Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Mass Murderers and Women: What We're Still Not Getting About Virginia Tech

I read the headline. I read the tag line.
Evidence shows that many mass murderers begin and end their rampages with violence against women. With over 30 dead in Virginia, can we finally begin to take the issue seriously?
I figured there was one of two ways this story could go. On the one hand, perhaps some radical nut bag had decided that women were the true catalyst of gun violence and if we exterminated all of them the problem would be solved. I didn't think this was very likely. So I figured this was an article appealing to society to let up on the social taboos against women being sexually promiscuous so that even dorky guys could get laid, blow off some of that penned up energy, and overcome their fears of the opposite sex. But as I read the very first paragraph I found out that in fact the article was taking a third position that had completely blind-sided me.
Of all the lessons contained in the horror at Virginia Tech, the one least likely to be learned has to do with the deadly danger posed by the dismissive way we still view violence against women.
Really? Every guy in my circle of friends could probably name several women for whom they would swear to hunt and kill anyone who dared to lay a finger on them. In reality they would probably just go to the police with them, but the thought is quite real. Yes, quite a dismissive sentiment.

Perhaps the real lesson that will never be learned is that women make men go crazy ape bonkers without even trying. It's terrible. I see myself acting totally irrationally around women I don't even know. It's a male defect. And while we can watch ourselves engaging in this behavior, we can't seem to do a damn thing to stop it. If that guy is a little unhinged in other ways, it can end badly.

To the women of the world, I am sorry. As much as I know you would love to help alleviate this situation, there is nothing you can do. Men will continue to go nuts around women. Even sex is only a temporary solution.

1 comment:

X said...

I think that acting like an irrational fool around women differs on several orders of magnitude from killing a whole bunch of people.

However, when a religion teaches that merely thinking about young womens' nubile perky bodies constitute a sin on the same level as say, murder, then it's not much of a leap for someone brought up in it to jump from one act to the other.

Sin is sin right? So if you're going to hell for committing one, you might as well go nuts.