Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Had To Get This Off My Chest: or More Girls Killed

So, people, have you read the news lately? Last week, there was a drifter in Colorado who got inside a school, took about seven girls hostage, raped some of them and killed one of them. Yesterday, there was a man who got inside a school in Pennsylvania, ordered all the boys out, lined all the girls up against the blackboard, tied them up and shot them all in the head, killing five of them. So there has been six school children killed in a week, and they were all girls, eh? What a coincidence.

The killer in Pennsylvania had apparently planned to sexually molest his victims, too, but got distracted when the police arrived. According to the Guardian, the man had admitted to having molested "children" about twenty years ago. The Guardian reports that state police commissioner Jeffrey Miller

Okay. Let's get this straight. State police commissioner Miller notes that the murderer, Charles Carl Roberts IV, showed evidence of "a sexual predilection for children" and as a result he murdered as many little girls as he could?

I assume police commissioner Miller meant that Roberts had a sexual predilection for young girls. Therefore, he murdered girls. Okay. Ten years ago, a former Scout master named Thomas Hamilton broke into a primary school gym in Dunblane, Scotland, and started shooting the children there. There were 29 children between five and six years old in there, apparently about equal numbers of boys and girls. Thomas Hamilton killed five of the boys and eleven of the girls. The only uninjured child was a boy, and the most severely injured of the children was a girl.

When the newspapers tried to explain why Hamilton would have done something so horrendous, the only explanation they came up with was that the man seemed to take an unnatural interest in little boys. Okay. Charles C. Roberts had a sexual predilection for little girls, so he needed to kill little girls. And Thomas Hamilton had a seuxal preference for little boys, so he needed to kill... primarily little girls?

In 1998, Andrew Golden, 11, and Mitchell Johnson, 13, opened fire on children in a school yard in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The two very young boys targeted females only, and they killed four school girls and a female teacher. When newspapers wrote about the case, no one tried to find an explanation for why the boys apparently wanted to kill only girls and women.

In 1989, a man named Marc Lépine entered a school in Montreal, Canada, and ordered the female students to line up against a wall. Before he took his own life, Lépine had killed fourteen students, all female.

(In mid-September 2006, another man opened fire in another Canadian college, killing one student.... Are you very surprised to hear that the murdered student was a young woman?)

About two weeks ago, I read in a Swedish newspaper that a male nurse somewhere in Europe was suspected of having killed "old people". When you read the article more carefully, you found that the man was suspected of having killed more than a hundred old women.

British GP Harold Shipman was arrested in 1998 and was found guilty in 2001 of having killed fifteen elderly female patients. He was suspected of having killed about 250 patients all in all, practically all of them old women. A possible motive, according to Wikipedia, was that Harold Shipman lost his own mother when he himself was 17 years old, and therefore he needed to relive(?) retaliate(?) his mother's death by killing other old women.

Okay, do you remember the guy who had a sexual predilection for young girls and therefore needed to kill young girls? Or the man who had a predilection for young boys and therefore needed to kill young girls? And now Harold Shipman who saw his own mother die and therefore needed to kill old women? What about the male nurse who was recently arrested for killing perhaps a hundred old women? Don't you think he saw his father die when he was young, so that, to relive or retaliate his father's death, he needed to kill old women? There was a guy in Sweden who attacked and killed two sleeping teenaged girls and a female nurse. This guy was fat, you know, so I guess he needed to kill girls and women because he was fat?

Two days ago, a man in Norway killed his three sisters, the youngest of them fourteen years old. Here in Sweden, the most-watched news program called the murders a "family tragedy".

If you pay attention, you will notice that the media as well as the police and politicians tend to use the expression "family tragedy" when a man has killed his wife, fiancée or girlfriend, or his ex-wife, ex-fiancée or ex-girlfriend, or another woman whom he considers his rightful property and whom he there considers himself entitled to kill, if she won't show him proper respect. If we are lucky, the woman will survive. In that case, the media, the police and politician will not call it a "family tragedy" but an instance of "domestic violence".

Two things make me so furious. The first thing is men's violence against women. The second thing is how almost everybody in society seems to do their level best to ignore this violence, or to ignore that this violence is directed specifically against girls and women. When we talk about family tragedies or domestic violence, when we say that a man murdered women because he had abnormal sexual desires or because he needed to relive his own mother's death or because he was just plain mad or because whatever, we are just ignoring the fact that at the heart of his deed was a hatred of women. Or a need to demonstrate his utter superiority towards women and his right to do with them as he pleased, including his right to kill them if he so desired.

When we refuse to see this hatred of women and this male flaunting of limitless power over women, we help to normalize this hatred and this treatment of women as utterly inferior beings, whose duty it is to meekly defer to men. Why could slavery persist in the American South for as long as it did? Not because all Southerners were slave owners. Not because most Southerners were slave owners. Not because all or most Southerners had this urge to flog black people or treat them as animals. No, it persisted for as long as it did because most Southerners quietly accepted it, never questioning it or really speaking up against it.

Please, people. Let's not think of violence against women as something inevitable, as something that can't be prevented, as something that should not be discussed in polite company because it is embarrassing for everybody or because it is too gross or unpleasant to bother delicate souls with.

The next time you read about a madman who kills girls or women, remember that he does not kill women primarily because he is mad. Remember that he kills women primarily because we have all made him feel it is all right and natural for him to hate women. Remember that ultimately, he thinks that he has our blessing to act on his hatred - and that is true even if he feels obliged to take his own life afterwards.

Ann

Actually, Ann, domestic violence is not being ignored like it used to be. If it was, we wouldn't be hearing about these things. In the past, this type of thing was just swept under the rug. That was 'private matter' and was just not spoken of. The police would rarely do anything, and women died. That still happens, but it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.

As for violence against women by men in general... We have a long way to go. Many more men have to realize that this just isn't acceptable behaviour, but how is that going to happen when there are still countries that sweep it under the rug and cover it up as if never happened. I mean there are some countries where a man can murder his wife or sister or mother and absolutely nothing will be done.

And you want to hear something else that's absolutely outrageous? Today, those lovely Amish people are trying to bury their dead. And a bunch of idiotic people are protesting the funeral! There's never an excuse for that - ever! Let these people grieve in peace.

I heard a bit about the amish shootings on the radio either yesterday or today, but didn't catch all of it. What's the story on that? And why would people protest the funerals?

I hadn't heard about the protesting, but someone else sent me a link . Looks like it's the same idiots that protest military funerals. They're protesting because the PA Governor, who has spoken out against their church, is attending the funeral. Considering that they said they'll stop their protests on this funeral if they're given airtime, it's no wonder none of the other news sites don't have anything (yet).

How tasteless and disrespectful can people get?!?

Thanks for the info.

Just one more question.

If a white guy went into a school and ordered all the white students out and ordered the black ones to line up against the wall, would anyone start discussing this man's sexual preferences? Would they speculate he had killed the black students because he was angry at God?

For that matter, if a black guy had entered a school and started selectively shooting as many white students as he could, is it even remotely possible that we would explain his actions by saying that this guy was just one big stark raving loony?

We have no problem calling a hate crime a hate crime if a person from one ethnic group selectively attacks members of another group. Would anyone ever say that a Muslim Arab had killed a number of Jews because he was heartbroken because his girlfriend had broken up with him? Or because his father used to beat himup when he was a kid?

I'm just saying that when men are selectively killing women, that is a hate crime too, and it should be described as such. After all, either it's a hate crime, or else it's just natural for men to want to kill women. Or else, perhaps, this male violence against women is just what the doctor ordered to remind all of us, men and women, that the most fundamental foundation of society is the idea that men should rule and women must obey, otherwise we'll kill them. Which interpretation do you prefer? I know what I think. This is a hate crime, it should be recognized as such and it should be punished and relentlessly fought against as such.

Ann

You mention the Marc Lépine case. His hatred against paricularly women was not ignored at all!

From here :

Julie

You are right about the Marc Lépine case, because in his case his hatred against women was too obvious to ignore. But I wonder. How much of the outrage against Lépin's deadly misogyny is left today? How many people are saying, today, that the recent case in Pennsylvania shows that we must do something against this prevailing violence against women? Judging from what I have seen so far, the girl murders have prompted people to talk mostly about the Amish community. Just remember, people, that if the Pennsylvania murderer had been driven primarily by a hatred against the Amish, why did he order all the little Amish boys out before he started shooting the girls?

Ann

Just today, Metro here in Malmö had the following headline:

Deadly violence against women increased sharply this summer

Well, the headline referred to deadly violence against women in Sweden in general, not specifically violence against women in Malmö. (I don't remember any gynecides in Malmö this summer, in fact.) But I was just saying....

Earlier this year a serial rapist was caught in northern Sweden. Everybody was shocked, because this man was such a pillar of his community. Neighbourly, friendly, helpful, active in many local organisations, popular among children, a father of two himself.... He had raped seven women between 1999 and 2006, and his attacks got more and more violent. He bit an ear off his last victim, a 51-year-old woman, and left her to die, but fortunately she was found and her life could be saved. And you know, like I said, this guy was like a pillar of society. So likable. So normal.

Ann

If you're referring to the Amish killings, Ann, that wasn't speculation. The man left suicide notes which said he was angry with God and hated himself.

Again, it was clearly stated that his act had nothing to do with the fact that his victims were Amish. He seems to have chosen that particular school simply because it was convenient - only half a mile or so from his own house and because he knew he could find young girls there.

I'm presuming that the reason no one is discussing the Amish killings in the context of wholesale violence against women is because, quite clearly, it's not the context. The killer, according to his own notes, was clearly motivated by a specific incident in his past to target young girls.

I have to say that you seem to have some other data wrong in your original post, also.

There has never been any suggestion from official sources that Thomas Hamilton chose his victims by gender. Or, indeed that he chose them at all. Eyewitness accounts have him entering the school and spraying the room with gunfire as soon as he walked in, firing indiscriminately at anything that moved. From the Public Enquiry Report into the Dunblane Shooting:

The mother theory relating to Harold Shipman is speculation, of course. One that I had actually never heard until I read your post. It could very well be true. However, what might equally be true and what seems to be the most widely held theory on his motives that I've heard is that he was motivated by nothing more than greed (he wasn't caught until he forged the will of one of his victims naming himself as beneficiary to her estate) and the power trip not only of watching his victims die, but also of observing the grief of relatives and the chaos of the immediate aftermath - watching emergency services running around etc. This, too, is only speculation, but one that fits less cosily into your conclusions, of course. In fact, we'll never know what motivated Shipman because he killed himself in prison without ever telling us.

I think it's really a little pointless to speculate on the motives of such killers. Anything and everything could be the truth there and you can pretty much find any 'facts' in the media or on the web to support any theory you care to make them fit. Unless it comes from the horse's mouth, as data it's really fairly useless.

I'm also a little dubious about your data collection methods. Which do seem to be a little selective. There are plenty of incidents of violence against males out there. Here in the UK, for example, statistically young males are more likely to be the victims of random violence than women. I think it's a mistake to rely on the media for any meaningful data on such a subject. They have their own agenda in focusing more on violence against women than men. I think this is a much more complex matter than your post suggests and that you'd have to really delve into the statistical information on both male and female violence and do some deep, solid research before you could reach anywhere near a meaningful conclusion in either direction. You may well find that your conclusions are actually correct. Equally, you could find that they aren't. But I don't think you can tell either way based on the kind of speculative, anacdotal data you have in your post.

Really though, I have to say that, personally, I don't care whether those kids in the Amish school were girls or boys. They were children, who didn't deserve their fate. It was a tragedy and an atrocity, whatever their gender.

LabRat

My point is, LabRat, that men are killing women. Yes, men are killing men, too, to be sure. Jews are killing Jews, blacks are killing blacks, whites are killing whites, and homosexual people are killing other homosexuals.

However, when non-Jews are killing Jews (or in some cases vice versa), or whites are killing blacks (or vice versa), or heterosexual people are killing homosexuals, we tend to call that hate crimes. Why don't we call it a hate crime when men are killing women?

Is it unnecessary to discuss these things? LabRat, do you honestly think that it is unnecessary or even undesirable to discuss the fact that so many of the "random" killings of people, particularly schoolchildren, mostly kill girls?

As for that Dunblane incident, are you truly telling me that it was sheer coincidence that Thomas Hamilton killed more than twice as many girls than boys, and that the most severely injured child was a girl while the only uninjured child was a boy? Yes, it may well have been reported that the killings were completely random. So do you believe that they were?

Am I crossing a line when I'm saying that we should be worried about the fact that men are using so much violence on women? Am I wrong to say that we should pay attention to the fact that the little Amish children who were killed were all girls? Am I out of line when I say that men unleash their rage specifically on girls or women when they go on a rampage, and that there is something deeply worrying about the fact that not only females but often especially helpless females (very young girls, old women) become the preferred targets when men want to vent their fury?

Today I saw an article about race crimes in Russia. Recently two nine-year-old children were attacked in separate incidents, one of them killed and the other one severely injured, in what was described as racist attacks. Guess what? The children who were attacked were both girls. I'm sure that was sheer coincidence. Then again, we all know that racist crimes are hate crimes, and as such, they are particularly vile and dangerous and should be specifically targeted by the legal system as well as by society in general. Of course, we stubbornly refuse to call gynecide committed by men by the same name, and therefore we don't have to worry about these crimes. I'm sure men's violence against women are a kind of random acts of nature, like hurricanes or flashes of lightning, and they are equally unnecessary to discuss.

Ann

I suppose all violence committed by one person against another is a "hate" crime. Nevertheless, in North American women do seem to be more often the innocent victims than men are. And, on the flip side, most of the perpetrators are men.

Why is this?

Because men are genetically wired to be more violent than women? (and please, I'm not saying all men are violent or that no women are - Stephen Lewis may be a saint while Kelly Ellard is not ).

Because as far as we have come in the last hundred years, North America is still not culturally and economically a society in which women are equal to men?

Because North American pop culture, that great teacher of us all , still too often portrays women as consumer goods - status symbols and then ultimately replaceable, disposable goods (Lois Lane, anyone )

Because girls are more likely to have been conditioned to be less assertive than boys and so are more likely to become victims of violence?

Because our North American economy is so competitve than many men are marginalized and displace their feelings of humilaition through actions against women, whether that be in misogynist pop lyrics or sexual assault or serial murders or...

Because in a lot of ways woman enable men to do these things - many women turn a blind eye, or cheer on those cultural activities that marginalize women?

Because many religions regard women as not equal to men?

Because most women are physically weaker than men and rogue (avoiding the term "loony" here ) males are subconsciously selecting the 'sure thing' (like schoolyard bullies)

Because guns are phallic symbols and well, if you're feeling sexually inadequate or impotent...?

or a combination of all of the above plus things i haven't even mentioned? And the horror continues.

... so to bring this back to a really very trivial, but mbs related topic --and thus Lois Lane is a lot more important than just a woman in Clark Kent's life.

Still, why is that men who are pyscholgically unstable are statistically far more likely to act out in the terrifying ways we've seen at Dawson or in Pennsylvannia than women?

c (who is reminded, too, of that old statistical guideline:
Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, thrice is a pattern )

TOC, I would like to say that I love your passion and this board would loose about a third of it’s appeal without you, so please don’t hit me too hard.

Are you aware that men’s violence against other men far outstrips men’s violence against women? If anything women gets preferential treatment.
I have yet hear a man boast about kicking the crap out of a woman, but other men many times. It’s perfectly acceptable. I don’t know a man that haven’t taken a beating.
In fact, by singling out women victims aren’t you saying that male victims of violence are less important?

This is about bullies, bullies pick their victims from those who are weaker and guess what women are generally weaker then men. It doesn’t necessarily imply misogyny.

And this is what happens in all catastrophe situations, men are conditioned to be decisive, endure pain and their bodies can take more punishment then women, consequently they tend to survive to a greater degree.

Now you might claim it’s discrimination that this sick twisted man didn’t care to molest little boys to the same degree as little girls, but I think that is overstating the case.

Just to touch on the Amish killings a bit. Sorry to get off the tangent of motives and patterns.

But do you know what's really humbling?

The fact that the Amish community is so forgiving, and is reaching out to the shooter's family, comforting them and forgiving the shooter. If only the rest of the world could be so nice.

If the evidence were clear in that direction, then I'd agree wholeheartedly with you, Ann. I'm a feminist. In my previous role as a professor, I specialised in discrimination against women. I'm the last person who'd want to argue that any kind of systematic persecution of women isn't happening.

But I don't see a widespread pattern of women being targeted by male killers. Sure, it happens sometimes. It happened this week. But your data-collection is indeed selective, as LabRat points out.

You addressed this to LabRat, but I'll answer:
Yes, I do believe that it was coincidence. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise. Did you actually read the Dunblane report LabRat pointed you to? Eyewitnesses described the shootings as completely random. Please, drop the blinkers and look at the facts of this one.

If the fact that twice as many girls as boys were murdered in Dunblane primary school is supposed to be indicative of a deliberate intent to rid the world of women, then what do you make of the Columbine High School massacre ? Twelve pupils murdered by two other pupils; eight were boys and four were girls. Is this evidence of systematic men-against-men violence?

I can be selective to, if I want, and I could choose to look at the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002. Fifteen people shot: nine men and six women. Twelve fatalities, eight men and four women. Snipers don't shoot randomly; they line up their shots. So they knew who they were shooting at, unlike Hamilton, who fired indiscriminately.

I don't see a pattern of violent men trying to eradicate the world of women, Ann, though I agree with you that some serial killers have followed that pattern. You don't mention Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper - in his case the motive was sexual violence. You don't mention Fred West , at whose house in 1994 the bodies - some dismembered - of several young women recorded as missing were discovered. The motive, again, was sexual violence. Though, in West's case, his wife Rose was also complicit.

I do see gender-related patterns that cause me grave concern and that need to be researched and prevented, but those are different patterns.

• The vast majority of murderers, especially serial killers, are men. So why is that? Why are men more likely to be violent than women, and what can be done to combat that?
• The majority of violent crime is committed by men. Again, why is that?
• When women are found guilty of horrendous crimes, they're treated as far, far worse pariahs than men, it seems. Just look at the media reaction in general to Myra Hindley and Karla Homolka , for example. Both committed the murders they were convicted of in association with men - if their version of events is true, in fact they were acting under pressure. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not; but they get the worst of the hate and desire for vengeance directed at them. How many people who recognised those two names could name their male co-accuseds?

So those are the facts that trouble me, Ann. Violence in general. Serial killers in general. That most of them are men. Concentrating selectively on the victims is, I think, looking at the problem in the wrong direction.

Yes, the murders this week are appalling and utterly horrific, and in this case the murderer was motivated by an incident in his past to choose to murder little girls. And that's very sad and very horrible. But the evidence is that it's not part of a typical pattern, and that each case of a serial killer is different. Some are motivated by sexual factors, and in those cases the victims could still be women or men - there've been serial killings for homophobic reasons. Some are motivated by anger against someone in the murderer's past. And sometimes, such as at Dunblane and apparently in Columbine, the victims are random.


Wendy

Both Wendy and Labrat are beginning to convince me that there is no specific problem of male violence against women.

Yes. I am in awe of this - I'm not so sure I could have acted in the same way. The community's compasssion and quiet dignity has been inspiring.

c.

That was not the point of my post, Ann, and I don't believe at any point I claimed you couldn't post your opinion. Of course you can. Just as I have the right to post saying I disagree with your conclusions and pointing out that you have some of your facts wrong, surely?

My point had nothing to do with your right to post a pov. The point I was making was simply this: If I wanted to trawl through the net I could find dozens of reports on random violence against males and I could then produce almost exactly the same post as you did, word for word. The only difference would be that it would prove the opposite conclusion to yours. It's simply that easy to find facts to 'prove' your pov and in essence, therefore, such data means very little in proving anything.

I have no problems with you voicing your opinion. What I have doubts about is the value of the data you're using to support your pov. I'm not claiming there is no such thing as random violence against women. Or that such violence isn't a problem. I do think that you don't do yourself or your opinion justice by using such anacdotal, speculative data. That doesn't give me confidence in your conclusions and I'd be much more impressed if your 'research' was based on something more solid than what you've presented so far.

Out the line? Of course not. Wrong? Absolutely! It is simply not a fact that in every single case of random violence involves men attacking women. Have you heard of the Columbine shootings? Just one example that utterly disproves your statement above. It is this kind of sweeping generalisation that bothers me about your conclusions. Yes, there is a problem in our world with violence against women. I've been known to be incensed by many of them. For example, one of the thing which is truly guaranteed to infuriate me is when a serial rapist is one the loose and the police response is usually to suggest that all women stay indoors after dark until he is caught. (Here's a thought: why not impose an after dark curfew on men till he's caught? After all, it's a man causing the problem, not a woman. Why should their daily lives be curtailed? :rolleyes: ) That one can keep me ranting for days whenever it turns up on TV.

So, trust me, I'm on board with the general thrust of your arguments. My problem is that I think you're devaluing your own argument by using facts and incidents which don't fit your profile of male random violence against women and twisting them or speculating about the motivations which caused them to force them to fit your theory. It would be more valuable in making your point persuasive, imo, if your research was more factually based and less speculative and your statements less sweeping and generalised. The latter never convinced me of anything and are unlikely to.

As a sidenote, I would also reiterate that I find little value in media reports of such incidents. In the last ten years, I've been behind the scenes of several events reported on by newspapers and TV media. From huge, national stories to the inconsequential. In not one instance did they get the facts correct. And I'm not talking exclusively about the big facts, I'm talking about them not even managing to get the small details right like names, dates, locations. I have learned - sometimes bitterly - to go straight to the source on something I read in the papers or see on the news before I get myself worked up about it. And, more often than not, I discover the facts aren't quite what was presented. Often by a huge margin. Whether through the agenda of the reporting source intentionally twisting the facts or just plain incompetance.

So, really, all I'm saying is, if you want to convince me of your conclusions here, then I'm likely to take you seriously far more if you bring me sources like the official Dunblane report than I will if you just cite speculative, sensationalist news stories. Course, that may just be me.

You sound astonished that I would, Ann. Frankly, I'm astonished that you would rather believe the news media than eyewitness statements and official reports! So, yes, I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to disbelieve the sworn testimonies of those who were actually there in the room with the killer during his killing spree. If I'm going to believe anyone, it's going to be them. So, no, I'm not so ready as you apparently are to discount their story. I see absolutely nothing to suggest at all that what they stated was a lie.

Your statement above implies that it is an absolute impossibility that random chance could affect the casuality outcome in a situation where a gunman steps into a room and begins spraying it with bullets, without first pausing to assess exactly who is in the room or focusing on specific targets. Which is quite clearly illogical. And, again, it just gives me the impression that you are determined to prove your own conclusions by any means whatsoever, even if it means distorting or ignoring facts and evidence which inconveniently get in the way of them.

This is going to be my last post on this one. I don't really have much of an interest in debating it and I think now that I've made my pov clear, I'll leave it at that.

LabRat

Well, you made me break my vow, Carol. But I have to respond to this because it's such a huge distortion of my first post that I'm disappointed in you. Just because I can see - based on scientific, factual evidence and logic - that we have a problem with random violence against males and females, regardless of the percentages of who gets beat up on most, :rolleyes: (it's not a contest, people, they're all victims, no matter what their gender) and can deplore all of it does not lead to an automatic conclusion that I discount violence on women exists.

Now, this really is my last post.

Absolutely, Carol. Amazing, difficult to conceive of given the tragedy they're dealing with, but an example for us all.


Wendy

This doesn't have a lot to do with the current debate, but in regards to the Amish, I read a wonderful book that was all about the Amish. It's called Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult. You get a wonderful view of what their daily lives are like. It's about a woman who is forced to live in an Amish community while preparing a defense for her Amish client. There are so many aspects of Amish life that are portrayed. Jodi Picoult is a fabulous writer. And there's a small love story on the side.

But with the recent tragedy, not too far from where I'm at actually, I understand how they can be so forgiving towards the man that just murdered members of their families. I don't think I could be so forgiving, and the fact they their entire community can...it really humbles me.

I would highly recommend any of Jodi Picoult's books, the first being The Pact. But Plain Truth was definitely my second favorite.

~Kristen