Today is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women in Canada, an annual event to honor the victims of mass murderer Marc Lépine, who gunned down fourteen women at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. Lepine, driven by a poisonous misogynist ideology, specifically targeted women, yelling “I hate feminists” before opening fire on one classroom of female students.
Reading over his suicide-note-cum-manifesto today, I was struck again by how, well, familiar it all sounded. While only a few MRAs have explicitly celebrated Lepine as a hero, his views on women and feminism would not be out of place on most Men’s Rights forums. Here’s Lepine, in his own words. (I’ve broken the wall of text into shorter paragraphs.)
[T]he feminists always have a talent for enraging me.
They want to retain the advantages of being women (e.g. cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceded by a preventive leave) while trying to grab those of the men. … They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. …
Thus, the other day, people were honoring the Canadian men and women who fought at the frontlines during the world wars. How does this sit with the fact that women were not authorized to go to the frontline at the time??? Will we hear of Caesar’s female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50 per cent of history’s ranks, although they never existed?
I’ve seen complaints virtually identical to these — I hesitate to call them arguments — reiterated many times over on places like A Voice for Men and the Men’s Rights subreddit.
Speaking of the Men’s Rights subreddit, here’s how the regulars there honored the victims of the massacre today: someone posted a message that today was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (this is actually a different day, in November), and, well, this is some of what ensued.
MRB2012 gave us the quote in my headline:
![MRB2012 8 points 6 hours ago (12|4) Her explanation included how it all started with how a bunch of people who were labeled feminist were shot. This is a reference to the mass shooting committed by Mark Lepine. Most murder victims are actually male, but because of this one guy who targeted women we're all supposed to cry about how hard it is to be female. permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]enzikio 2 points 3 hours ago (2|0) I didn't know about Marc Lepine until your post, but it looks like his page was updated with a feminist slant with this great quote A few men's rights activists seek to rehabilitate Lépine as hero of the anti-feminist cause. A look at the sources are a joke. They all appear to reference a single person who apparently made some comments that agreed with what Marc Lepine did. No where do their sources rise to the evidence of the quote above. permalink source save parent give gold [–]muttmonster 1 point 6 hours ago (2|1) Isn't that also the guy who yelled, "I hate feminists"? permalink source save parent give gold [–]darklycan51 -3 points 4 hours ago (5|8) To be fair there's some times i've considered doing that to feminists... lol](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/mrblepine.png?resize=519%2C525&ssl=1)
7Vega worried that awareness about violence against women was taking up too much of everyone’s time.
![7Vega 11 points 6 hours ago (14|3) How many fucking days do we have for violence against women? permalink source save give gold hide child comments [–]muttmonster 6 points 6 hours ago (7|1) Yeah, I swear we just had one, and that's why google had a black ribbon on it's page. And they also use a white ribbon for the same thing? permalink source save parent give gold [–]7Vega 4 points 6 hours ago (7|3) Soon all colors will be associated with violence against women.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/vega.png?resize=505%2C257&ssl=1)
And JohnKimble suggested that violence against women is really all their fault anyway.
The greatest human rights movement of the 21st century, folks.
Huckleberry is adorbs!
auggz – you know it gets worse than them saying Western women should shut up, they could be in India. MRAs have complained (on AVfM, I think) about how bad it is for men in India. They complain about how hard feminism makes life for men there.
The country identified by non-misogynists as the worst place in the world to be a girl or woman, but MRAs think it’s the men who are being oppressed by women there.
Podkayne, it’s from an earlier year.
Yes. Its really sad you may get arrested for raping your wife.
Thats sad.
auggz – word. The idea that India is a terrible place for men, because of feminazis, just boggles the mind, and totally gives the lie to the idea of “moderate” MRAs.
Don’t forget Saudi Arabia! Which according to our friend Bloody Stupid Martin is a feminist paradise.
Though not as much a feminist paradise as Antarctica. Because penguins.
RE: Tulgey Logger
*I’ve no idea how Google used the black ribbon, but according to wikipedia it is used for transgender hate crimes awareness. Great job ignoring transgender people, Men’s Human Rights Activism Activists.
Transgender Day of Remembrance wasn’t that long ago. Perhaps that’s what it’s about? And sadly most trans folks who get murdered are poor women of color. So yeah, it is involved with violence against women… beeeecause those are who usually get attacked. Shocking, I know.
No trans is not what its about.
Women have been murdered raped and mauled for a long time.
Edit; not limited to that is .
(off-topic, but my email isn’t working for some reason)
Hey, Dave, if you haven’t already, take a look at this article from AVFM: http://www.avoiceformen.com/women/wives-demand-what-the-farce-of-household-equality/ Towards the top, it talks about women originally being required to have sex with their husbands as though that were a good thing. Then, towards the bottom, it puts the term ‘marital rape’ in scare quotes, as though such a thing does not exist. Kinda dubious.
(Just a note, in the second donotlink about Lepine I didn’t see any MRA rhetoric or anti-feminism. It seems the only way the author glorifies him is by casting him as a martyr who showcased “the consequences of societal brainwashing and hypocritical betrayal of long-standing toxic ideologies which have been woven into the very fabric of a diseased culture.” The “toxic ideologies” in this case referring to sexism, Lepine’s presumed motivation being maladjustment to the change. So Lepine is framed as an eye-opening victim but also as a warped perpetrator, not a hero. Of course the few pages I’ve visited on this site certainly say “slightly bonkers” and “pseudo-conspiracy-theory/wannabe magical realist cult/serial killer obsession/poor interpretation of human history,” but not “misogynist.” Correct me if I’m wrong.)
I do think that line in the Wikipedia article one of them mentions has a hint of generalization/unfairness. But the MRAs’ most vocal mouthpieces are certainly not helping their image, so with them I even need to take my own impulse to try to be super fair to everyone with a grain of salt.
The people who are actually taking action to reduce the limiting effect gender roles have on men are the same ones doing it for women. Most who call themselves MRAs reeeeeally don’t seem to get this, at all. It’s most starkly apparent whenever you see someone whining about the same traditional gender roles most feminists are trying to fight.. and then promptly ascribing those gender roles TO feminists. “The worst possible stereotypical example I can think of of a female exploiting female gender constructs to her supposed superficial (often, ‘evolutionary,’ lol) advantage” becomes “feminists.” Like, “feminists are always making me pay for dinner because feminists are too lazy to get a job and just want to buy purses all day, GRAAH!”
Yup, we just want to impregnate ourselves with your used garbage condoms and trap you in a child support scheme so we can realize our nefarious plans to be single mothers who receive a regular moderate sum that almost covers some of childcare AND EAT BON-BONS AND LIVE IN LUXURY ON YOUR DIME FOREVER!! MUAHAHAHAHA! Just as nature intended.
Yes.. what Lepine wrote does sound tragically familiar.. sigh.. If it’s true that “gender shift,” or more accurately poor reactions to it, is responsible for a lot of the anger behind mass shooters (among other things), we really need to pick up the pace and give gender identity a nice new comfortable, flexible, unobtrusive home in the cultural collective unconscious. Tiny tragedies of low self-esteem, misunderstanding, and intolerance happen every day, even if shootings do not.
But thank you for this site, I’m completely addicted.
If I may add my two cents as my first post on this site, I think there might be more to mass shootings than simply “men pissed off at women”. Not that that excuses the men pissed off at women, of course. But sometimes it’s because of economic or educational issues. The modern American school environment can be very “crazy-making”, especially in areas where police officers can beat kids almost to death for violating the dress codes, for example. Also, Americans are losing their capacity for empathy in general, and for young people especially (with all the hatred directed at “millenials”). So, whenever children or teenagers have problems in school, depending on the school, sometimes they’re constantly told that they’re upset over nothing, or that they deserve to be trampled over.
And then there’s the cognitive dissonance: we live in a culture that constantly talks about freedom, but much of our “private” spaces, and sometimes public as well, are not really free (schools included; in fact, the fact that school is compulsory and you’re required to go even though they may not have your best interests in mind is another source of cognitive dissonance). But if we talk about this, we’re usually told we’re crazy.
Now, obviously it doesn’t justify choosing a “shooting” as a response, but does anyone remember R. D. Laing’s the Politics of Experience? According to Laing, if a person is put in a situation where there will be a negative outcome no matter what, he will sometimes “go insane” as a means of making sanity out of an insane situation where no one is acknowledging his experience and reality. This, according to Laing, was the explanation for “schizophrenia.”
Obviously choosing to kill people who did you no wrong is a hideously evil response, but I would caution against assuming all mass shooters simply “hate women”. Some of them were desperate to even have people understand them at all (and in our culture, being told “you don’t understand” is proof that the person saying it is a loser, somehow “beneath” us, and thus we can safely ignore anything they say), and that has nothing to do with anger they may feel at women.
Just my two cents, as my very first post on this website. I apologize if anything I have said has caused offense.
DrVink: I would indeed agree with you, when talking about mass-shootings and mass-killings in general, that the causes are complex and multi-factorial; not the least of which is the moral failing of someone who decides that the solution to all their problems is to murder a bunch of innocent people. However, when talking specifically about Marc Lepine, hatred of women was a big part of his motivation.
In his suicide note, he said:
This was a man who blamed his own failings on women and feminists; and who then took a gun to a school and specifically shot women, with the specific goal of killing as many women as possible. Hatred of women was a big part of his motivation.
There were probably other factors that influenced him. There were probably other things that led to him deciding to pick up a gun and shoot women, rather than, say, post misogynistic screeds on the Internet. But his one over-riding concern, his major motivation, was hatred of women.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Lépine
Exactly, Sparky. And notice who the mass murderers are that MRAs celebrate? Sodini. Lepine. The ones who specifically target women, the ones who blame women for everything about their own horrible selves.
MRAs don’t, as far as I know, particularly gloat over murders like Sandy Hook. They usually find a way to blame women for any man’s actions, but their real heroes are the men who kill women.
aebars, I’m writing about that awful AVFM piece you linked to. Would you like credit in the post?