Victim-blaming already: “The girl who led to massacre.”
This is the face of the teenage student who may have sparked the biggest gun massacre in US history.
No, that is the face of a girl was murdered. She did not “lead to” or “spark” a killing rampage. Assholes.
Wow. The media will stoop to anything.
It always has to be a woman’s fault, I guess.
wtf. that is not cool at all.
What the ever-living fuckity fucked-up fucking shit is that???
Why is the gender of the shooter never a big deal? I remember seeing a headline that said “kids who kill kids.” Kids do not kill kids. Boys/men kill kids. It is just deplorable that this woman who was murdered is blamed for the actions of her murderer while his gender is a non-issue.
*speechless*
un-be-fucking-lievable.
That Metro.UK headline and its insinuation are just atrocious – and seem reflect a passage that reportedly appears in the shooter’s “manifesto.” According to CNN,
No word on the exact identity of the “you” in question, but it’s yet another perfect example of putting the blame on anyone and everyone else.
The “you” could very well be the ”rich kids,” ”debauchery” and ”deceitful charlatans” on campus that he railed against in that long note the quote comes from. So far, nothing seems to suggest these two were a couple or his rampage had anything to do with her breaking up with him. Other than people’s guesses, I have not found a credible story that actually suggests they ever dated. His rampage seemed to be about killing as many people as possible.
For the Metro.UK to use such a phrase is appalling and disrespectful to this woman (not to mention all the other people he killed). I hate news organizations sometimes.
More disgusting things – some boys at the high school where my mom works with a special ed kid who has to take academic classes, even though she can’t hold a pencil were saying they could do better.
They had AK-47s and no one would be alive when they were done.
Assholes.
They’re in the ‘stupid’ classes – below freshmen levels. Most don’t give a damn, making it hard for those who need help.
The world sucks.
Oh, did you hear there’s going to be a *free* gun giveaway on Thursday in Virginia? Yay, 2nd amendment.
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/?p=577
People suck.
I haven’t seen anything that suggested they dated, but I’ve seen several pieces that suggest she was one of the girls he’d been stalking.
JennaJ — this is my understanding. There are people who were in classes with him, who lived on his floor, who literally never, ever heard the sound of his voice. I find it hard to believe he engaged in any kind of courtship ritual.
Is there a way to contact the paper with our disgust for such a revolting title? It’s hideous, really. And seemingly completely incorrect.
That’s nothing but disgusting. This young woman is a victim. She was the first victim. She didn’t start anything. She didn’t lead to anything. Everything we have learned about the murderer so far suggests that he was a violent and anti-social individual. From what I’ve seen about him from the people who knew him, I don’t buy that he had a girlfriend in any functional sense of the world. Not that it would matter if she were. Not that she’d have done something to “lead to this” if she were. But even that is a stretch. She didn’t do anything to cause this any more than Jodie Foster did anything to get Ronald Reagan shot.
My gf made a telling point: there is no way in hell they’d have printed that headline if it had been about a male stalking/murder victim.
“The boy who led to murder” would be very, very clearly the boy who actually did the murdering.
Goddamn……that is the most horrible possible light to put this in. The dude has serious issues, and it’s this poor girl’s fault? Where is the avenging angel of Hunter Thompson to stomp the nuts off these swine? I only hope nothing like this gets printed/reprinted over here, though I imagine it’s just a matter of time before the same misogynistic forces whip the foul thing out.
Now I’m even sicker to my stomach, which I didn’t think possible.
I’m sure the commenters here know this, but since some are saying she may not have dated him, I feel obliged to state clearly that if she had dated him, it would not in any way explain what he did, let alone excuse it.
Disgusting. Just disgusting. I left a comment, though I doubt it will be posted. Oh, there’s no misogynist bias in the media. Nossiree.
Ugh.
I’m with those who posit this wasn’t actually a girlfriend.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Virginia_Tech_massacre#GirlFriend
I left a comment as well. Not that it will do any good.
I feel very sick and angry about this.
So much for all of the people yesterday who were trying to argue that there was no misogyny involved, no sirree …
Mnem, even with the stuff about the stalker, there are still people saying it can’t involve misogyny. At Pandagon, I think it was, someone said it wasn’t related to misogyny because both men and women were shot in the later incident. Yeah, nevermind the stalking.
It’s sad, but I can’t say it surprises me that they said that.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that this stupid fuck that killed these people was stalking women on campus and harassing them through email.
I made sure to leave a comment about the misogynistic tone of the headline. Yes, disgusting.
Who or what the HELL is Metro.co.uk?
And where are their offices—under a rock?
It’s the face of a woman that launched a thousand ships as opposed to the twp armies of men that fought over a woman because she appeared to be prime poon.
It’s always the woman’s fault for being so gosh darn pretty/ugly/smart/stupid/rich/poor/black/white/virginal/whorish/whatever.
The Metro has yet to publish anyone’s comments, even though more than a few of us here have commented on that thread. So not only are they grossly misogynist, they’re totally unaccountable.
Damn, I wish I had saved my comment.
The Metro is the free paper they hand out on buses and trains in the morning.
It also thinks that women who allow their boyfriends to take semi-naked and naked photos of them are asking for those photos to be published and then use that as proof that they weren’t really raped.
I “love” them. On opposite day.
Imagine if you will, a photograph of a recently murdred man in a news paper captioned “Bob pouting and looking relaxed”. Can’t do, it can you? Me neither.
Fuck..
What’s doubly infuriating is that these “face that launched a thousand ships” lines make the pretense of going for some kind of fairy-tale glorification. Because isn’t that what all women strive for — to be the object of an adoration so strong as to lead to massacres and violence?
Also, if you think the Metro is twisted — check out the blogs that are stating that Clark (the RA) was her boyfriend (racial bashing included)… despite sources that clearly contradict that speculation.
That’s actually right in Metro’s line, the European guys who run the empire have a history of making racist comments.
When the hell will these twits figure out that murdering people is both wrong and against the law, no matter what crap excuse was offered for it?
(Reminds me of the way that people always try to justify rape … “she was drunk/slutty/out late at night/dating creepy men/not carrying a gun” … when the fact is that rape is also wrong and illegal.)
I knew this girl. She went to my school, and since it is so small, everyone knew everyone, so this is a shock to our community. That article that Metro printed pissed me off to no degree. She never dated Cho, and her boyfriend was a high-school sweetheart that she had dated for over a year. I wish that the media wasn’t such asshole and printing drivvel like this.
And I’m sure it’s worth every penny.
I wrote a comment to the article calling them on their obvious sexist victim blaming.
I’ve never, ever heard of an ex-boyfriend being blamed as the spark of a woman’s rampage.
Actually, you’ll find that when a man is the murder, they’ll gender-neutralize the headlines, and when a woman is the murderer, they’ll go insane emphasizing her female status.
watching CNN where the shooter’s roommates were talking about him and weird things they’d heard him say.
something along the lines of ‘he said he could see promiscuity in her eyes’
if it’s true that he’d say things like that… urgh
I’m sick of the world being so f’d up…
Aerik – I posted the following comment. We’ll see if they post one of ours (not holding my breath). I get so tired of these biased headlines – there was one from an AZ publication last week making an inflammatory comment about a female vegan being a child abuser and one the week before that in a UK paper making ridiculously misogynistic innuendos in regards to the whole Gardasil controversy. Happens all the time and they almost never publish your comments.
(My comment to them: I am confused as to why the wording “sparked” is being used. This girl did not “lead” to massacre – she was the first victim of a massacre. How is the first person killed in any way what leads to a crime or sparks it? She did nothing but become the victim of a horrible crime. Did the first child to be shot at Columbine “spark” that massacre? Do the first victims of terrorist acts “lead” to the crimes? The crime is “sparked” by the criminal. Period. )
[...] o led to massacre." Nice to see someone putting the blame where it belongs, huh? (via Feministe) *** Michelle Malkin blames [...]
[...] t the story is more complicated than that, look who gets blamed. (Hat tip, Feministe) This is the face of the teenage student who may have sparked the biggest [...]
Fuckheads.
He hunted her down and murdered her, in her dorm room!
I can’t wrap my head around this… How can someone even dare to suggest that she could have caused, or prevented this?
This is nauseating.
I hate how they used the word “sparked”. As if she hadn’t been killed herself. As if her murder (which was probably the most premedidated among the 32) wasn’t part of the “killing spree”.
This is sick, sick, sick, sick!!!
The only time I’ve ever heard anything like it was when people were questioning Randy Yates’ responsibility for letting his mentally ill wife homeschool six kids. And that was so unusual that it sticks in my mind.
Gross.
Go figure that it only happened the other way around in an extreme case like the Yates one, and anybody with a brain, let alone the husband, would’ve thought she needed help, and definitely needed not to keep getting pregnant when it was making her mentally ill. But even in an open-and-shut case like this where it’s OBVIOUS the girl did nothing except breathe while female to provoke this guy, they can still find a way of making it her fault.
Some days I hate this stupid world. It just gets kind of tiring, seeing this misogynistic framing play out over and over and OVER again, and knowing that it’s just contributing to the next incident.
Actually women do kill as well.
What people seem to miss, is that such a headline conveniently avoids dealing with the real issues. A broken heart doesn’t suffice to send a young man (or woman) on a gun rampage. And without accessible guns there would be less danger of such a rampage.
Furthermore, I doubt anyone goes on such an indiscriminate gun rampage unless they they are disturbed (unless of course they are in the military. Then again, I guess you have to be somewhat disturbed to machine down complete strangers because those are your orders). In this case it’s too late, but disturbed (I mean this litterally) people need help, they don’t need to be ostracised.
The Metro is an absolute rag. It’s owned by the Daily Mail, ffs. Another recent example of its unsurpassable charm and respect for women: http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=27807&in_page_id=7&expand=true#StartComments
I was chilled by the disgusting response of our gutter press. The best description of the feeling of many women (if not many students in general) came from the excelent Jorge Cham’s PhD comic today – link available in the post here:
Blaming the Victiml
I also tried to leave a comment on the Metro site last night. It’s now 11:10 am here in the UK, and none of the comments have been posted. I wonder why.
Sick motherfuckers. I still see no comments but you can email them or write a letter.
http://www.metro.co.uk/contact
Australia’s Daily Telegraph had a similar headline and I’m happy to say a lot of decent people called them on it, although sadly to little effect except getting them to issue some lame-ass non-apology.
as of 7:52 est, they’ve changed the headline – it now reads “Was it an obsession with Emily that drove gunman to kill?” – maybe in response to our comments!
that seems a little better – it puts the focus on his obsession rather than her herself – but i think it’s still both tacky and incredibly cruel.
JP, it doesn’t seem they’re publishing any comments on this story – perhaps the only responsible decision they’ve made in covering it.
Jez, thanks for pointing out that not only men/boys kill. (As Cortney would have us believe from her post #4) Women have and do kill.
Obviously this guy was way off his rocker. The University even tried to get him to go to counseling because of his deranged writings in English class.
I don’t think any rational person would blame this girl either… she’s one of the victims and had nothing to do with this guys dementia. From what I’ve ready they didn’t date but he may have been stalking her and others.
However, I feel compelled to point out that guns are not the issue. Could this guy have killed 32 people with some other kind of weapon? Probably not. Could he have purchased a gun off the street illegally if guns were outlawed? Of course, there are too many in circulation and with a border as porous as ours, guns will always be in this country. A gun is merely a tool, he could have just as easily used explosives in a backpack, a sword/machete… whatever. Sure, the death toll would have been less but would even 1 death be any less of a tragedy? More than likely, this moron would have still killed that young lady and then himself with a lesser weapon. While I feel no pain for him, her loss still would have been a tragedy.
I left a nasty comment, which probably won’t be posted.
When I first read the snippet, before I clicked the link, I thought it was referring to Emily Hilscher’s roommate, who was questioned by police and gave them the information that sent them after Emily’s boyfriend. While the police chased after the boyfriend, the shooter moved on.
I’m glad that the media isn’t blaming her for “giving false leads” yet, although I’m sure eventually they will. I feel so badly for her.
[...] 8.2007
This Explains A Lot
Posted by zuzu @ 12:46 pm
Remember that UK Metro headline blaming one of the Virginia Tech victims for “sparking” [...]
While I agree with the rest of your post re: guns, a gun is not a tool. It is a weapon. You could argue that its a tool when used for hunting, but any other use pretty much falls into the category of “weapon.”
Also:
True… but the rates are very unequal. The following excerpt is from here:
Women commit 15% of all homicides according to this study, and most of those were targetted at spouses, intimate acquaintances, and family members–think about why that may be, especially in light of the fact that most women who are murdered are killed by their spouse or close acquaintance (I have my own suspicions, but have no data to back them up). That also leaves about 85% of all homicides being committed by men–and most of those are against complete strangers or non-intimate acquaintances.
So, the real question is “Why do men commit murder more often and kill people they don’t know well, while women commit murder much less often and generally kill people they know well? And, when women are the victims, why is it most often their spouse or partner (male) that is the killer?”
Cortney’s comment (#4) was only a slight exageration. She’s pretty close to the truth.
Thank you Bolo,
Perhaps I should have ‘validated’ my point with some statistics, but I didn’t figure that they were necessary. It seems obvious to me that women are not usually the ones behind the gun in these school shootings (and apparently in any variety of other violent crimes). The headline I was referring to appeared after the Columbine massacre.
I just thought it was interesting to note how gender is a non-issue in these crimes unless they (media?) need someone other than the shooter to blame. Fascinating.
Mnemosyne: Andrea Yates couldn’t have been homeschooling six kids, because some of them were infants and toddlers. Also, she had five children, not six. And it wasn’t that she was mentally ill and taking care of five kids, it’s that she was doing it with no help whatsoever. Which is a problem even with mentally healthy moms with one or two kids. Childrearing is not a single-person job.
But, yes. Blaming Mr. Yates was highly unusual, and it still wasn’t the same as saying that he “sparked her rampage.” He only caught crap for not taking better care of her, and mostly from feminists.
Secomd paragraph of that is mine, btw. I just can’t work the quote function.
They changed the headline.
But the article is just as bad…
There was a similar headline in daily star yesterday
“beauty who made loner mass killer”
My post on this subject has brought one of the usual male supremecist wankers who frequent my blog out of the woodwork.:
“Most certainly he was ignored, and would have been essentially invisible to females.”
“Men at the bottom of the dominance hierarchy feel excluded from society, and the results can be tragic.”
Yet he can’t see that he is, once again, blaming the victims. His hypothesis seems to be “fuck a nutter, stop a massacre”. I’m tired of arguing with him.
Irresponsible reporting.
SansContrefacon, you are right about one thing… your rates of gun crimes are lower than the US. But, leaving the statement at that doesn’t give a clear picture of the crime in the UK. After the gun ban, gun crimes rose 40% in the 2 years after the ban went into effect. According to the UN, England has a higher crime rate than 16 other countries including the US. Also, gun crimes in the UK have been replaced by knife crimes. Robbery rates are 1.4 times higher in England and Whales than in the US.
Also, there is one other thing to note… in the UK, a murder is not reported just because somebody died. They have to convice a criminal in the case for the death to be reported as a homicide even if it was by gun, knife or other means. This misreporting makes it difficult to get a true apples to apples comparison between the UK and US.
The problem isn’t the weapon, the availability of weapons… it’s the criminal. They will always be around and let’s not forget, as both countries have seen in the not too distant past… a few motivated jerks with some explosives can do more damage than this weenie did.