Shaniya Davis is dead. Her poor little body was likely used for her murderer’s sexual gratification and then tossed aside, like an old unloved rag doll or used kleenex. She meant so little as a human being to her killer that she could be thrown away after he was “done with her.” Just so much waste or junk. She’s not alone, of course. Girls and women are killed every single day, the whole world over for the express reason that they are female. There’s no escaping it.
And people wonder why I have so much anger …about the things men do, about sexism and misogyny. SEXISM KILLS! So it’s not just important, it’s imperative to stop allowing men (and women) from saying sexist things and supporting misogyny in any of the myriad ways they do: lives are at stake, dammit.
When I saw the stills of Shaniya being carried by that man in the hotel, my heart sank. I knew she was about to be molested or raped or sodomized or all of the above and I also knew, objectively, that she most likely would NOT live to see the end of her own news story.
She was so beautiful, so sweet and innocent and vulnerable and trusting. So very trusting of that man carrying her. Like a lamb to its slaughter…. 
When I saw the Breaking News about her body having been found a few hours ago, my whole body went numb. I felt as if I’d been kicked in the gut, my breath and energy absolutely gone. Even though I knew this would be the outcome, even though it was so fucking predictable.
I’m so tired of you killing us, you men. I’m so tired of your sexual urges and perversions being more important to you than our very lives. I’m tired of your Viagra consistently glorified on TV while we women too often lose our lives at the mercy of your perverted sexual urges. I’m fed up that no one questions whether Viagra should be covered by the public option, but we women are suddenly finding ourselves in the position of having to refight our abortion rights all over again thanks to an idiot asshole misogynist named Bart Stupak and his 30-odd House Democrat friends. I’m so tired of your own wounds and sicknesses and dysfuntionalities and pathologies getting acted out on our bodies. And I’m bleepin’ tired of our bodies being used to sell shit — all manner of shit, from GoDaddy.com to beer to sports magazines.
I’ve been against the death penalty for a very long time, but you boyz are about to change my mind — at least until we can absolutely, positively “cure” pedophilia, stalking is a thing of the past, and we can routinely catch and imprison ALL rapists.
Oh, and what about Shaniyah’s degenerate mother? 
Not much — one look at her reveals a woman 99% likely to be strung out on drugs. What I’m about to say neither exonerates her nor justifies what she did — but I’ve seen women who got strung out on drugs (meth, usually) who are in the process of losing their kids if they can’t kick it. They can’t — not in the time alotted them by the state. In one case, the mother participated in the truly horrible sexual abuse of her daughter who was even younger than Shaniyah. She insisted she hadn’t done that and in fact could NOT have done any of it. The truth of the matter was that she didn’t remember any of it, typical for some addicts. The drugs made her do it.
So I am not in favor of rushing to much judgment for mom until we find out much more about what she did and what she thinks she did. Additionally, a quote reverberates in my mind, originally from a completely different situation but certainly applicable here: “What did you think would be the result of you teaching us to hate ourselves?” Is there any question Shaniyah’s mother valued her female child little more than Shaniyah’s perverted murderer did? Where did that misogyny come from? Certainly not from an essentially pro-woman society, a woman- and life-affirming culture, nosirree. But rather from OUR culture, which likes to make both men and women believe that the highest calling and value of women is sexual in nature or, barring that, caregiving — unpaid caregiving, of course, or lowest paid caregiving if not.
Now, let me be clear. Her perverted murderer is also surely a victim. As I’ve said many times: child molesters and rapists are made, not born. Still, he knew that what he was doing was wrong, as all pedophiles do, though many rationalize the matter until they’ve convinced themselves otherwise (see NAMBLA, for example). We MUST stop the cycle of violence that perpetuates the harm done to our innocent children. We must. Men must join us, instead of putting their own sexual depravities or sympathies and latent misogyny above everything else including the very lives of women and children.
In other news
Here’s one killer of women and serial rapist who’s facing a possible death penalty. I won’t weep.
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