The Real Victim

My students are in urgent need of at least one course in feminist theory. No form of analysis is as difficult for them as the one that has to be conducted through some sort of a feminist perspective.

See the following example from a Senior Assignment:

It is true that Juan brutally kills Maria but isn’t he the real victim in this case? Maria gave him reason to be jealous of her, forcing him to kill her. After being victimized in this way, is it so surprising that Juan was driven to kill her?

The author of this passage is female.

The reader of the passage is horrified and doesn’t know how to respond.

4 thoughts on “The Real Victim

  1. Juan is always the real victim, in any possible case. That’s because Juan has projected all his fear, all his guilt, all the cowardly parts of his personality he is afraid of, into Maria. As a result, Maria now seems overwhelmingly weak and overwhelmingly powerful. If Juan were to murder a thousand Marias, he would never be able to overcome his feelings of guilt and fear. He has to go on murdering Maria.

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      1. I’ve studied the psychology of gender and that is what I keep seeing. The man is always “the victim” of his inability to completely rid himself of his projected weaknesses. He is actually his own victim, then.

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  2. I’ve studied the psychology of gender and that is what I keep seeing. The man is always “the victim” of his inability to completely rid himself of his projected weaknesses. He is actually his own victim, then.(Muster)

    All this coming from the crier of the “Patriarchy”. Priceless. 🙂

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