He despised women as badly as he wanted them.
Elliot Rodger's rants blamed women for rejecting him. His manifesto declared a desire to kill as many as possible. He was a part of Men's Rights Activist communities, spaces supportive of men who feel oppressed when denied sex by women they want. Last week, Rodger killed six people and injured 13 in Isla Vista, California, near UC Santa Barbara, before killing himself.
The tragically routine conversations surfaced soon after the attack: the pleas for sensible gun control and better mental illness treatment. Some questioned whether the sheriff's deputies, having been alerted to Rodger's dark YouTube videos by his family members before the attack, would have been as quick to determine he was a "nice kid" if he had been a different race or religion.
But an unexpected response also took root on Twitter. The hashtag #YesAllWomen began in answer to the defensive response that "not all men" are violent. (For God's sake, we know this.) The #YesAllWomen hashtag been used more than a million times since the killings to describe the small and large ways in which everyday misogyny infects women's lives: the negotiations and mental calculations we take for granted.
The same day this hashtag began, I had scolded my daughter for walking one flight in a hotel stairwell without me. That's a place where people can be sexually assaulted, I told her. Never walk in a stairwell alone.
She's 11.
I'll continue to teach her these kinds of survival skills throughout her life: Always call and wait for campus security when walking home at night in college. Never leave a drink unattended. Hold your keys between your knuckles when walking to your car at night. Check the backseat before getting into a vehicle after dark. Be careful about getting in a car, an elevator, any enclosed space alone with a man.
I have internalized these habits and do them instinctively.
Rape, harassment and sexual abuse of girls and women are so common that it is a default position to teach our daughters: Be aware. Be cautious. Be vigilant.
But all the personal vigilance in the world is not enough to protect ourselves. The female victims of male violence cross every category we create -- age, ethnicity, social class.
As parents of a son as well, my husband and I will continue to teach him what it means to treat women with dignity and respect in every interaction. I will make an effort to point out to him the elements of culture that objectify half of humanity.
Who knows how the connection between culture and violence precisely works? We do know, however, that it is men who commit more than 90 percent of murders in this world, according to the World Homicide Survey. Rapists, by and large, are men. The onus of addressing that rests upon all of us.
It doesn't typically occur to us to speak out about the ordinary, ambient violence we witness or experience on a regular basis.
Who are these men who feel entitled to harass a woman as she walks down a street?
Who are these men who put their uninvited hands on a woman's body in a club?
Who are these men who email rape threats to women who write opinions with which they disagree?
Of course, it's not all men. But, as author and blogger Chuck Wendig wrote in response, it's still too many men.
Four men and two women were slain by a 22-year-old man possessed by a demented ideology. His horrific, sick actions and vile words have not gone unchallenged. The women who have publicly borne witness to what must change are engaged in an act of courage.
Yes, all women can share a story in which they feared anger, hatred or violence from a man, whether by an individual or simply by the threat that hangs in the air of an empty parking lot.
Yes, all men should hear it.