially related to the widely-reported fact that in films and TV men speak the vast majority of the dialog–so we are typically made aware of male characters’ feelings and motivations, but not those of female characters.
Imagine a newspaper printing the following headline:
“U.S. Foreign Policy Provokes Destruction of World Trade Center”
Screechy Monkey, that’s an excellent way to frame it. I’d like to see that headline writer asked how what they wrote is different from your hypothetical headline.
Ophelia, I’m not actually sure what your objection to the specific word “spurned” is. I thought maybe my understanding of the word was incorrect, so I looked it up, and the first definition (“to reject with disdain”) seems to fit the mother’s description of what happened.
In general, spurning is definitely a thing. I’d guess most people know someone who asked someone out and got laughed at or ridiculed.
To be absolutely clear, even the worst spurning does not justify a mass shooting. And this guy sounds like he had a spurning coming if he couldn’t take a polite no for an answer.
And I certainly agree with your sentiment that writers should be careful not to blame others for inciting the killer.
Skeletor I think I’ve given up trying to engage in conversation with you because you start things but then abandon them. I replied to you extensively the other day but you never responded. I don’t see the point of starting conversations you don’t intend to continue.
But having said that…(I’m such a sucker)…
Yes I know what “spurned” means, but the headline writers don’t know that Shana Fisher rejected Pagourtzis “with disdain” and saying she did is saying she caused her own murder and that of the others. It’s tendentious. A lawyer would object if an opposing lawyer used it that way. It stacks the deck. It carries implications. It blames the victim.
Skeletor, the article says that Shana embarrassed him in class by standing up to him. That doesn’t even necessarily mean she ‘spurned’ him. There may have been no disdain involved. Simply telling him in a loud voice to get the message and leave her alone would be embarrassing without being spurning. We simply don’t have the level of detail required.
Anyway, I don’t care. Being spurned by an unrequited love is not usually the worst thing that happens in your lifetime, embarrassing and hurtful though it may be. Even if someone you’ve been in a long term relationship dumps you in a hurtful manner, so what, it’s not a reason to become violent. I know you’re not claiming that, but in the context of this event and others lie it, why focus on whether the use of that word is appropriate or not?
Even if she gave him a damn good spurning, it’s irrelevant in the context and shifts blame to the girl, instead of a young man who couldn’t control his sense of rage and entitlement. The linked article mentions another similar case. It suggests that this motivation is not uncommon in school shootings. It’s basically all of a piece with domestic violence and should be considered in that light frankly.
Yes exactly; in the context of this event and others like it, why focus on whether the use of that word is appropriate or not? That kind of over-literal nitpicking drives me CRAZY. The news media really do need to be more careful about wording headlines in such a way that it looks as if the victim did something wrong when that’s not the case. I’ve been pointing this out for years, for instance about the Motoons and then about Charlie Hebdo. Yes “spurned” is a loaded, non-neutral, pejorative word to describe women declining advances. Women should be allowed to say No without being accused of “spurning.” And I should be able to say that without this kind of finicky “correction.”
Yeah, as noted in the OP, the story here is “Shooter Allowed to Harass Victim for Four Months Without Consequence” and it should have been treated as such.
Elliot Rogers wrote in his manifesto:
I say the actions of women could never:
#1 — Deserve such rampage
#2 — Cause such rampage
Reuters fumbled to find meaning by indulging in fallacy #2.
#3
The ‘World Trade Center felled by U.S. policy’ claim has been, and still is being made with straight face. There seems to be a general unwillingness to perceive malice and evil when they stare us in the face.
Four months of harassment has earned something like ‘spurning.’ But our whole dating culture actively promotes ‘persistence’ and ‘confidence’ as if those were virtues.
But our whole dating culture actively promotes bullying and abuse as if those were virtues – fixed it.
Well, that was the point of the scare quotes though. Our whole sick dating culture frames bullying and abuse as persistence and confidence.
[…] Me, yesterday morning, in the post titled It’s all because she said no: […]
John the Drunkard @3,
Yes, the argument has been made. But a mainstream news publication would never use my proposed headline for a news piece about 9/11, because any half-conscious editor would recognize that it is implicitly making an argument, and one that is highly controversial to say the least. At most, it might be the title of an opinion piece in a very left-leaning publication.
Conversely, headlines that effectively blame women for the violent acts of men are routinely used, because those same editors either don’t notice or don’t take issue with the underlying premises.