Lone gunman: Ecole Polytechnique massacre ... why is every man made to feel guilty for it?

Lone gunman: The Ecole Polytechnique massacre was a freak tragedy.
So why is every man made to feel guilty for it?

Barbara Kay, The National Post
Published: Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Seventeen years ago today Marc Lepine killed 14 women and himself at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in Canada's worst mass murder. From this human tragedy of no inherent political significance, a political industry emerged, which produced in the massacre's name: gun control laws, lavish public spending on women's causes, feminist-guided school curricula and a high tolerance for overt misandry.

In the massacre's wake, ideologues elevated Lepine's rampage from a random act by one disaffected individual into the gender equivalent of Kristallnacht or 9/11. A narrative evolved in which every woman became a potential victim of an organized, hate-driven enemy -- like the Nazis or al-Qaeda -- with the massacre as an ominous harbinger of more aggression to come.

Both male and female feminists colluded in promoting the myth of lone killer Lepine as the symbol of all males' innate hostility to women, however dormant it might appear. In a shameful, inflammatory broadside affirming generalized male responsibility, for example, a group called Montreal Men Against Sexism responded to the massacre with self-hating stereotyping inconceivable in the context of a similar crime committed by, say, a black or a Muslim: "Men kill women and children as a proprietary, vengeful and terrorist act ... with the support of a sexist society ... As pro-feminist men, we try to reveal and to end this continuing massacre."

What "continuing massacre"? Women have been subjugated by men throughout history, but organized massacres of women by their own culture's males? Never.

In an equally specious analogy, career arch-feminist Judy Rebick commented: "If [Lepine had] killed 14 Jews, he'd have been seen as ... anti-Semitic." Yes, and rightly so, because anti-Semitism is a historical syndrome involving a litany of actual massacres by organized Jew-haters. But no similar historical record exists of organized women haters or of women-specific massacres.

Such rhetorical duplicity, endlessly replicated, has resulted in harmful social fallout. Amongst other unjust and gender-divisive consequences, the "White Ribbon" educational movement, initiated in 1991 as a direct response to the massacre, and now integrated into more than 100 schools across Canada, sponsors a biased, error-riddled curriculum on domestic violence (read "violence against women by men"). A freak tragedy has thus become the misandric lens through which many Canadian children are taught to perceive gender relations.

Publicly endowed grievance rites like the annual Dec. 6 vigils are inappropriate responses to isolated acts of violence. National mourning ceremonies should consecrate events that have shaped our civic character. Honouring the dead should draw people together -- the whole country, not half -- either to heal historic wounds, acknowledge sacrifices made on all our parts and strengthen our sense of national purpose, or to affirm solidarity in the face of calamities inflicted by a real, external enemy.

The Montreal Massacre commemoration industry, whose emotive effect depends on scapegoating men, is having the opposite effect: For the sins of a few, the nature of half our polity is often falsely maligned, breeding suspicion and hostility in women, needless shame and guilt in all men and boys, and mutual resentment and mistrust between the sexes.

Ritualized violence against women, such as wife beating, bride burnings or honour killings, is a function of retrograde cultural notions of sexual relations. If such abhorrent behaviours were officially tolerated or encouraged here, then politicizing a particularly egregious example would be justified in order to end the practice.

But the complete reverse is the case. Officially and unofficially, virtually to a man and woman, Canadians schooled in our heritage culture utterly repudiate violence against women. Proof lies in the fact that while many gendercides in history have targeted males, none preceding or following the Montreal Massacre in the West has singled out women.

Most people assume Lepine's rage was entirely focused on women. In fact, the perpetually troubled misfit entertained serial and disparate revenge fantasies. An earlier ambition, noted in his suicide note as one of several "projects," was to join the Armed Forces as an officer cadet, gain access to the arsenal and embark on a shooting rampage. In that case, those murdered would have been males, and Marc Lepine, along with his victims -- their names inscribed on a commemorative plaque in the armory perhaps -- would by now have faded from our national memory. Something for Canadian "equality" buffs to ponder at the vigil tonight.

bkay@videotron.ca

I don't feel guilty.
Seeing how it's been reported that Mr. Lepines misogyny was fueled by
his Muslim father.
(see last post at link below)

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/004898.php

Its just men. Testorsterone is eeeeevil. The positive protective role of men in the family is outdated and no longer necessary. All we need in gurly men, like we have in Europestan.There is something eunuch about them.

And when a woman commits violence against a man....man's fault. When a man commits violence against a woman....man's fault. When men commit violence against men, its ....The Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday Night Hockey Show....and so we must make THEM gay!

Socialist Liberal culture SUCKS!!!!!

Some women just need to be conquered with a swingin D_ck,( femino-Nazis.), which is what they secretly want, but others can be loved and respected, if they have the capacity for loyalty and integrity.But we seem to have a rather large infestation of the former as allegedly professional reporters.They all play the same fiddle.

"gun control laws, lavish public spending on women's causes, feminist-guided school curricula and a high tolerance for overt misandry"

More proof that kookiness breeds more kookiness.

There was apparently a whole circle of abuse:
The killer Lepine by his mother who was abused by his father who was abused by ... ???

Other than maybe all violence being more acceptable within the Muslim community, to me, it's a classic example as to why so-called 'domestic violence' is a societal problem rather than a gender-based one.

... or, to the radical feminist 'DV Industry, a heck of a money-maker.

GMMAC,

Great read. Thanks for the ping.

What "continuing massacre"? Women have been subjugated by men throughout history, but organized massacres of women by their own culture's males? Never.

Does not compute!

Mark Lepine was a muslime.

The feminist and anti-gun left have seized on his atrocity to justify anti-male and anti-gun statements, but in fact this piece of pig excrement was just a premature jihadist.

Lepine's father was Muslim but his parents separated when he was 6 or 7 and his mother raised him under her name and in her Catholic faith for the remaining roughly 18 years of his life.

Although it's difficult to find accurate information about him because the bulk of the stuff out there has been spun big time to promote the socio-political agenda of whomever or whatever group is distributing it.

I've never seen any convincing evidence Lepine accepted or even had anything whatsoever to do with his father's religion. The one thing that's indisputable is Lepine was the product of a broken home & a boy who grew up without a father or apparently any other male influence in his life.
To me, that's the primary factor & the one from which I draw my own conclusions.

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