It is a hate-crime
Posted on August 5, 2009
Filed Under Coverage, May I Interject? |
Last night, a gunman shot three women and then killed himself in a Pittsburgh gym. He injured nine other women.
Before he opened fire, George Sodini said, “You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. You’re all a bunch of feminists. I hate feminists.” Officials later discovered his Web site which hosted ramblings detailing how he hated women.
A hate-crime is described as “when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation.”
Though this shooting is specific, some articles have pointed out that even at Virginia Tech and at Columbine, gender was a definite issue.
AP has reported it as a hate-crime.
But that’s not enough… Sexism needs to be brought to light…
Considering it’s Pittsburgh, sexism, the media, and me–
Who knows.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has all the details.
This is a link to his blog, where he wrote sexist and racist comments. Before committing the crime, he already added in his date of death.
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One Response to “It is a hate-crime”
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Regarding Virginia Tech, I guess I don’t get the distinction between hate crime against women and hate crime against *people*; I think that’s my main objection. In any case, yeah, I certainly think it’s a product of sexism and misunderstanding of too-rigid gender roles.
My apologies if my Tweet seemed to minimize those as issues. I can cope with pointing to guns or [lack of] mental health care as causal factors, because those are issues for which I see solutions; I cannot cope with pointing at sexism because I see no easy solution.
Perhaps–as you imply–pointing at sexism *is* part of the solution.