Shootings, whether they’re in Parkland, Orlando, Las Vegas or Sutherland Springs, all tend have one thing in common. It’s not that they’re done by mentally ill people (there is no true connection between people with a mental health diagnosis and mass shootings, according to experts), or that they’re radicalized minorities we should place travel bans on (white men have committed more mass shootings than any other group), or any of the other rhetoric we often hear from leaders.
It’s that they’re almost always perpetrated by men.
Of all the mass shootings since 1982, only three have been committed by women. While women comprise about 50 percent of the victims of mass shootings, female mass killers are “so rare that it just hasn’t been studied,” according to James Garbarino, a psychologist at Loyola University Chicago.
If basically all mass shooters were women, I can assure you we’d be talking about that.
So let’s start talking about the culture of toxic masculinity that makes men believe they should get a gun and shoot people with it.
We live in a culture that worships men with guns
We live in a culture that worships men with guns. You can probably think of many off the top of your head—John Wayne, Indiana Jones or James Bond come immediately to mind. They’re all men who get what they want. Women are all eager to have sex with them. They have the respect of their peers and their communities.
Most of the men who commit mass shootings were not those widely admired men. They were men who felt they were owed something, and that the world was not providing what they were owed.
In many of these mass shootings, the desire to kill seems to be driven by a catastrophic sense of male entitlement. In some cases, the perpetrators seemed to feel that if people did not give them precisely what they wanted, then those people did not deserve to live. The only just world, in their minds, was a world they were the center of.
In many of these mass shootings, the desire to kill seems to be driven by a catastrophic sense of male entitlement
You can see that attitude at work in some of the notorious post office shootings that seemed to dominate news coverage during the '80s and '90s. Two shootings from Michigan and New Jersey in 1991 both featured men who felt they were owed a job. In both cases, these recently fired men turned a gun on co-workers. In the Michigan case, after the shooter was fired, “many workers said Mr. McIlvane [the shooter] had several times threatened violence if he was not reinstated.” In New Jersey, the shooter left a two-page note about the ways he had been wronged by the Postal Service where he worked. The Country prosecutor wrote, “He felt he was treated unfairly. It basically indicated that these people are going to pay. He was doing this as an act of revenge.”
Workplace violence incidents aren’t confined to the post offices in the mid-'90s of course, although those were well publicized. Nearly 30 percent of mass shootings have occurred in workplaces, typically by disgruntled (male) employees. Less than a year ago a former employee returned to his workplace in Orlando to fatally shoot five people.
When men like Billy Bush say that “For a man, [losing your job is] the ultimate degradation” well, I can’t help but feel that men may be overstating the importance of maintaining a job. Certainly, I can think of more degrading things. Having to grovel for my life before an incompetent former co-worker who felt he was owed a job or he’d kill everyone, is one of them.
Even the most innocent seeming victims, who could not possibly have “wronged” these men in any way don’t seem immune from their rage.
A great many mass murderers have a history of domestic violence. They range from Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub shooting, whose ex-wife claimed he took her paychecks, forbade her from leaving the house and beat her if she did not live up to what he perceived as being her duties; to Robert Lewis Dear, who killed three people at a Planned Parenthood Clinic and had been accused of domestic violence by two of his three ex-wives.
Nearly 30 percent of mass shootings have occurred in workplaces, typically by disgruntled (male) employees
Elliot Rodger, who killed six people near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara, before fatally shooting himself, stands out as a man who very clearly explained his motive for shooting. In his final video titled “Retribution,” Elliot claimed, “You girls have never been attracted to me. I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me but I will punish you all for it. It's an injustice, a crime because I don't know what you don't see in me, I'm the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman. I will punish all of you for it.”
I can assure you that not wanting to sleep with a man is not a crime. Killing six people and injuring 14, as Rodger did, is.
The terrifying thing is that, within circles of toxic men that comprise those like the alt-right—a movement that decries feminism and celebrates white nationalism—the men who commit these crimes do receive affirmation that they perhaps felt denied in life. The Southern Poverty Law Center explains that:
“The 'supreme gentleman,' a title Rodger gave himself… has since become a meme on the alt-right.”
Fan pages for Elliot Rodger, with titles like “Elliot Rodger is an American Hero,” sprang up on Facebook.
The fact that these actions are in any way celebrated or joked about can only serve as an incentive for other men who feel they are owed more than the world is offering them to behave violently. A movement telling them their sense of entitlement is rational, and that women are bitches and, as Dylan Roof believed, black people are “taking over our country”—well, it probably doesn’t do much to stop men from acting on their most violent fantasies.
There have, thus far, been 13 alt-right related incidents.
A movement telling men their sense of entitlement is rational, and that women are bitches, doesn’t do much to stop men from acting on their most violent fantasies
Nikolas Cruz, who, this Wednesday, killed 17 schoolchildren, may have been the 14th. Cruz had been expelled from the school after fighting with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. He was allegedly abusive to her, with a fellow classmate claiming, “He stalked her and threatened her. He was like, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ and he would say awful things to her and harass her to the point I would walk her to the bus just to make sure she was OK.”
Jordan Jereb, the leader of a white nationalist hate group who claims that Nikolas Cruz was a member, “There’s a very real sense of feminism being a cancer. That could’ve played into what he did.”
Insofar as feminists are not the ones killing people, I’m not sure the cancer comparison is particularly apt, here.
Besides.
Women lose jobs. Women feel neglected by their loved ones. Women are romantically rejected. Women, as a rule, do not respond by shooting up schools or workplaces.
The problem at hand here isn’t that shooters are mentally disturbed. After all, 23 percent of U.S. women have a diagnosable mental illness (compared to only 16.8 percent of men), and they do not go around shooting people. The problem is that some men do not have the coping skills to deal with the fact that everyone does not think that they are special. Everyone does not want to employ them just because they happen to exist. Sometimes, even people who are very good at their jobs get fired, and that’s something we all need to deal with.
Likewise, every woman does not want to go out with them, or do what they say. We’re doing men no service in that regard when we start telling girls they can’t say no to boys who ask them to dance, or acting as though women who say they’ve had bad sexual experiences is a massive witch hunt designed to destroy them.
We need to teach that healing, not killing, is something powerful you can do as a man
Teach young men that not getting exactly what they want is fine. Everyone will not like them and admire them. That is not the end of the world. The world is not there to pander to them. They are there to help nurture the world and use those skills given to them to make it a better, safer, happier place for others.
I think, often, after these killings, of a scene from Beatriz at Dinner. Beatriz, an immigrant, played by Salma Hayek, is talking to a Trump-like developer played by John Lithgow. The developer is talking about how much he loves big game hunting and killing elephants. Beatriz says, “You think killing is hard, huh? You wait in the bushes. The animal might outrun you or charge you. It’s not easy to get your shot? Try healing something. That is hard. That requires patience. You can break something in two seconds, but it can take forever to fix it.”
Teach that as a sign of masculinity. Teach that healing, not killing, is something powerful you can do as a man. Teach your sons to be gentle as they go through life. Then I think we might begin to see the end of this problem.
Jennifer Wright is BAZAAR.com's Political Editor at Large. She is also the author of 'Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes That Fought Them' and 'It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Break-Ups In History.'
