It's Maddening Gender is Still Not Central in Mass Shootings Debate

[niyad]

It’s Maddening Gender is Still Not Central in Mass Shootings Debate


How many more lonely, alienated, disconnected, (usually) white males perpetrating murder and then suicide need we witness before admitting the irrefutable fact that the shooters are all male?
Rob Okun
May 27, 2022


I’m beyond fed up that the gender of the murderers is still mostly under the radar in confronting America’s mass shootings crisis. In Uvalde, Texas, just as in Buffalo, N.Y., the shooters were both 18 year-old males. As of this writing, the motive in the Uvalde rampage hasn’t been determined; in Buffalo, the racism and white supremacy were explicit. In either case, we ignore the shooters’ gender at our peril.

Yes, let’s tighten restrictions on poisonous hate speech on social media, and it’s imperative we conduct threat assessment evaluations. It’s also urgent that we enact gun control regulations. We must also deconstruct racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynist, white supremacist manifestos. But if we do all that—and continue to minimize or ignore how these killers were socialized as boys and men—mass shootings will continue to plague us. We have to start in preschool, carefully attending to how boys are socialized. We must cultivate their emotional intelligence. Who would deny the value of educating boys to examine their inner lives; to talk about their feelings?

Who in Congress is going to introduce legislation calling on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to conduct a nationwide study on how we socialize boys? Who is going to push for a comprehensive, multiyear pilot program with preschool boys in Head Start? The data amassed will help not only reshape our understanding of boys and men, but also could ultimately transform masculinity.

The shooters’ gender has been woefully underrepresented in the national conversation about mass shootings. But it’s not for lack of effort. Consider this small sampling:

. . . . . .

The young men who slaughtered children in Uvalde, and African Americans in Buffalo, were raised in a society ill-equipped to prevent them from being infected with a virulent strain of TGV, tough guy virus. Any vaccine being developed to treat it must include healthy male antibodies if we’re ever to reach herd immunity and prevent mass shootings. And, in order to create those antibodies, the CDC must be authorized to lead a national campaign to reinvent manhood, beginning with boys.

https://womensenews.org/2022/05/its-maddening-gender-is-still-not-central-in-mass-shootings-debate/

[Srkdqltr]

1. Yes I have said that all along.

[Irish_Dem]

6. Same here. If women were the ones doing the mass shootings we all would be sent to prison camps.

[AndyS]

2. With ya all the way and also need to

Prosecute ( maybe persecute) gun makers for designing marketing campaigns to them.

[niyad]

3. Exactly, and thank you.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Damn right, Andy!

To everything you’ve said as well.

[Novara]

4. The only people who mention this are women.

Certainly not the media.

[Irish_Dem]

7. We take male violence for granted, just as something we have to endure.

[niyad]

9. We are trying to change this, but patriarchal enculturation is so very

deeply-rooted.

[Irish_Dem]

10. Yes, the need to endure male violence, cruelty and subjugation is what women have been taught.

Probably for thousands of years.

[Martin68]

8. I've seen it discussed many times. It's an essential part of the profile.

I haven't seen a plan to deal with the root causes.