Britain's Sadness Proves There Is A War On Women. Literally.

in #news7 years ago

Last night, in Britain, a terrorist of currently unknown affiliation killed at least 22 people.
Most of whom were children.
This concert, given by a singer who specializes in songs marketed to teenage girls, was attended primarily by preteen and teenage girls.
It might come out that this (male) bomber was an ISIS terrorist. There are any number of other groups he could be from (the IRA, for instance, or, I imagine, just about any splinter or factional group in any former British colony).
But what I can't get over is that his targets were specifically teenage girls. Whatever the other motivation, this attack is clearly a sex-based crime meant to intimidate and control the most vulnerable in British society.
It's no secret that invading armies often rape, capture and enslave the women (read, usually, teenage girls) of a conquered people. This is done less for the sexual aspect and more for the power dynamics. The object is the humiliation of the enemy (male) forces. It is the patriarchy, through and through, but do not underestimate the humiliating power of this act.
Someone wanted to prove they could strike British society in the place where the Patriarchy says should hurt the most.
To someone, of currently unknown affiliation, this attack is meant to be more humiliating and more terrifying than 9/11. Theoretically, had the explosives been big enough, the body count could have been just as high as well.
Which is why the only time in recent history I've cried while reading the news was reading the Queen's statement. I doubt I would have teared up if England still had a King (ironically, Britain also has a female prime minister, making the symbolism of the attack even more stark). A woman who remembers the last round of Nazis and the far-right, the terrorist bombings of the IRA, the long capitalist-communist proxy wars. And now, as her aging husband retires and everyone knows she only has a few years left to reign, she is writing consoling the world about an attack meant to strike the very core of our belief in governments to protect us.
To those who are about to complain that no one talks about non-white, non-Western terror, I will only say that although my strange, strange internet prevented me from posting, I'd been meaning to write up something about the return of the Chibok schoolchildren. I view that atrocity as part and parcel of this same, now quite literal, war on women