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Check out Michele Landsberg's column in the Toronto Star, currently posted on the Front Page of Rabble. Here's a sample...

Assaults on women continue while Tories do nothing

Blood, shock, terror and pity — that's what we need, it seems, to be able to keep a subject like "violence against women" in mind. If there are no headlines, no blow-by-blow accounts of the horrors, the issue keeps nose-diving into obscurity. Which suits the provincial government just fine.

This month marked the one-year anniversary of the Gillian Hadley inquest report. (Hadley was murdered by her husband Ralph after she dashed naked into the street, trying to save her infant son.)

By next month, the government is supposed to give an account of itself to the Ontario coroner, listing the actions it has allegedly taken in response to the 58 recommendations of the Hadley inquest jury.

Luckily for the do-nothing, don't-give-a-damn government, the public is somewhat distracted just now. Indeed, the whole subject of "violence against women" has been successfully blurred by government blarney and by determined backlash reporting in the conservative media....

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I'll go read now.

[ 25 February 2003: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

This page includes a transcript of the last will and testiment of Ralph Hadley.

"I have to protect (my son) from evil and the only way that I know how is to be sure in my heart he will be with a loving and craing family... I love him so much that the thought of someone as void of morals, compassion and love as (my wilfe) is more than my mind or my heart can stand."

He goes on to describe how wonderful his mother and sister are and then says, "While I am still able I must save my son from the dardness within Jill."

I am confronted everywhere these days with man's HATRED of women. It seems to sprout out of the "Madonna complex" in that men seem to believe there are two kinds of women. The righteous or the damned.

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How do these world views get started in men? How do they relate to violence against women? How can we have influence in these situations?

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(Personal opinion=ON)

I think that much of it stems from:

a) the fact that boys often aren't socialized the same as girls. They aren't taught to be in touch with their feelings, nor to accept that feelings come from inside of them, and are not an inevitable product of the outside world, so...

b) boys grow up believing that if they're mad, then someone made them mad and if they're sad then someone made them sad, etc. Throw in...

c) boys are taught to affect the world. If someone does something "wrong", take action! Make it "right", and so when they meet a woman who "makes" them mad, sad, etc., and if...

d) boys aren't taught to ask for help. In many ways, but most specific to this topic, they aren't going to ask for help if they're unable to cope or depressed, and so...

e) they lash out. They blame a woman/women for their mental anguish and inability to cope with it, so they do the animal thing.

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I think we also need to be aware of this kind of mindset before it goes over the edge. Clearly men like Ralph Hadley or Marc Lepine had huge mental health issues before they ever picked up a gun. How did everyone not notice until it was too late?

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It is unbelievable, isn't it? Maybe it's because men are "supposed" to be crazy, and women are "supposed" to be the reason for that.

I mean if you really listen to the "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em" attitude, it is damn disturbing.

[ 25 February 2003: Message edited by: skadie ]

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This is how you start a thread in the feminist forum, Scott.

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Three people are dead after an apparent murder-suicide in an east end home last night.

Police were called to the house on Knowles Dr., near Morningside Ave. and Finch Ave. E., around 9:30 p.m. after neighbours reported that a screaming teenage girl had come running from the home, bleeding from defensive wounds to her hand.

Inside, they found the lifeless bodies of a man, his common-law wife and the woman’s mother.

Investigators believe the man killed the two women before taking his own life.

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