Three Pennsylvania Women Killed in Hate Crime

George Sodini shot and killed three women and injured 11 more before killing himself in a hate crime against women Tuesday night in Pennsylvania. Sodini entered an aerobics class at a gym in the Pittsburgh area intending to take revenge on women, who he saw as rejecting him en masse, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Sodini did not know anyone in the aerobics class he targeted, according to the New York Times, contradicting earlier reports of an ex-girlfriend inside the gym. In a blog that has since been removed from the internet, Sodini wrote of his plans for the killing and his hatred of women.

"I actually look good," Sodini wrote in December of last year. "I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne - yet 30 million women rejected me - over an 18- or 25-year period. That is how I see it. Thirty million is my rough guesstimate of how many desirable single women there are." Sodini also repeatedly referred to women as "hoez," and wrote of his sexual frustration, claiming to have been celibate since 1990.

"This killer fits into a long pattern of males who harbor hatred towards all women, the image of 'woman,' and towards individual real women, and who take out their frustration on a female scapegoat," Professor David Gilmore of Stony Brook University told the Christian Science Monitor.

Media Resources: Philadelphia Inquirer 8/4/09l; New York Times 8/5/09; Christian Science Monitor 8/5/09

© Feminist Majority Foundation, publisher of Ms. magazine

If you liked this story, consider making a tax-deductible donation to support Ms. magazine.