Degraded and Deadly
There's the school of thought led by those who believe that women are able to forestall unwanted attention of a truly serious nature leading to harassment at best, and violence and rape at worst - if only they would dress modestly and not draw the attention of men to themselves. And then there's the opposite school of thought that holds that irrespective of how modestly women dress, inclusive of their immature or advanced age, they will still inevitably draw attention that will imperil their safety from a certain stratum of males.
Women insist that they should be able to dress however they wish, however fits their mode of personal expression at any given time, be it with concealing layers of clothing, or removing layers and presenting themselves half-clad, given weather conditions. They're perfectly right. It shouldn't matter at all how women dress, whether this relates to their being safe within society, or conversely unsafe. The reality is, however, that dressing flamboyantly or piquantly does draw attention.
It's meant to draw attention to the wearer, although most women would claim that they're dressing to please themselves, not onlookers. Trouble is, if the onlooker feels that women are being deliberately provocative, and how they dress and how they look as a result of how they are dressed equals an invitation this is considered by many to be a valid argument. So men of a truly brutish or ignorant or aggressive or criminal persuasion feel compelled to respond to what they contend must be an invitation.
The world is comprised, after all, of a vast multitude of opinions and conclusions residing in some bright brains and a good many dull ones. Here's what a 63-year-old man, a former convict, who spent time in prison for a variety of criminal acts, ranging from armed robbery to murder, said to a 55-year-old woman whom he had abducted off the street in daylight as she was walking to her car at a Moncton mall parking lot: "What are you doing dressing the way you are dressing?"
He was angry, when he looked at her driver's license, and saw her age. He had forced her, at knifepoint, to accompany him to a room in the basement of a rooming house where he tied her hands, placed duct tape over her mouth and began verbally threatening her. "You're with the devil. I've done it all, murdered people, robbed banks, gotten rid of bodies", preparing her for what he proposed was life with him, as his sex slave.
She was held captive for 26 days and repeatedly sexually assaulted during that time. She was warned by her captor, Romeo Cormier, that he intended to kill her if he caught her attempting to escape. If he was going back to prison, he said, he might as well just kill her, since in prison respect is given to murderers by other inmates. During the time of her captivity the abductor watched television news coverage of the woman's abduction.
She was married, had grown daughters, one of whom was expecting a child of her own, and her family was frantic with worry over her absence, never able to imagine what had happened to absent their mother and wife from their lives. Seeing her family members on television strengthened the woman's resolve to somehow escape her abductor-rapist. On one occasion when he had tied her up a trifle carelessly, she was able to free herself in his absence, and fled the house wearing underwear, socks and a tee-shirt.
She stopped on the street directly in front of an oncoming Purolator truck, and frantically poured out her story to the driver. Who reached to take her hand, to comfort and calm her as he drove her to a police station. He told her everything would be all right. And, eventually, it was. But not even the kindness of a Purolator truck driver, who did his utmost to restore calm and confidence to the middle-aged woman would be able to banish future nightmares from this woman's mind.
Had she dressed less casually, less revealingly, less provocatively, would this man not have targeted her? Would she then never have heard the words: "Stop screaming or I'll drive this knife right through you"?
A woman named her newborn son Romeo. This was not the Romeo of legend. This Romeo is a degenerate monster.
Women insist that they should be able to dress however they wish, however fits their mode of personal expression at any given time, be it with concealing layers of clothing, or removing layers and presenting themselves half-clad, given weather conditions. They're perfectly right. It shouldn't matter at all how women dress, whether this relates to their being safe within society, or conversely unsafe. The reality is, however, that dressing flamboyantly or piquantly does draw attention.
It's meant to draw attention to the wearer, although most women would claim that they're dressing to please themselves, not onlookers. Trouble is, if the onlooker feels that women are being deliberately provocative, and how they dress and how they look as a result of how they are dressed equals an invitation this is considered by many to be a valid argument. So men of a truly brutish or ignorant or aggressive or criminal persuasion feel compelled to respond to what they contend must be an invitation.
The world is comprised, after all, of a vast multitude of opinions and conclusions residing in some bright brains and a good many dull ones. Here's what a 63-year-old man, a former convict, who spent time in prison for a variety of criminal acts, ranging from armed robbery to murder, said to a 55-year-old woman whom he had abducted off the street in daylight as she was walking to her car at a Moncton mall parking lot: "What are you doing dressing the way you are dressing?"
He was angry, when he looked at her driver's license, and saw her age. He had forced her, at knifepoint, to accompany him to a room in the basement of a rooming house where he tied her hands, placed duct tape over her mouth and began verbally threatening her. "You're with the devil. I've done it all, murdered people, robbed banks, gotten rid of bodies", preparing her for what he proposed was life with him, as his sex slave.
She was held captive for 26 days and repeatedly sexually assaulted during that time. She was warned by her captor, Romeo Cormier, that he intended to kill her if he caught her attempting to escape. If he was going back to prison, he said, he might as well just kill her, since in prison respect is given to murderers by other inmates. During the time of her captivity the abductor watched television news coverage of the woman's abduction.
She was married, had grown daughters, one of whom was expecting a child of her own, and her family was frantic with worry over her absence, never able to imagine what had happened to absent their mother and wife from their lives. Seeing her family members on television strengthened the woman's resolve to somehow escape her abductor-rapist. On one occasion when he had tied her up a trifle carelessly, she was able to free herself in his absence, and fled the house wearing underwear, socks and a tee-shirt.
She stopped on the street directly in front of an oncoming Purolator truck, and frantically poured out her story to the driver. Who reached to take her hand, to comfort and calm her as he drove her to a police station. He told her everything would be all right. And, eventually, it was. But not even the kindness of a Purolator truck driver, who did his utmost to restore calm and confidence to the middle-aged woman would be able to banish future nightmares from this woman's mind.
Had she dressed less casually, less revealingly, less provocatively, would this man not have targeted her? Would she then never have heard the words: "Stop screaming or I'll drive this knife right through you"?
A woman named her newborn son Romeo. This was not the Romeo of legend. This Romeo is a degenerate monster.
About 1,500 people were summoned as potential jurors for the trial of Romeo Jacques Cormier, accused of kidnapping a woman from a Moncton shopping centre parking lot in February 2010.
Photograph by: Video Files, Global Maritimes
Labels: Sexism, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 6:51 PM
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