When harmful norms turn fatal: What 200 stabs reveal about Malaysia’s hidden crisis

Tee Chen Giap and Chew Zhun Yee

Recently, a string of horrifying violence has plagued Malaysian schools, from the tragic death of Zara Qairina Mahathir due to alleged bullying and assault in Sabah, to gang rape cases in both Kedah and Malacca.

Already reeling under grief, Malaysian families were confronted with a juvenile crime so appalling it stunned the nation. On 14 October, a 16-year-old girl, Yap Shing Xuen, was brutally stabbed around 200 times by a schoolmate, a 14-year-old boy, tragically ending her life. This incident left many struggling to comprehend this reality.

How did we end up here?

On the surface, these incidents are often seen as the by-products of violent video games, anger management issues, mental illnesses or, as some online commenters claim, a lack of disciplinary caning in schools.

However, beneath that surface lies a troubling, unspoken epidemic: the persistence of misogynistic norms, bolstered by patriarchal practices, alongside a rigid and rote learning-centred education system.

Women as the ‘second sex’ in patriarchal Malaysia?

First, the recent cases of stabbing and gang rapes of school girls revealed a disturbing pattern of gender-based aggression and misogyny among young people in Malaysia.

Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for or prejudice against women or girls. It has its roots in patriarchal society, where men are positioned as the dominant gender, and women are seen as what French existential and feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir described as “the second sex” or the ‘other’ sex, expected to be submissive, ‘inferior’ and secondary.

It is not hidden that Malaysia is still a patriarchal society. Violence against women is normalised, whetherin the form of sexist jokes, victim-blaming, sexual assaults, rapes and even murder.

At home, we hear phrases such as “girls must do house chores – don’t let your abang (big brother) do it” and “It’s OK, boys will be boys”.

Manifestations of misogynist behaviour are even seen among Malaysian MPs. For example, in 2020 and 2022, the Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development advised housewives to coddle their husbands with “cute-Doraemon voices” and suggested husbands could control their “unruly wives” with “gentle but firm physical touch.”

The gang rapes of school girls are a manifestation of these deeply entrenched misogynist attitudes, where women and girls are objectified and treated as inferior.

The case of stabbing of the stabbing of Yap Shing Xuen, for example, was reported to be linked to her rejecting the boy’s romantic advances, as evidenced by testimonials and the boy’s publicised handwritten note claiming, “I’m not wrong, but the world is. I love you (censored victim’s name) let’s leave this world together.”

This can be seen as a form of objectification, though less obvious than the gang rape cases, in which a girl’s refusal or resistance is perceived as a challenge to male entitlement and control. Note that the investigation is ongoing and definitive conclusions cannot yet be drawn.

No matter how charitable a view we ascribe to the perpetrator, the act of stabbing the girl around 200 times suggests something far darker was at play: a combination of obsession, rage and a complete disregard for human life – likely to be rooted in a disturbing sense of ownership over another person’s (woman’s) autonomy.

Manosphere, norms and the banking model of education

Beyond entrenched cultural norms, the rise of the ‘manosphere’ (a collection of internet content and communities promoting misogyny, toxic masculinity and anti-feminism) can be said to have further amplified misogynistic attitudes among young men.

According to legal and crime expert R Paneir Selvam, “Young boys, especially those feeling insecure or powerless, may adopt these views and imitate them in real life.

“Teachers report boys repeating these ideas in school, showing growing disrespect towards girls,” he added.

The manosphere normalises violence against women by providing men with the ideological justification for misogynistic behaviour. This reinforces the belief that women exist to serve male desires.

Beyond misogyny and the manosphere, mental health and sexuality stigma can fester unchecked in the absence of safe environments that encourage open and critical discussions.

This brings us to the Malaysian education system, which has long witnessed a persistent focus on rote learning. This is a model that Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire characterises as the “banking” style of education.

In this model of education, teachers and students form a hierarchical relationship, and the teacher ‘deposits’ information into students as passive learners.

The consequences of this is the cultivation of a culture deprived of critical thinking, where harmful norms such as misogyny go unquestioned in society. This can be seen in the surge in misogynist social media content and even some schoolboys threatening to replicate those violent incidents right after they happened.

Additionally, hierarchy and control are internalised and seen as natural, potentially reproducing these behaviours in the form of peer bullying.

Ironically, after all that happened, the Ministry of Education announced its plan for a new “character education” subject, which purports to instil moral values in students. But this risks repeating the same top-down, rote-learning approach that has long failed Malaysian schools.

To make things worse, we see some online commenters chanting support for reintroducing caning in schools. Isn’t this a perfect encapsulation of the outcome a banking education system aims to produce – a culture that rewards obedience and discipline, over dialogue and critical thinking?

The Columbine effect

It is impossible to provide a complete analysis of these cases within the confines of this article, given the complexity of the underlying issues.

However, an interesting perspective worth considering is also the potential influence of extremist subcultures on youth behaviour.

A consultant specialising in political violence from the Chasseur Group, Munira Mustaffa, has linked the Bandar Utama school stabbing case with the “Columbine effect”.

The Columbine effect refers to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the US, which has inspired multiple copycat crimes and an extreme fandom culture that idolises perpetrators of school mass shootings. This extremist fringe group has amassed a following identifying themselves as the “Columbiners”.

Evidence was uncovered from the boy’s notes and knife carvings, both listing a string of names belonging to Columbiners. Among these names was his own declaration of hatred towards a society he believed “deserved to burn”.

This too can be seen as a lack of critical education where exposure to extremist ideas is not supplemented with the appropriate tools to question and think critically.

What’s next?

This wave of school violence cannot be attributed to the failings of any single individual or institution.

When adequate critical thinking education is missing from schools, when society normalises hierarchical control, and when digital spaces amplify toxic ideologies, responsibility becomes shared.

Each instance of violence is a mirror held up to the nation, revealing the values we endorse, the behaviours we excuse, and the inequalities we tolerate.

This is not to say that character education should be abandoned. The subject needs to be paired with a pedagogy that emphasises critical thinking, empathy and ethical reasoning over rote memorisation. Students should be encouraged to question harmful social norms, rather than merely reciting ‘correct’ answers.

One platform that embodied this approach was the Malaysian Philosophy Society’s flagship event, Live Love Labour Festival, on 1 November, with the  theme “Opting out of bullsh*t norms”.

A 2023 BBC Future feature on the origins of patriarchy notes that many pre-historical societies were matrilineal rather than patriarchal. These findings remind us that patriarchy is a social construct. Like many norms, it can be challenged and reimagined with more equitable norms and values we instil in our youth today.

Dr Tee Chen Giap and Chew Zhun Yee are co-founders of the Malaysian Philosophy Society, the national philosophy body. Its mission is to promote practical philosophy awareness in Malaysia.

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