Twitter Analysis: Isla Vista Attack Puts a Spotlight on Gender Violence

The article written by Matt Pearce from the Los Angeles Times on May 25, 2014 talks about several points. First, it briefly talks about the hashtag created on Twitter during the evening of Saturday May 24, 2014. The hashtag #YesAllWomen made the point that the shooting at USC Santa Barbara by Elliot Rodgers is not an isolated event. Elliot Rodgers, a young college student, “announced in a manifesto and in a YouTube video that he intended to kill women for rejecting him, and the initial stages of his attack reflected the plan that he laid out: First, he killed three people at his apartment building, then tried to attack a sorority before he targeted passersby, police say” (#YesAllWomen: Isla Vista attack puts a spotlight on gender violence; Pearce 2014). The hashtag brought to light that the shooting is a rare event but man-on-woman violence is not a rare incident. The article states “In 2012, an average of more than seven women were slain every day… American women usually know their attacker -- who is usually male” (#YesAllWomen… gender violence, Pearce). The hashtag was used as a platform for women to explain the problems and fears that all women face – Yes All Women… fill in the blank. It was also in response to the #notallmen hashtag. The article then put some examples of the tweets at the bottom of the article like "Because I wore a fake wedding ring when I waitressed. 'Belonging' to another man was the only way to get customers to back off. #YesAllWomen” and “when i was picked up by the throat and thrown down the stairs, responding officers told ME to apologize to HIM for crying #YesAllWomen.”

The article is socially relevant in two ways. Firstly, the hashtag was on one of the most popular and widely used social media platfo...

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...or society to be in an “unbalanced balance” that allows for society to function. Although violence, especially that of murder, is not ethical in any way, for conflict theorists it is necessary.

Article used: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-isla-vista-women-20140525-story.html

Works Cited

Grinberg, E. (2014, May 27). Why #YesAllWomen took off on Twitter. CNN. Retrieved May 29, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/27/living/california-killer-hashtag-yesallwomen/

Pearce, M. (2014, May 25). #YesAllWomen: Isla Vista attack puts a spotlight on gender violence. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 26, 2014, http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-isla-vista-women-20140525-story.html

Rampton, M. (2008, September 1). The Three Waves of Feminism. - Fall 2008. Retrieved May 28, 2014, http://www.pacificu.edu/magazine_archives/2008/fall/echoes/feminism.cfm