In April this year, 20-year-old University of Mary Washington student Grace Mann was found bound and choked to death in her campus residence. This month, so-called “Men’s Rights Activists” are celebrating her death, claiming it “served a purpose.”
While no trial has yet been held to confirm the circumstances behind Mann’s murder, one possibility is that she was killed for her prominent role in feminist activism on the campus in Friedricksburg, Virginia. Mann was a member of the group Feminists United, which published an op-ed in the school paper in January to “expose the insidious misogyny and hatred” on campus.
The most egregious example of this “insidious misogyny” was a violent chant performed by the school’s rugby team at a party last fall. The chant celebrated rape, murder, and necrophilia against “whores.” A male friend of Feminist United president Paige McKinsey managed to record the song, which included the lyrics:
Finally found a whore (Finally found a whore!)
She was right and dead. (She was right and dead!)
Well god damn son of a bitch we’re gonna get it in! (God damn son of a bitch we’re gonna get it in!)Finally got it in (Finally got it in!)
Wiggle it all about (Wiggle it all about!)
God damn son of a bitch I couldn’t get it out (God damn son of a bitch we couldn’t get it out!)Finally got it out (Finally got it out!)
It was red and sore (It was red and sore!)
Moral of the story is never fuck a wh*re!
Feminists United handed over the tape to college administrators who deliberated the matter for four months before acting. They chose to dissolve the entire men’s rugby team indefinitely, and mandated all 46 members of UMW’s Mother’s Rugby attend sexual assault training classes.
Misogyny is not a joke. It is not some hobby horse that “angry women” ride around to piss men off. It killed 18,000 American women in the last 12 years. This means that more women have been killed at the hands of their husbands and boyfriends since 9/11, than Americans died during 9/11, and in all terror attacks and wars since. This year, the country will spend $38bn on Homeland Security, and $598bn on defense. It is estimated that America will spend just $4bn addressing violence against women. It is long overdue that we take violence against women, and the attitudes which promote it, with the seriousness they deserve.