A male student stabbed a female student at UCLA (my school, the building across from mine) today. He stabbed her in her THROAT. (WTF to the power of infinity). I remember hearing about a woman getting shot by a man at UC-Irvine a while back, and another instance of a man cutting a woman's throat on another school campus.
This is violence against a woman perpetrated by a young man. As feminists have repeatedly emphasized, we need a modification in the definition of masculinity in our cultures, a redefinition that excludes violence as a positive masculine trait.
This video of Jackson Katz is always good to see at moments like this.
ps. I don't know why in the news excerpt at UCLA's website there is no indication of the victim's gender. Is that positive, negative, or neutral?
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Look, obviously this is a horrific crime, but I see no reason that it need be pegged as an of example of gender issues. This kind of brutal violence is just as prevalent- in fact more prevalent- between men (obviously not on college campuses, but you get the idea).
Canlord, watch the video if you are really interested in an answer.
Which cited no evidence, merely asserted that because a man was violent all men must be violent.
I have yet to see the feminist and progressive sources he rails for provide a falsifiable hypothesis, one which is actually a reasoned and justifiable position, rather then one based upon an attempt to illicit emotional reactions over the evil acts of individuals.
If the hypothesis is that "masculinity" inculcates this violence, then what would be the testable conditions of this theory, how would it be falsifiable?
it isn't masculinity that leads to the violence. It is the idea that women are objects- THINGS that men are allowed to stare at and ogle. It gives them the idea that they can throw us around or even kill us and it doesn't matter because we are "just women"
There really aren't any conditions to test because it's too complicated of a subject.
Chalking this occurrence up to a problem with ideas of masculinity is probably unwise, but that's mainly because it's too narrow of a scope. We live in a society where violence is extremely acceptable. If, for example, the participants in this case were not involved in any sort of gender clash- if whatever led to the attack was a problem that any two people could have regardless of the blend- this is still a country that relies in violent acts to solve problems more often than other "civilized" nations. That guy would have been more likely to stab a male classmate here than elsewhere (though not as likely as a female classmate, obviously- bullies like unchallenging targets).
The treatment of women as objects is a major problem, but more and more violence is occurring because we're treating everyone as objects instead of people. How we conceptualize masculinity is a major factor in that, but there are deeper issues at work.
Rebekah, it is more than objectifying women, because mainstream masculine identity tells men to "not be a woman," and in so doing constructs masculinity / individuality by othering the feminine. I don't believe that we can separate mainstream, misogynist masculine identification from the objectification of women and rid the world of the idea of women as a collective identity (rather than seeing women as being individual human beings) without also creating an acceptable level of feminine traits in a new idea of what it means to be a man. Masculinity must change.
Clearly, your comprehension skills suck.
No one ever says all men are violent. We're merely saying that a culture of hyper-masculinity is breeding ground for men's violence against women, and to each other as well.
When the majority of crimes of violence on women - and other men, are committed by men, clearly we have gender issues as well as a problem with hyper-masculinity.
If we live in a culture of "hyper masculinity", and all men are exposed to that culture, why are the majority of men, not violent?
Further hypermasculinity? Compared to what? We live in one of the least violent times in the worlds history. Even if your hypothesis is true what is your baseline?
Oh Christ, it's Marc.
Just ignore him guys, he has some kind of a vendetta against all men who aren't lapdogs to his particular hyperfeminist worldview.
Again fear mongering. Violent crimes are on a major decline since the 80s. What are the odds of a man becoming a violent murderer vs the odds of a woman? 0.000004% vs 0.000001%? And looking at the perpetrators will there be other differences besides sex? For example I assume most murderes are not privileged peoples and will probably not have had a nice childhood etc.
But of course one can come to simple conclusion if he wants to. So does the fact that mothers are more likely to kill or abuse their children mean that mothers believe children are objects that belong to her? Is there something wrong with feminity, or mothers in particular?
Of course not, as long as you are not twisting every anecdote there is to fit your theory.
You fail, too. Seems like a lot of you MRA's have one thing in common - failures.
Most people who are violent grew up in violent homes, in which they witnessed domestic violence committed on their mothers by their father.
The colleteral damnge of domestic violence, and in this case, men's violence against women and other men, is huge. You can't talk about acts of violence committed upon all people without talking about men's major direct and indrect contribution.
And you are forgetting womens contribution to that violence and brush it off as something only men do.
Is DV a learned behaviour? Yes, there are theories out there (and studies that proove that) that assume that a) witnessing DV and b) being hit increases the likelyhood of becoming an abuser as well. So can we take women out of the equation? No, a good chunk of DV perpetrators are women and most persons hitting their children are women, not men.
Fight violence, not just one kind of it.
And you just did it again. "Men's major contribution" Not some men, not pathological men, all men.
I object to the idea that a man can live his life perfectly, but so long as there is violence somewhere, sometime, he is to blame for it because he is a man.
The odds depend on where you live, of course. In Toronto (where I live) the odds that a man will commit a murder in any given year are 0.0017%, while the odds that a woman will commit a murder in any given year are .00022%. Over a lifetime, ~0.13% of men, and .018% of women will commit a homicide (a bit of an overestimate, since I neglected those who commit more than one).
There is some significance to the fact that most murderers are men, and most murder victims are men. Men are ~seven times as likely to murder someone, and a little over twice as likely to be murdered (Hmm, these are Canadian rates - American men are ~four times as likely to be murdered as American women, and ~nine times as likely to murder someone. Why the distribution of murders is more egalitarian in Canada, I have no idea)
Must be the bears....
That means that 99.87% of men and 99.98% of women in Toronto are not murderers.
Another point, and we can see the stupidity of this whole concept (hypermasculinity -> murder), just think about race. Looking through the data you will find that people of color are more likely to be murderers and more likely to be murdered as well. No we can come to the racist but simple conclusion that poc are more violent than white persons. Of course this has more to do with the worse living conditions and less with race.
I don't understand why you get so defensive. Nobody said it's something inherent to men. It's about how WE as a society DEFINE masculinity. We are not saying men are bad! we are saying that the way we choose to define masculinity is not right. and we need to redefine it. because what we have right now causes a lot of problems for men, and for women.
there is nothing wrong with doing the same analysis on race.
You're not saying that men are inherently evil, you are just saying that society makes all men evil.
I fail to see why I should care about that difference.
I'm actually not offended at all- it's just that your argument is not convincing and does not hold up under scrutiny. Are men, as a whole, more aggressive than women? Undoubtedly, due to both biological and cultural factors. But despite this wide disparity, as was noted, over 99% of men are *still* not murderers. As was also said, in the Western world we are living in one of the least violent and perhaps *the* most tolerant era in the history of the world, almost anywhere. So while masculinity may emphasize aggression to an extent, the fact that the vast majority of the men do not "succumb to the violence of modern masculinity" makes me think that perhaps modern masculinity is not all that violent.
3 things to keep in mind right now,
one, I don´t hate women (sex realtions are so political one has to use this as a disclaimer (like feminist claiming they don´t hate men)). I have a little sister, a wife and a little daughter. Those are the persons I love the most.
two, I am drunk right now. My bad.
three, I am a foreigner after all, that means my English can be a little akward
Phew, what a long disclaimer lets get to the point.
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Why am I so defensive? Quite simple. First, You don´t know shit about being a man. You are and you will not be able to frame what makes a man. Even most men aren´t able to. Why? Quite simply We are as versatile as women are (maybe even more), there are not just alpha males around. Those different kinds of men are those who define masculinity, not those who theorize about it on the basis of some violent individuals.
Secondly, and now I would like to introduce you to sexism, when a woman commits a horrible crime, we admit that something is wrong with that person. When men commit a horrible crime, we ask ourselves, what is wrong with men.
This just happened here. If you want to go down that road in your pursuit of equality, very well, but don´t be surprised when your own hypocrisy hits you right in the face.
Analysis of criminality by gender and race.
http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/fuzzy.htm