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In this climate, Elliot Rodger’s massacre at Isla Vista near the University of California, Santa Barbara, tragic as it was, presented as an opportunity to prove a point, that misogyny kills. This was a modern Ecole Polytechnique, women killed because they were women.

“All of a sudden, his letter is everywhere across the world and people can read it and it has a possibility of people responding together quickly,” Prof. Simalchik said. “One of the problems with the rapidity of social media is it doesn’t really give us time to reflect. Only time will tell what exactly was happening here. So there is a danger in people leaping to conclusions or easy solutions. Clearly there was more to it than just misogyny.”

Because that opportunity was seized, however, almost gleefully in some parts — a Globe and Mail column addressed to “moderate men” lamented their silence and said: “By virtue of existence, you’re in on it”— it was also a chance to call out opportunism, in which the role of mental illness was sidelined, as was the gender of his victims, four of whom were male.

Both sides succeeded in making their point.

Elliot Rodger might have killed more men than women, but the first three men were his room-mates, a prelude to the purposeful carnage. According to his own words, the women were more to the point. As such, the Isla Vista killings feel more like an historical event, rich with cultural significance, than a senseless tragedy.

“The fact is, misogyny is entrenched in our culture and has been historically, cross-culturally, for centuries. It goes way back,” said Prof. Simalchik. “So there does seem to be a cultural shift. Because often in the past people would deny that it was misogyny at the basis of it, and now they’re leaping to it. They’ve sort of made this radical shift to thinking that’s all it’s about.”