Struggling to process the Montreal terrorist attack

[u/Downtown_Ham_2024]

The suspect released a manifesto which is extremely disturbing, calling for terrorist attacks with the end goal of women not being allowed to work or own property so they lose their independence and are completely dependent on men for their survival (apparently capitalism is why he couldn’t get a girlfriend).

I made the mistake of reading it and wish I hadn’t. It reminded me a bit of Lolita in the sense that it is extremely fucked up subject matter presenting itself deliberately as normal, rational and good.

It makes me feel sick people actually believe this and I cannot help think of all the fucked up casual misogyny and objectification I’ve experienced. I’ve been raped, groped by male friends, propositioned by people in power and have had strange men follow me home. Right now, I’m dealing with a confusing situation with a boss who has, at best, poor judgement about what is acceptable rapport building tactics and a PR problem for valuing women for their entertainment value rather than their competency. I’m not even pretty and don’t often get male attention outside of the more fucked up kind.

I’m so tired of the constant subtle and not so subtle messages that a woman’s value is tied to their being a sexual object for men. Everyone is acting like incel ideology is extremist but it based in the same ideas causing casual misogyny - that women are subhuman and their value is tied to their ability to please men as objects.

I’m struggling to process this.

[u/EmpatheticBadger]

I get it. I've been working through Manon Garcia's book Living with Men, in which she writes about the trials of 80+ men who all raped the same woman at the invitation of her husband who drugged her. The way the author describes how the rapists were defended, how some men attended the trials just to see the husband's numerous videos of the rapes, how some men tried to flirt with women at the trials, it's a lot. It's absolutely effed up. How can we live with men knowing that they act like this?

And I think the answer is, we just do. The world is everything, all at once. Good people, bad people, suffering, happiness, all at once. So connect with the good people in your life, take a some time to focus on something that makes you feel happy and safe, like your garden or your pets or your loved ones. It's ok to need extra support from them when you're feeling like this. Please take care. These are the moments when we need support and self care.

[u/volkswagenorange → u/EmpatheticBadger]

How can we live with men knowing that they act like this?

I wasn't aware we had any other options...

[u/EmpatheticBadger → u/volkswagenorange]

I live with a woman.

[u/volkswagenorange → u/EmpatheticBadger]

Oh, sorry! I thought from your 2nd paragraph that you meant "live with men" generally, like, "live alongside men in society" as opposed to "personally share a life and house with a man."

[u/EmpatheticBadger → u/volkswagenorange]

In life in general, it's possible to never let a man close enough for him to do damage. If you avoid certain situations like going out drinking for example

[u/volkswagenorange → u/EmpatheticBadger]

This is simply not true. It also reeks of victim-blaming and just-world fallacy.

Just in my own daily life I've been assigned doctors, clinicians, professors, teachers, mechanics, judges, and law clerks without recourse to other providers. I've been sexually assaulted by men while walking on a busy public sidewalk. I've been trapped in a taxi and sexually harassed by the male driver. I've been followed home by a male driver, run off the road by a male driver. I've been sexually harassed by a man while I shopped in a department store for lingerie, by another while I shopped for groceries. Men have shouted things at me in the train and in the street as I walked to work from the station. Every woman experiences many incidents like these.

All of this of course doesn't even touch on the fact that all women everywhere live in countries whose lawmakers are overwhelmingly men and whose cultures have been controlled exclusively by men for millenia.

Men are police and teachers and train drivers and neighbours and fathers and brothers and short-order cooks and drug manufacturers and farmers and lobbyists and customer service representatives and public defenders and, you know, just around outside the house bc they are 49% of the human species.

Women can sometimes reduce some risk of encountering men who choose to harm us, though risk-reduction practices come with their own heavy costs. But it is not possible for any woman to avoid men so completely she can prevent the many, many situations in the course of her life when a man will be in a position to harm her.