Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Violence and Virginia Tech: It's All About Exerting Power and Control

"No one imagined what he would do."

But someone was scared of him.

Two grown women were scared of him.

In the end, of course, he pointed out that it was all her fault. His first victim's fault. The Virginia Tech massacre shooter thought "his" girl was going out with someone else?

She can't do that. She's "his."

So he shot her.


Like shooting your own dog, is it not? It's yours. You can do what you want with it.

You can do what you want.

He was possessive, obsessive.
There have been suggestions he was obsessed with his first victim, Emily Hilscher, an 18-year-old veterinary sciences student.

Vivacious and popular, Ms Hilscher was shot with a 9mm Glock pistol bought by Cho last month.

It is said he had become "infatuated" with her although there is no indication she even knew him and, it appears, never mentioned him to any close friends.

He'd stalked women before, taken cellphone pics aimed at them from under his desk, sexually harassed them.

Like some rappers, making music that exploits and degrades women. Like some purveyers of porn, making flicks that aren't erotic, just sadistic, making a buck off feeding sick fantasies of cruelty and revenge.

Like some Dominionists, seeking to have women become the actual property of their fathers until they are married off, to become the property of their husbands. Like some "full-quiver" crackpot Talibangelicals who promote thoughtless, random parenthood to fill the world with the unwanted. Like taking a public pervy interest in your child's sexuality (for very religious reasons! it's not about commodity/virginity, really!) if she's female.

Like some radio hosts, shooting off their mouths, calling women "nappy-headed ho's" and "feminazis."

Like some writers who minimized the incident as a "lover's tiff," a "love row," like some VT security people who failed to follow through after the first shootings because it was just a "domestic dispute."

Like some bloggers, demeaning women who object to being objectified and insulted. Bloggers who think being scared of someone is cowardice, not intelligence, especially when it's a grown woman who says she's scared. (Rondo back to sentence 3).

(Oh, say, does this at all remind us of VT females who reported that they felt threatened by this guy, reported it to authorities, but the authorities considered it too trivial to follow up?)

Ask Markos how this sits with him these days:

The night at the mental-health facility came a few weeks after police had been contacted by a female student upset over disturbing e-mails Cho had sent her, said Flinchum, the Tech police chief. The student declined to press charges, and Cho was referred to the university disciplinary system, which took no action because the offense seemed too minor, the chief said.


It's a continuum.

On a very slippery-slidey slope.