Campus Violence and Gender Issues

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Toronto Sun link

A feminist was punched several times in the face after receiving threats regarding her opposition to the Men’s Issues Awareness Society meeting.

Reading the article, it seems like she was an outspoken feminist, and got beaten up, but that the two things are not connected, at least yet. Seems a little premature.

True. Early speculation, but suspicious nonetheless.

I don't see anything that connects either group to the attack. However, having read a number of books on propaganda, can see why one might want to make such a connection.

I'm always weary of anything related to "feminism". You see, I mentally categorize self-proclaimed feminists as one of two things. The first group is the totally legitimate feminists like my older sister (who is a self-proclaimed feminist). These feminists are outraged that women in much of the middle east can't drive, can rarely recieve formal educations and in places such as Iraq can even legally be raped.

They're more concerned with issues abroad than at home because while they recognize that we do not have true gender equality in the united states, there will always be some ignorant people and there's nothing they can do to fix that. However, in many part of the world women are treated as sub-human and their potential is significantly restricted by both laws and societal erxpectations. These are individuals who I feel should call themselves by a different name, but who's values I agree with whole-heartedly.

The second group is what my older sister calls "femi-nazis" (I myself don't like to use the term because most of them are not socialists or white supremacists, the two groups commonly associated with the term "nazi"). These are the "feminists" who have stated that they want to establish a matriarchy wherein males can not vote, run for public offices and can even be owned by females. Whenever my sister and I see "femi-nazis" claiming that males are inferior organisms and should not even exist let alone be aloud to drive or work in any position that would give them some level of influence (such as positions in law enforcement, education or owning a company), she get's very frustrated because she (like most of her social circle) feels that such extreme views debase the words of feminists we consider to be legitimate.

Personally, the only political group I've ever felt comfortable calling myself a part of was the agorists. Agorism is based on something called "the non-aggression principle". Essentially, arorists believe that any action that would force someone to do something they don't want to is unacceptable. In addition, they also believe that attempting to coerce someone into refraining from any activity that does not deprive another human being of life, liberty or personal property is unacceptable.

Basically, if you want to do something that doesn't directly harm anyone (like marying someone of the same sex, smoking pot or owning a grenade launcher) I see no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to do that. There's a bit more to it than that and there are certainly agorist extremists just as there are extremists in any other political group, but the nice thing about agorism is that (unlike feminism) they don't only try to help people that exhibit specific genetic traits.

While feminists primary goal is to help women, and white supremacists primary goal is to help white people, a lot of them just give those groups a bad name. However, agorists just want freedom for all people regardless of what genetic traits they exhibit. Now, there are several problems with agorism. For example, a true agorist system wouldn't allow a government to penalize someone for not paying taxes. Also, there's a bit of a debate as to what constitutes a "human being". It's for that reason that agorists are devided on wether or not abortion should be acceptable. However, I think we should all strive to help humanity as a whole rather than just people of a specific race or sex.

What exactly is "suspicious"?

how about the fact that she didn't know her assailant, but he knew her name and where she lived?

I do think that is a reasonable cause for concern. However, it could be due to a number of things other than her political views. For example, perhaps the person was acting on behalf of another party either for material gain or out of a sense of loyalty to that party.

Another possibility is that it was in fact someone that knows her, but in the haze of adrenaline, she didn't recognize him. The few times I've been in fights, I didn't even notice that I was bleeding 'til afterwords and didn't usually know who the other people involved were until someone else explained what happened to me.

Another possibility is that this whole thing is a PSYOP (psychological operation). Again, I'm quite well read when it comes to propaganda and this seems like an excelent opertunity to "crystalize public opinion". I recognize that this scenario is pretty unlikely, but it's still a very real possibility. After all, every political organization uses some type of propaganda, even the ones that don't have structured "public relations" branches. I'd be lying if I said I've never played a role in designing or distributing material designed to sway public opinion in a specific direction.

On the contrary, if this is exactly what it's been made out to be, this man must have realized at some point just how advantagious this would be for this woman's organization. He's given them publicity, an opertunity to demonize the opposition (and subsequently silence dissent) & of course this would make it easier for them to get away with more aggressive actions in the future.

Tawana Brawley staged her kidnapping/rape with far less to gain than that. She basically just got attention for it whereas this has resulted in real benefits.

Police haven’t said whether the fourth-year student’s campus politics are linked to the attack, but she wrote that her attacker was a man and knew her name.

says she received threats for her support of feminist activities on campus

These two quotes from the article I think are the cause of my suspicion.

The Huffington Post has picked up the story:

Huffington Post

From this article: "We are aware of it, we're not discounting, it but at this point what we do have is an attack on a female from an assailant that appears to be unknown to her," said Const. Steve Koopman.