By Amalia Theocharidou,
While the whole world is trying to move on and educate ourselves to prevent more incidents like this, we are shocked by the heart-breaking news of another tragic femicide. As society seems to be taking one step forward and two steps back, it is important to highlight the golden million-dollar question, “Educate the sons or protect our daughters”?
The UK woke up to some devastating news some days ago regarding the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl, stabbed to death with a machete by another classmate during an argument regarding whether she’d accept his flowers just a bit away from their school. Still, in her school uniform of Old Palace of John Whitgift, the girl awaited the bus when a seventeen-year-old boy approached her with a bouquet asking her to accept his feelings for her. That is the moment where the testimonies of the witnesses differ. Some said she simply rejected his flowers while others mentioned she didn’t want to see him anymore and broke up with him the day before. The bus driver and some pedestrians tried to save the girl’s life but to no avail. The police are investigating the arrest of the seventeen-year-old while in constant dialogue with the victim’s family (Strudwick, 2023).
Unraveling the case, one comes across a series of disturbing facts. To begin with, the tragic and condemnable fact of murder. Behind that, the abuser’s psychology. The pure happening of a teenager packing up a knife resembling a sword as a witness shared, it’s enough to make one worry. What might have been going on in the head of the seventeen-year-old offender to think that the answer to a ‘no’ is murder? According to Psychology Today, an abuser might be controlled by his need for ego and lack of self-esteem (Kim, 2014). But how much is the society contributing to this? How much condemnation and awareness there is for men or boys and what made them think packing a weapon in case of a negative response is a logical outcome?
We all hear the phrase “protect your daughters”, “teach them martial arts”, and “teach them how to behave”. But what about the sons? Society has maintained enough of the stereotype of weak-willed women, always in need of male protection. As the world supposedly moves to more liberated and modern eras, it is only right to wonder for how long the weight of learning and mind will still be falling on the girls and when people will realize educating boys will have such an even greater impact.
References
- Kim, J. (2014, October 8). Why He Hits: The Psychology of an Abuser. Available here
- Strudwick, J. F. (2023, September 27). Croydon stabbing: Teenage boy knifed girl, 15, to death ‘with a machete after an argument that began with him trying to give her flowers’ on bus to her £19,350-a-year private school. Available here
