From: watson@sce.carleton.ca (Stephen Watson)
Subject: Why I did (was Re: Why I will *not* be wearing a white ribbon...*ever*
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: Carleton University
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:49:32 GMT

goid@zooid.guild.ORG (Will Steeves) writes:
[heavily snipped by me (Steve Watson)]

>I was very sad that these women had been the victims of some insane
>anger toward women in general, but when I started to notice that the
>country's mainstream feminist organisations (NACSW, CACSW, WLEAF,
>etc.) were USING this sad event as a method of labelling all those
>with philosophical objections with certain aspects of feminism, as
>*sympathisers* of this raving lunatic (ie., "He killed fourteen
>women, in an 'anti-feminist' rage"), and furthermore, that he was
>*not* insane, but was just acting out "the anger and hatred that all
>men harbour against women," as a message that all men are to some
>degree misognyist and "potentially violent against women," I was
>absolutely INFURIATED!

>My feeling was therefore - let us mourn and remember the victims, NOT
>use them as some sort of propaganda tool in order to send out the

I agree.  And the fact that all this accusatory crap was coming at us
from our "official feminists" made that difficult.  It was like
someone telling me "no, you have no right to mourn", as if I was some
Nazi shedding crocodile tears for the Jews.  And dammit I *wanted* to
mourn, these were my colleagues, these were women like my wife, like
several of my good friends.  And more than that, they were *human*; it
enraged me that someone could hold another person helpless like that,
and coldly murder them (sort of the way I feel about Bosnia right now
but I'd better get off that topic before I start foaming at the mouth
;-( ).  As John Donne wrote (inclusivised): "No one is an island...the
death of any human diminishes me..."

When the first anniversary came by, I don't remember what I did, but I
felt like I ought to observe it in some way.  But, there was nothing,
not even a mention in soc.fem.  Then when the 2nd was coming up, the
white ribbon thing came along, in a very grassroots, unorganized,
spontaneous way, and I latched on to it as the expression I was
looking for.

Well, now the campaign's organized, they've got one of these
pseudo-surveys that's really just a beg-letter (I hated it when
GreenPeace sank that low, I hate it even more now that the idea seems
to have caught on).  I observed it again this year: in my own,
personal way, ignoring a lot of the other things surrounding it.  Next
year, I'll have to think about it.

>message that ALL men are "misogynist to some degree", "potentially
>violent against women" or "potential rapists".  Indeed, THE ONLY
>SURVIVOR (For the life of me, I can't recall her name! - Also, I
>cannot recall whether there were other survivors, but I think that
>she *was* the only one - Can someone confirm or deny this?  Thanks)
>said more or less the same thing, and had felt that the country's
>feminist groups had co-opted the event in some larger agenda which
>she *strongly disagreed with, and felt was counterproductive to the
>aims of greater cooperatio and understanding between men and women.

I vaguely remember the comment you're talking about.  How do you
define "survivor"?  There were lots of other people in the building,
all of whom are "survivors" in some non-trivial sense: there were
~dozen wounded (~half of these were *men*).  Lepine seems to have
spent some time taking pot-shots at anyone moving in the corridor.
Perhaps she's the only one who survived Lepine's "executions" in the
classroom.

>SW> In the days following the massacre, much was said about the
>SW> larger social causes that produce men like Lepine, and about
>SW> societal misogyny in general.  Some of it was a bit extreme
                                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>SW> should perhaps be excused as having been said out of shock and
>SW> grief.

>Indeed!  Some of what was said, WAS extreme, but I would be somewhat
>less willing to forgive some of the more extreme comments about men
>in general, because I consider it as going *way beyond* simple grief,
>and indeed, it just seemed like a good and timely excuse to hurl
>abuse at all men in general.

I agree.  I was being charitable in what I said about the reaction.
The comment that stuck in my mind (and my craw) was something like:
"The fact that none of the men present attempted to stop Lepine proves
that men hate women".  I hope I don't have to explain why that
statement is, at best, idiotic, and, at worst,
beneath-contempt-dancing-on-the-graves.  Don't remember who said it.

>violence".  *THAT* clinched it for me - as far as I was concerned,
>this very tragic event had been perverted by (perhaps) well-meaning
>zealots who had turned it into a way of making men feel shame at
>their maleness (if you dispute this, consider how many people you may
>have

 I don't dispute it.

>heard, saying "I'm really ashamed that I'm a white male, because of
>men like Marc Lepine" - I heard a LOT of men saying this, and I
>wanted NO PART WHATSOEVER in their collective class guilt trip,
>because I, as a "white male," had no more part in the Montreal
>Massacre than Jesus Christ had in starting the Inquisition!  -
>forgive my multiple

I agree here as well.  I think there's a fine line to be walked
between accepting collective guilt (a notion I abhor) and taking the
responsibility to do something about a problem over which you, as a
member of a particular group, may have influence not available to
non-members.  I'm not sure I always succeed in walking that line
myself. (But that's a whole topic in itself)

>SW> it simply says: you remember what happened in Montreal three
>SW> years ago, and you want a society in which things like that will
>SW> never happen again.

>I WISH that I could believe that.  If I *could* believe that this is
>ALL that is implied by wearing a white ribbon, I *WOULD*, but I think
>that there is a lot more in it than just that.

Symbols, to the user of them, mean whatever the user chooses them to
mean.  Of course, if a particular symbol becomes widely identified as
meaning something other than what you want to use it for, then you
have to think twice about whether to go on using it. (For e.g.: I have
read that the swastika was once a good-fortune/prosperity symbol.
What would it mean now for me to, say, paint one on my front door?)

Probably I live a sheltered life, but the white ribbon has not (for
me) been thus corrupted - yet.  But as I say, I'll have to think about
it again next fall.

>I still find it unfortunate that such a tragic event as this, has
>been turned into a polemic propaganda circus.

Me too.

>---
>Will Steeves, goid@zooid.guild.org                      "Neil Hull is GOiD"
>ZOOiD BBS, Toronto, Ontario - The Zoo Of Ids            "GOiDS Rule"
>(416) 322-7876


--
==Steve Watson: watson@sce.carleton.ca===Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario==
| The above is the output of a 7th-order Markovian analysis of all posts on   |
| this group for the past month.  Not only is it not Carleton's opinion, it's |
| not even *my* opinion: it's really just a mish-mash of all YOUR opinions!   |

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