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4 The Gender of Violence on Campus William F. Pinar Violence sublimates same-sex desire and reinforces paranoid distances between men. At the same time, it terrorizes and subjugates women who are necessary to establish the heterosexuality of the masculine order. —Scott S. Derrick, Mounumental Anxieties [A]n understanding of virtually any aspect of modern Western culture must be, not merely incomplete, but damaged in its central substance to the degree that it does not incorporate a critical analysis of modern homo/ heterosexual definition. —Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet A single event sometimes expresses something telling about the gender of violence on college campuses. The gender of that violence is, in a fundamental sense, masculine, and more specifically, heterosexual, at least as this sexual “preference” is made “compulsory” (Rich, 1980, p. 637) in the current and hegemonic sex/gender system (Butler, 1990). That event, and others I will report momentarily, require those of us committed to higher education as a social democratic and not a narrowly vocational project, to press for the inclusion of women’s and gender studies in general education requirements for all undergraduates , as I will suggest in the final paragraphs of this chapter. The single event to which I refer occurred on December 6, 1989. On that day one Marc Lepine mounted a well-planned aggressive armed assault at the School of Engineering (Ecole Polytechnique) at the University of Montreal. Expressing his rage against women, he killed or injured 14 people with a rifle. After one wounded victim screamed for help, Lepine pulled out his knife and stabbed her repeatedly in the chest until she was dead. Finally he put the muzzle of the rifle against his head, said “Oh shit,” and shot himself. It was the worst mass murder and hate crime against women in Canadian history. Lepine left a suicide note that said: 77 Please note that if I kill myself today 12/06/89 it is not for economic reasons (because I waited until I used up all my financial means even refusing jobs) but for political reasons. Because I decide to send Ad Patres [meaning gathered to the fathers, or simply, dead] the feminists who have always ruined my life. For seven years my life has brought me no joy, and, being utterly weary of the world, I have decided to stop those shrews dead in their tracks. (quoted in Simon, 1996, p. 248) Six months later, Lepine claimed his last victim. Sarto Blais, an engineer who had been at the same school and who could not rid himself of his memories of the killings of his classmates and friends, hanged himself. Seeing no reason to go on living, his parents then committed suicide as well (Simon, 1996). While spectacular, the event is not entirely unique. Violence on campus is not uncommon. In 1993, for instance, students and faculty on American college campuses were victims of 1,353 robberies, 3,224 aggravated assaults, 7,350 motor vehicle thefts, 21,478 burglaries, 466 rapes, and 17 murders. This violence was gendered, much of it directed toward women and sexual minorities. For example, 21% of lesbian and gay students, compared to 5 percent of the total student body, report having been physically attacked (Comstock , 1991). Life on college campuses is not, of course, insulated from life in the nation, including developments in American youth culture. One of the most disturbing developments is the seemingly increasing and often unpredictable violence of young men. In Olivehurst, California, Eric Huston returned to his old high school and killed four people to take revenge on those he held responsible for preparing him for such a “lousy job” with Hewlett-Packard, from which he had just been fired (quoted in Simon, 1996, p. 249). But alumni have not been the main players in this crying game. Students murdered other students and teachers in 1997 in Pearl, Mississippi and West Paducah, Kentucky, in 1998 in Arkansas and Oregon, and in 1999 in Littleton, Colorado and Conyers, Georgia . During 1993, 39% of urban school districts reported a shooting or a knifing , 23% had a drive-by shooting, and 15% reported at least one rape. Most violence in the workplace is committed by white men (Simon, 1996). If the shootings mentioned are any indication, it appears most violence in schools is committed by young men—young white men. Gender differences show up in statistics about handguns and other weapons. Approximately 40% of the boys (and 12% of the girls) in...

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