… an ex-boyfriend or an ex-husband shooting — in cold blood, in a public place, in the middle of the day — a woman who has enraged him. Zinkhan and Morgan. Both remain at large. Zinkhan’s probably dead. Morgan’s walking around terrorizing the Wesleyan neighborhood.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice, more than one-third of women murdered each year are killed by someone they know, most often a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, husband or ex-husband. Men, on the other hand, are only the victims of intimate partner violence 4 percent of the time.
Justin-Jinich was serious about social justice, and particularly involved in protecting women from the sort of violence that killed her:
Friends described Justin-Jinich as witty, smart, and popular and told the Courant that her passions included writing, her work in public health, and women’s issues. She had volunteered at various Planned Parenthood offices in Colorado and Connecticut and had a summer internship lined up on Capitol Hill with a women’s organization.
Justin-Jinich’s friend Leah Lucid, who has known her since freshmen year and was planning to room with her next year, said she had been up past midnight talking in her dorm room the night before. “She’s a really loyal friend; a really loving, passionate person about life and about her friends and family,” Lucid said. “She was the most giving and loving person I have ever known. I’ll remember her loyalty and her warm smile whenever I saw her and her very funny voices she would make with me.”
May 8th, 2009 at 10:42PM
Once upon a time, there was a creature called a gentleman, who learned as a boy that a gentleman does not smack a girl, or a woman, around, let alone shoot a girl or a woman. There may still be a few around, although many went underground after having been snapped at for opening a car door.
Meanwhile, the news in my neighborhood includes the arrest of serial monogamist Drew Peterson, no gentleman, who would like to implement the Henry VIII approach to ridding himself of troublesome spouses.
Counterfactuals are difficult, but could a second-wave feminism that went after male bullying by holding men to the standard implied by "gentleman" have been more effective?