Hypermasculinity

Hypermasculinity for men is seen as 3 main ideas of what a man should believe and how he should act. These include

·         Sexual callus towards women

·         The belief that violence is manly

·         Sees danger as ‘exciting’

From childhood, boys are taught in order for your father to be proud of you, you have to play and be good at sports. This is only the beginning for young boys.
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest, until your good is better and your better is best.”

That quote from Tim Duncan is seen all across the world as ‘motivational’. Although some parents seem to use something motivational such as a quote like that to better their child. Because children are easier to sculpt at a younger age you have the mother and father figure pushing them to their own personal limits just to see how far they go. For example,
A father signs his child up for a baseball team, even if their young boy soon figures out that he doesn’t enjoy that one certain sport it wouldn’t matter. Because boys are told never to quit, to work hard, even if the ball comes flying at them and they seem to get injured, crying would not be a factor anywhere in that. Because to men ‘crying’ aswell as grief, fear, and shame. In whatever context those would fit into, in that situation no emotions can be showed because that ‘makes you a man’. The media only perpetuates this male stereo type in violent video games, movies, and even commercials men are seen as physically strong males who over power women in almost every situation. This creates a false reality for young boys, as well as teenage boys just coming into manhood. When teenagers see criminals on television it shows them in a sense that if you commit crimes you WILL get away with them (for a little while that is) and you will have women flocking to you because of your income of cash whether it be illegal or not. But the reality of it, the most common thing that would come out of crimes is fines and prison time. 

Marc Lepine

December 6^th 1989 was a day in Canadian history that would be remembered for the worst reasons. 45 minutes was all it took for Marc Lepine to end the lives of 14 young female students attending L’Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, and injuring more than 12. On a day that seemed like any other a local Montreal man entered the university carrying a semi –automatic Mini-14 rifle.
What surprised many people is the fact that Lepine only targeted women. When he walked into a full, in-session classroom with males and females he sepeterated the genders and asked the men to leave the room in order to spare them. He then killed 4 women in a line firing left to right while yelling quote “I hate women!” The men standing outside heard the fire and some ran while others froze, unable to move due to the circumstances at hand.
Lepine continued on for another half hour, moving his way up the stairs from classroom to classroom, killing innocent women on the way. After one of the women he shot in classroom 311 proceeded to scream and cry after being shot, Lepine took out a 6-inch hunting knife and proceeded to stab her in the heart.
Minutes after the brutal stabbing, someone in the maze-like university pulled the fire alarm and caused Lepine to panic, point the barrel at his own head, and pull the trigger. Witnesses claimed they saw pieces of his skull shatter onto the floor along with mass amounts of blood. 
A 3 page suicide note was found in his jacket explaining his hatred towards women. In the letter he claimed women were taking the jobs that were ‘rightfully mens’. (In March 1981 he applied for the Canadian Army, but was rejected because he was “unsuitable”) Also that year he applied to the L’Ecole Polytechnique University to be faculty, but didn’t manage to get the job there aswell. The chief of police on the case Pierre Leclair, had to find out the hard way as a father that in the suicide note there was a list of 19 women that Lepine had wanted to kill, and one of them that was successfully followed through with, was Pierre Leclairs daughter Maryse Leclair. 

Although no men were killed in the massacre that day, that doesn’t mean they all walked away unharmed. Along with the 14 murders that happened that day there were over 30 witnesses of the murders. Many of which suffered long term from PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) as well as nightmares every night that ‘years of therapy could never fix’ claimed one of the witnesses.

Sarto Blais, a graduate of the University who was there when the shootings took place hanged himself 8 months after December 6^th. The suicide note left by Sarto pained the hearts of many when he talked about the day that “Lepine took his life away without physically, but emotionally harming him”.  Sarto explained in the letter how he couldn’t continue living his life knowing that he did nothing that day to try and stop the madman who took all the lives of the incredible women he never got the chance to say goodbye to. 3 months after the suicide of Sarto Blais, both parents later on committed suicide as a result of their departed son.

After background checks and interviews were done on Lepine police looked into the Dark past of birth name “Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharb” And found out his hatred for women came from a difficult home life where his father beat him and his mother (who was a nurse) could never help him. The reasons to hate women just escalated after incidents like that.

    

Short and Long term effects of crime

In the law and order episode we watched on Friday, the victim (Harper) had a man come through her unlocked window in the middle of the night, beat her, and then sexually assaulted her.
With crimes like this that happen, the long term effects will sometimes stay with you forever. Whether it’s PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder), or fear and paranoia. In Law and Order Harper was at first angry that the crime happened to her, and after she was re-victimized It brought back the memories she tried to suppress. The short term effects of crime can at the moment can be as bad as long term, and with different types of people the (what could have been) short term effects turn into long term. For example, months after the crime has happened to her, on a checkup police see that she still wears running shoes to bed. That type of paranoia can be carried around with a person for many years. With the crimes that happen a way of dealing with them would be through therapy. Although that doesn’t make the problem go away it’s still a way of dealing with the situation at hand.

June 10^th 1991 in South Lake Tahoe Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped for 18 years in 1991 she was not only raped, but forced to have the children of convicted sex offender Phillip Craig Garrido. Although Garrido had a criminal record of sexual assaults put onto other young women in the year 1976, police failed to see the connections. In August of 2009 Jaycee (otherwise known as “Alissa” from her capturer) was taken into identification when Garrido went to a college because he felt he could cure other sex offenders of their “need”. While Jaycee was in questioning with a security guard from the college she stated that he was a “changed man”, he was “good with children”. Once Garrido confessed to kidnapping her and raping her many years ago, Jaycee Lee Dugard after 18 years couldn’t tell the security her real name.

After being traumatized and tricked for 18 years the Victim did believe that he was an honest man who just wanted to help her. He gave her a name, a place to stay (in his backyard) and although he raped and abused her, he made her believe that it was because she deserved it. Police thought that Jaycee might have had Stockholm syndrome. (Empathy and sympathy aswell as positive feelings towards their capturers).

The long term effects that Jaycee Lee Dugard had to go through were life changing for her. She had 2 daughters from the man who had raped and kidnapped her, and because of that she has to see him in her children every time she looks at them. Jaycee told the media she would never do anything to harm her children and although their father was a terrible man that, that doesn’t mean they have to grow up feeling weak or like they were a mistake. Another long term effect of a kidnapping / sexual assault was that she was away from her family for 19 years and wasn’t able to grow up the way her family had originally intended. Her life was taken from her as a child and she has to live with that for the rest of her life. But Jaycee Lee Dugard decided  to write a book regarding her imprisoned time as a result to show her capturer that he didn’t take her life away from her like she once believed.