Dying for an Education

Oct. 2 - West Nickel Mines Amish School, Pennsylvania: 5 girls wounded, 5 girls executed
Sept. 27 - Platte Canyon High School, Colorado: 6 young women molested, 1 young woman killed
Sept. 13 - Dawson College, Quebec: 19 students wounded, 1 young woman killed

Do shootings take place in schools because they are convenient gathering spots to trap, assault, and murder women?

Are the Misogynist Alienated Men who commit these murders specifically enraged at the thought of women learning, as was the case with the 1989 Montreal Massacre?

With N. American papers flooded with images of mourning and sensational tragedy, it's easy to forget that educating girls is a global crisis. From the remnants of the Taliban regime to the child-headed households of an Africa devastated by AIDS, girls are punished for or prevented and forbidden from seeking an education, or are simply neglected by the national administration for various reasons (as is the case in many African nations--in which getting both girls and boys to school is an emergency).

How can we talk about these "senseless" murders in a productive way? Is senseless even the right word, or would systematic be more appropriate?
What about these suicidal misogynist alienated men? Where do they come from, what creates them? There is much that separates the life-circumstances of the three predators. It's no longer vampire-website frequenting, knife/gun loving, mohawked rejects (as the media, with typical over-simplification describes the usual murderers), but grown men with unacceptable sexual urges and a death wish. There is more at work here than a hatred of girls, or of schools and all that they represent.

My aim with the target-girl image I've created is to engage communities in a dialogue, or rather a heteroglossic exchange. I'm interested in more than two viewpoints/speakers. My first emotions were more in the "it's impossible to even talk about this. we all agree. we all agree that these things should not happen. why discuss? what is there to say?" But now I think it's the only way I can deal with the reality of living with the systematic hatred and sexualization of women, of girls.

Contact me at public.worx@gmail.com to participate in this heteroglossic exchange. If there is enough response, and I seriously hope there is, I will start a discussion forum through gmail to foster more conversations.

in solidarity,
creating communities of resistance,
Michelle