Mass shootings are a men’s issue
There have been 204 mass shootings- and 204 days- in 2015 so far.
And all of the known shooters are men.
If any other segment of society (let’s say for example, people in bowling leagues), and ONLY people in bowling leagues, took up fire arms *daily* and murdered people in movie theaters and hospitals and churches and schools, we’d have every expert, scientist, pundit, and commentator weighing in on what the hell is going on with bowlers. We would have national committees dedicated to learning what about bowling attracts or creates people who are so uniquely violent, in a way that no one else is.
But when men, and exclusively men, are committing these atrocities, no one attributes it to their gender. It’s just accepted that this is what men do. When the 205th shooting this year happens, you’ll ask “did they catch the guy?” Because you know it will be a guy, and it won’t even register that you’ve made this assumption. If you instead found yourself having to ask “did they catch the bowler?” because you were so confident that the latest carnage was caused by someone in a bowling league, because it’s always someone in a bowling league, and it’s never NOT someone in a bowling league, you might better recognize how it’s not a coincidence- there is something about bowling that needs to be seriously examined and changed. Because HELLO- bowlers, and bowlers alone, are shooting up hospitals and supermarkets and classrooms every. single. day.
“It’s mental health.” “It’s not enough good guys with guns.” “It’s violent video games and movies.” “It’s shitty parenting.” “Its getting bullied at school.” “It’s gun laws that are too lax.” “No, It’s gun laws that are too strict.” Or, IT’S FUCKING BOWLERS.
We have to talk about toxic masculinity. We must. We MUST!
Jackson Katz, noted violence prevention expert, says American violence is “overwhelmingly a gendered phenomenon, and any attempt to understand violence therefore requires that we understand it’s relationship to masculinity and manhood.”
He calls this “the crisis of masculinity”, and uses road rage as an example. He said, “people don’t typically think of road rage as a gendered phenomenon, but one recent study showed in 10,000 cases of aggressive driving and road rage, over 95% were males. But you read the editorials in newspapers across the country about the road rage and the articles, essays, and opinion columns, it’s rarely talked about as a masculine or male phenomenon. It’s just a phenomenon on our roadways. If women were doing it- if 95% of road rage was women, you can bet the single issue that would be talked about is why are *women* doing this? What is going on in the gender construction of *women* that caused them to act this way.”
Similarly, gun violence is a male phenomenon. And similarly no one talks about it as men’s gun violence, it’s just plain gun violence, as if all parts of society are doing it, and it’s a generic human problem.
If women, and only women, shot people daily, this would be a problem with women. If bowlers, and only bowlers, shot people daily, this would be a problem with bowlers. But men, and only men, shoot people daily, and it’s a gun problem. A violence problem. And it has nothing to do with men. No.
We have to talk about toxic masculinity. We must. We MUST!
/rant, and I apologize to any folks in bowling leagues out there for using you in my analogy. I’m sure you’re lovely people
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