Do you want to understand the psychological process that leads to femicide?
No need to read big doctoral theses.
Grab your old The Police records (my favorite band) and listen to two songs: Can’t Stand Losing You And Every Breath You Take.
Everything is here.
- Listen to the Martineau – Dutrizac meeting between Benoît Dutrizac and Richard Martineau via QUB :
Lose face
Do you remember the chorus of the first song?
“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing
I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand losing… you!”
The play on words is brilliant.
Sting shows that what the guy doesn’t take, what he doesn’t accept, what he can’t digest, it’s not so much losing his girlfriend as… losing, period.
To lose face.
To lose the power he had over his wife.
To see this power slip away from him, the being he kept under his control suddenly regain his autonomy.
“I can’t stand losing”: I can’t stand losing.
The other song, Every Breath You Takewhich everyone knows, is probably the most misunderstood song in the history of pop music.
Proof that a work can completely escape its artist and take on a completely different interpretation than the one originally intended.
Archive photo / QMI Agency
Under my control
For many, Every Breath You Take is a beautiful love song.
A man adores a woman and wants to become, as Brel sang, “the shadow of his shadow, the shadow of his dog”.
He wants to melt into her, never leave her! What a beautiful proof of love, right?
In fact, Sting always said that this megahit was (another) song about a man trying to control his wife.
“Every breath you take, every move you make, I will watch you…”
“Can not you see? You belong to Me!” (“Oh can’t you see? You belong to me!”)
The words send shivers down your spine. This is the unhealthy speech of a psychopath who cannot accept seeing his wife gradually free herself from his influence.
“My poor heart aches / With every step you take…”
We imagine the singer with an electronic bracelet attached to his ankle.
That this song became a hymn to love is one of the great mysteries of the 80s. Probably because of the music, haunting, intoxicating…
“Writing it, in the aftermath of a painful separation, I didn’t realize how sinister the song was,” Sting later said.
“Fans have already told me that they played it at their wedding. Good luck!”
The first step
These two songs perfectly describe the spiral that leads to femicide.
This sick desire to objectify the other. To take away all autonomy. If she wants to leave, even if it means killing her.
This is why the approach taken by the Government of Quebec with Ottawa to add coercive control to the list of offenses included in the Criminal Code is important.
Because that’s how it starts. It is the first step that leads to the final tragedy. The first step of the staircase which goes down to the cellar.
We will follow this approach closely.
“We’ll be watching you…”