Elliot Rodger’s journal is filled with lengthy diatribes against women.
While his crimes have reignited a debate over gun control and mental health care, his misogynistic language has sparked discussion about the continuing sexism women face each day.
Thousands of women have used Twitter to express their solidarity in response to Rodger’s hate-filled rants that led to him killing four men and two women Friday night.
The hashtag #YesAllWomen was used more than 1 million times since Saturday when people got a closer look into the killer’s thoughts in the journal and a YouTube video he posted the day before his attacks.
Since it started, there are tweets about rape, feminism, harassment and women’s rights with the same hashtag.
“There was a familiarity in that language that really hit home for a lot of women who live with this implicit threat of danger all the time,” the founder of THEli.st, Rachel Sklar, told CNN. “There is just an extra layer of danger implicit in being a woman that this really taps into.”
Not everyone was supportive, however, and some people wrote that you can’t blame all men for misogyny.
The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi told CNN: “I think a lot men are failing to understand how we can look at this senseless violence and take from it a broader social issue. I think a lot of men feel like it is wrong to paint with a broad brush, and they don’t want to be associated with this lunatic who did this mass killing.
“But this is a big issue. This boy was a product of this culture. And I think to talk about the culture is not misandry (the hatred of males), it’s not wrong and we do need to talk about it. If we want to know how to end this kind of violence we need to address the culture that created this kind of violence.
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