Male Shooters, Prescriptiong Drugs and Masculinity
One of my favorite lists is the Policy, Action, Research List (PAR-L) operated out of the University of New Brunswick:
It is a bilingual, electronic network of individuals and organizations interested in women-centred policy issues in Canada. It is a support for the community of feminist researchers and activists in Canada and Québec.
The list is full of really smart mostly women with some men, a nice blend of bilingualism, and the content is top with literature, resources and debates that are absent from most of the mainstream media and most of the circles within which I navigate.
There have been some excellent activist, personal and academic discussions sparked by the Virginia Tech murders. Of note there was an excellent and frank discussion about how best to bring up sons, and this morning there were discussions about the focus on masculinity instead of humanity, and reflections on the common denominators of all the (recent North American) shootings: they have all been male (in 1988 there was a woman shooter see comments), they had easy access to guns many of which were semi automatic, people around them noticed unusual behaviour but either had no formal mechanism to act on their observations or just thought these men/boys were weird, they were mostly white except for the latest at VTec and the snipers and a fact I was not aware of many of these young men were on antidepressant prescription drugs.
I wonder when we are going to see public intelligent debate on this topic? I do not want to hear about only individuals i want to hear about a societal response and societal responsibility. Structures are at work here and these men/boys are dying & killing - canaries indicating that there are serious problems in the mine. They are not disconnected random acts of violence that require more metal detectors in schools (wonder who makes those!) and better police emergency response teams.
I want to hear about gun control, the arms trade, masculinity, mental health, antidepressant drugs, the lack of contact sports in schools, structural change, male drop out rates, domestic disputes (it was only a domestic dispute and that is why they did not warn the students!), social responsibility, violence in our media (film, music, video, video games), bullying, power and powerlessness, in and out groups and hero worship. And if we think these shootings are a small problem, well, i would argue that what we are seeing in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, Lebanon, Israel, BC pig farms, Ciudad Juárez, highway of tears, etc. are part of the same phenomena. Lets face it these are masculine based wars, feuds, led tribes, rapes and femicides. I am aware there are women on the periphery of all of these and I do not deny their complicity however the reality is that these crimes are led by men, committed by men, funded by male led organizations, and primarily fought by males and well most of the worlds major decision making organizations and bodies are led some uniformly by men (Security Council, G8, World Bank, Most multinational Corporations, Arms manufactures, departments of defence, and Government leadership). I am not male bashing, but the facts speak for themselves, they are common denominators, data, which cannot be overlooked and it seems that male shooters, rapists, murderers and led wars are not discussed in this light - as a male issue. I am not anti men, not in the least, some of my best friends are men 
, but there is an element of our shared culture that has run amok and we are all to afraid to call it and label it for what it is.
Maybe you boyz and men can help me understand this, because there is a whole part of culture and society i am not comprehending right now, and the debates seem to be missing the biggest common denominator of all and I wish there was frank discussion, not name calling & bashing, but real reflection on the male aspect of these issues and how a male led approach inclusive of feminist and female approaches needs to be activated to deal with this. Faludi made the following great statement "l’essentiel ne consiste pas à se demander comment préserver leur masculinité, mais comment devenir plus humain".
Here are some of the articles and books referred to on PAR-L n the last little while:
- Virginia Tech Aftermath, Did Legal Drugs Play a Role in the Massacre? with comments here.
- Tuerie de Virginia Tech - La célébrité au bout du fusil, Sysiphe par Elaine Audet
- Stiffed, The Betrayal of the American Man, by Susan Faludi
- The Common Element, Feminista, by Allan Johnson
- From Jonesboro to Virginia Tech - sexim is fatal, but media miss the story, Women in Media and News (WMIN), by Jennifer L Pozner
- Mass Murderers and Women: What We’re Still Not Getting About Virginia Tech, Mother Jones by James Ridgeway
re mostly white:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schoolmassacre#Wellknown_shooters
discounting the concordia shooting because it wasn’t done by a student.
3 of them 14 were not white and one was a woman. So 28% were not white males. I would watch out for the generalizations.
Comment by mtl3p — April 27, 2007 @ 2:52 pm
Hey! I said mostly white, which is true! So what is your problem! I added north america and a note about the female shooter so thanks for that.
I would however caution you on your statistical method of using data categorized under a ‘non defined criteria’ based on data non-scientifcally and loosely and collaboratively agreggated in wikipedia - the caution only applies of course if accuracy & validity are your concern. Of greater importance is the substance of the post. But thanks for the clarification and warning i guess!
Comment by Administrator — April 27, 2007 @ 5:00 pm
Hi! Just came across this thread randomly and it seemed interesting.
I consider myself something of a alpha-male type. I served in the Marine Corps, played contact sports in high school, have worked a lot in blue-collar all-male environments.
I think Susan Faludi had something on this. Basically, my opinion is that there isn’t a constructive and positive masculinity that is portrayed out there today that most men in this society can take advantage of. I’m not going to bother deconstructing masculinity in depth here, but one thing that I consider relevant to a healthy expression concerns an image of masculinity as 1) responsible, accepting personal responsibility for one’s behavior and environment; 2) constructive to the individual’s sense of self, providing outlets and means for men to express and build themselves as men; and 3) social, containing primary groups of men who can work together in common aim (i.e.: the team, military unit, club, shop, etc.)
We don’t have this today. Men are too much treated as undifferentiated and interchangeable parts in society, the economy and the family. There is not much out there available to the average man that allows him a unique contribution to his society.
But what we do have is 2 unhealthy versions of masculinity that are out there. One is the market mentality, and that is the one that promotes unrealistic and unlikely images most men can never attain (movie stars, pro athletes, etc.) The other that is bad is perverse masculinity. The society today has a great deal of fear I think of “bad men”, almost a pathological fear. The bad men archetypes are things like: the bum, drop-out, deadbeat dad, gigolo, bully, groper, abuser, gangster, rapist or killer. These archetypes are feared, but at the same time promoted as male-based. We have all these programs and awareness that promote these images too, but men who feel like drop-outs and useless in a positive way can always fall back to these bad stereotypes. Like the devil in Paradise Lost, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven”.
Anyway, that’s just my idea.
Comment by Tom — April 28, 2007 @ 12:20 am
Thanks Tom that is really interesting. I like your three points and the identification of the two unhealthy types. How do we culturally deal/address these in real terms? Another point i had not brought up, but that i think is relevant is the topic of entitlement. Do you think the challenge of entitled roles men used and still to a larte extent hold, which are being challenged by more women nudging themselves slowly into those is causing a backlash? For instance i am hearing lots of bantering about how universities are becoming irrelevant institutions, yet, at the moment there are more women than men in many universities, thus a huge shift that is dramatically changing the educated demographic of the educated workforce which is viying for those once gender uniform high powered jobs. In essence causing those who are not getting accreditation from those institutions for all kinds of reasons (many men) to suddently suggest that these institutions and their accreditation are worthless? I would also say this is also the case for blue collar jobs as there are more women entering the trades. I worked in the trades 25 years ago and let me tell you things sure have changed, but not ubiquiteously across all the trades. In essence do you think that since women are entering those domains, and expect to enter them, that some sort of collective insercurity is manifesting on the part of males? It sometimes seems that culturally women have been prepared for their new role for some time but that men somehow are surprised that it is actually happening, triggering the opposite response of your first 2 points. I find your third point really interesting, as i have been engaged in play and work in very masculine environments as of late, and do not find them sexist but certainly of a different culture, the issue is, it is the dominant culture that does not reflect on its dominances or mores, and while i appreciate those environments for what they are, and fully support that they should exist, just like feminine culture and environments should exist, but how do we bring reflexivity to the masculine norm that i think does not understand that it is one! And one that feels threatened instead of happy that a new demographic wants to join and play, with slightly amended rules and mores. Not a coherent questions nor response but i hope you can understand what i am trying to get at!
Comment by Administrator — April 28, 2007 @ 2:49 am
Hi T - Interesting discussion. There have also been quite a few articles on www.counterpunch.org about anti-depressant use and the massacres at Columbine, VT. While anti-depressant use may play a role, I think that there are broader societal factors that both you and Tom address.
I found reading the bios. of the presenters at this ‘I am safe - The Third International Conference on Bullying and Victimization’ (Ottawa, April 2-4, 2007) interesting (see
http://iamsafe.ca/conferencemenuen.php).Since I was unable to attend the conference at least I can look up some of the work that has been done in the area.
In my little nook in rural BC, most of the youth/young adults go to trade school/do apprenticeships - mostly guys but some girls too. There is such a boom going on in BC (Olympics and other related construction, as well as traditional sources of employment in logging, mining, etc.) as well as the oil sands development in nearby Alberta that anyone who can use is hammer has a job, often unionized, paying $25. (at least) an hour. Most people working in oil sands development (some might say, exploitation) make $75 to 90K a year. In general, I find there is much less focus on a university education in BC (unlike Ottawa which is a largely ‘white collar’ center of employment.
Comment by xtie — April 29, 2007 @ 9:56 pm