We see women's bodies as ours to violate. We don't understand their bodies. What we don't understand or can't control frustrates us, and frustration is a good enough excuse for aggression. Forty per cent of the wives who are assaulted begin being accosted during their first pregnancy. That which we don't understand or can't control often leads us to fear.
Fear leads to aggression.
Now they are prey inside the classroom, too. It's too late to find our way through the dark mind of a man who chose to express his feelings with a semi-automatic weapon on the bodies of 14 young women. But we can begin with our own feelings, and recognize that there are ways other than violence to express them. Women have always spoken out against the violence they encounter at home, at school, at work, on the street. Every year they hold rallies and candlelight vigils to demand their right to Take Back The Night.