“For I have decided to send Ad Patres[Spanish for “to the fathers”] the feminists who have ruined my life.”
-Marc Lepine, suicide note.
It was the early evening of December 6, 1989; just nineteen day’s before Christmas. The students of Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique were just finishing their classes when a stranger walked into the engineering building. Like a sadistic Santa he carried a Sturm Ruger Mini-14 automatic rifle, knives and bandoleers of ammunition. The stranger was Marc Lepine. At the end of the day he would be dead along with 14 women; leaving a suicide note blaming feminists for his actions. Marc Lepine’s brutal actions are a shocking reality check of the growing number of savage acts done by men towards women.
There has always been a difference between men and women and how both treat each other. You could say the two genders secretly hold a grudge against one another. This grudge will on occasion surface and cause conflict between the two; either in a peaceful matter or violent outburst. What causes this resentment? In the women’s case many feel they do not have the same privileges that men have. On the other hand, some men say that women are now stealing the privileges which were hard enough to attain while competing with their own gender. Stevie Cameron also recognises this and states “Sharing power is not easy for anyone and men do not find it easy to share among themselves, much less with a group of equally talented, able women.” (2) This tension is then the hotbed from which these acts of violence must originate from.
Women are considered by most men to be less physically inclined. Is this true? In the past men have always been the symbols of strength and fortitude, while the women represented the more gentler and timid qualities. This unfair outlook is alive and well in today’s day and age. Although it’s not nearly supported as strongly as it once was it still sits in our subconscious, dictating our actions as a society. For instance, if you took a 18 year old boy and a 18 year old girl, they have a very different set of rules to follow. These rules are set by their parents who make them based on the previous presumptions. So the girl will find it unfair that the boy, who is considered her equal, can go where he wants, when he wants.
Masculinity and femininity are not restricted to two separate and distinct groups. In reality, they are different within themselves, and similar to each other. It is a well-known stereotype that men are tough and strong with no emotions, while women are weak and need to be supported.
Society influences the socioeconomic inequalities between people, which usually results in differing social and cultural norms surrounding violence. These norms might include male dominance over women, while certain cultural norms might support violence and claim it to be a reasonable method to resolve conflicts in neighborhoods. We see this shown in the film because they talk about how violence is a two step process. The first part is the thought that, ‘I have a grievance with someone’, and the second part is that the grievance justifies violence (James et al.,
"Violence against women-it's a men's issue." Jackson Katz:. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
In conclusion, even though our society would like to believe that women have always had equal liberties (with men) in everything they do, we can see this is not the case. Throughout human history, woman has believed she is inferior to man, however, now with our civilization progressing in the women’s right movement everyday, women can finally come to terms with the fact that they are indeed equal to men.
As society has evolved, its morals and ideals have changed along with it. Today it seems that men are dominantly placed on the masculine group where women are subsequently put into a group in which no masculinity is present but only femininity. However, despite the positions set by society, different forms of entertainment and media have intentionally, if not subconsciously implemented their views on gender roles. Grown Ups 2 suggests that men are the Naïve, idiotic, layed-back macho man whereas the women are deemed the most responsible ones but also the ones that are dependent on in a way they would fight for the love of a man.
Particular behaviour and traits are attached with a specified gender. Due to this, the social learning and classification founded on gender are swiftly imbibed into by an individual. Children become aware of the distinction between male and female and definite social responsibility that each gender has to perform in society (Blakemore & hill 2008 , and Goffman 1977 ). Women are often viewed as tender and subtle and men are regarded as more competent to bear pain and rough and tough. Therefore, women are considered as weaker sex. In relationship, the women are the end and men are supposed to be follower or chaser. Women are physically weak and smaller compared to men and physical strength is vested with male realm (Goffman 1977
Montreal, Quebec, Canada-Twenty-seven years on and The Montreal Massacre still stands as the worst mass shooting in the name of misogyny. Shooter Marc Lepine acted his perverse fantasy to punish all of the feminists by killing fourteen nursing students at The École Polytechnique.
...ough group and individual models of deviant behaviour. The patriarchal pedagogy and structures that set the stage for permitting sexual assault to occur historically, still continue today, although in more subtle ways. Women are still seen as the property of men, and are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today's world. Men are usually in power positions, especially of an economic nature, and women are seen as passive. Marxist-feminist and differential identification are two theories that can be used to effectively explicate the cycle of sexualized violence in Canadian society today. In order to deal with the occurrence of sexual assault in our society, we must examine its causes more deeply. We must understand the sociology of sexualized violence in order to effectively explicate its groups and individual dynamics.
Women belong in the kitchen, and men only care about sex. These are examples of stereotypes of men and women that people continue to joke around about. According to the 5th Edition of Child Development by Berk, L., some personality traits regarded as stereotypical for men are active, aggressive, competitive, dominant, superior, self-confident and independent. Women are stereotypically considerate, emotional, gentle, kind, passive, and home-oriented. They also like children and always devote themselves to others. When people first read the list, some are probably thinking, “This is so accurate, what’s wrong with it?” However, these people don’t realize that yes, a man can be dominant and a woman can be passive, but it is also possible for it to be the other way around. A man can be as home-oriented as any woman, and a woman can be as independent as any man.
On December 6th 1989, 14 female students who were studying Engineering in Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal were shot by a man named Marc Lepin. Reportedly before he starting his killing he yelled, “I hate feminists!”. It’s afflictive to know that if these 14 women were still alive they would’ve, without a doubt, be successful engineers, maybe even have families of their own. Not only did Marc Lepin murder 14 women but he also injured 10 women and 4 men. When the police arrived outside Marc went on a rampage and started shooting and stabbing most of the women he saw, he then committed suicide.
Sociologists try to explain it, so do criminologists, theologizes, politicians and world historians, but the resulting message is clear, and that message is that females are not alien to committing violent acts. In recent years, women have committed some of the most heinous crimes. Darlie Routier killed her two sons for reasons blamed on personal economics. Diane Downs killed one of her three children (she tried to kill all of them) in order to win back a lover who didn't want kids. Susan Smith drowned her boys in a neighborhood lake because her boyfriend did not want the responsibility of raising some other man's children. Karla Homolka and husband Paul Bernardo sexually assaulted, tortured and killed several young women for thrills.
Gender-based violence is made possible by the ideology of sexism in Indian traditional culture which argues that women are worth less than men in the sense of having less power, status, privilege, and access to resources that is more prevalent in middle class and low caste families.
Society has always felt that there was an imbalance between genders and this imbalance can include double standards. Double standards range anywhere from sexuality to how you act and whether you are a typical male or female. These double standards affect both genders but it tends to affect women more. As time has gone by society has evolved and accepted certain changes like women are allowed to work full time and men can stay at home but one of the biggest problems hasn’t been addressed yet. Although women are gaining new freedoms there are still repercussions for being more sexual than a male or more aggressive although some believe that it is just a stereotype.
In order to tackle the issue of gender based violence, one must first understand the root of the issue. According to Peterson and Runyan, gender refers to the socially learned behavior and expectations that distinguish between masculinity and femininity. However, sex identity is known as the genetic and anatomical characteristics. Meanwhile, socially learned gender is an acquired identity gained through performing predetermined gender roles. Understandably, Society places different values on masculine and feminine behaviors. Gender has now become the basis for relations of inequality and is a powerful lens that we all use to experience and organize reality.
The differences between women and men are not solely biological. Our society’s culture has established a set of unwritten cultural laws of how each gender should act, or in other words society has ascribed a stereotype. Men’s gender identity has been one of masculinity, and masculinity is defined as referring to a man or things described as manly. What does manly mean though? Is a male manly if he is “Mr. Fix-it”, or the jock, or if he sits on the couch on Sunday watching football? This latter statement is a stereotype of men, that has been around for decades, and is current as well, but starting with the 1960’s a man’s role started to change, despite the stereotype not changing to accommodate it. For the past 40 years one can see how men have taken on roles stereotypically ascribed to women, such roles including being the “stay-at-home mom”, which we can find an excellent example of in the 1980’s film “Mr.