When the headlines start screaming about gunshots on campus, or a shooter on a rampage, we really don’t need anyone to stop and clarify that it’s a man.
Of course it’s a man. It’s always a man. Except that one time, but otherwise, it’s always a man.
So you might say that mass murder or spree killings have a sex – which is a more accurate word to describe a biological identifier. But the title of this post is that mass murder has a gender.
Gender, as opposed to sex, is a social construct. It is whatever we mean when we say masculine or feminine; it is the implied behavior when we exhort someone to “Be a man!” or “Act like a lady!”
The gender of mass murder is also a social construct. I know that there are plenty of people who will want to argue with me and say that women don’t go on spree killings because it’s not in their nature or because women are fundamentally nonviolent. This is a biological argument that I don’t buy.
Mass murder is a social construct, not a biological fact. If it were somehow in men’s essential nature to commit these crimes, we’d see uniform male participation in mass murder across cultures.
Ah, but we don’t.
Try Italy, for the sake of example. Just one mass murder that happened in 1925. But France? France has had seven incidents that would fall in this broad category. Mass murder is culturally bound.
And it’s a social construct that men do it and women don’t.
It’s time to spend less time talking about guns, which has already been overworked, and more time talking about the role of culture and gender in these events.
As a society, we should be asking ourselves what we are doing when it comes to socializing gender roles in that we socialize our men to be violent. We socialize them such that when their mental illness escalates, a spree killing is what their brains seize upon.
There are mentally ill women all over the world, who don’t turn to mass murder when their illness worsens. Or essentially sane women who are filled with hatred and bigotry, yet never devise a plan to kill as many people as they can.
Just as there are mentally ill and sane men the world over, who are just so much less likely to think of killing people than American or European men.
Let’s set the gun issue aside, and see what we can do about the social issue instead.
The answer to reducing and preventing these crimes, after all, will never come with ammunition. Instead, the answer lies in the social construction of traditional masculinity. And what society can build, society and tear down and rebuild even better.
Related articles
- Why Men Commit Mass Murders (thedailybeast.com)
- Mass Murders, Madness, and Gun Control (psychologytoday.com)
- How the media shouldn’t cover a mass murder (newstatesman.com)
- The Overwhelming Maleness of Mass Homicide (ideas.time.com)
- In Defense of Gun Culture (crimedime.com)
- Guest Post: Consuming Machines of Death (crimedime.com)
The Color of Lila
August 7, 2012
Great post! I agree that the way we socialize our men has a lot to do with the violence in our culture; and that’s borne out, too, when you look at sub-cultures within America and see which ones are more or less violent.
I don’t care for how we socialize our women these days, either, but that’s another whole subject.
On a related note, check out the escalation of acid attacks against women in Colombia lately. This also seems to be peculiar to Colombia’s particular flavor of the machismo culture; it has not taken hold (yet) in other Latin countries. And there we are again: it probably has to do with how the males are socialized.
Food for thought!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/acid-attacks-rising-in-colombia/2012/08/03/e8c85528-c843-11e1-9634-0dcc540e7171_story.html
CrimeDime
August 7, 2012
Hello The Color of Lila, and thanks for stopping by. Agreed re: how we socialize women – want to write a post on that?
Yes, this is another example of a socially constructed crime phenomenon. Thanks for including the link, though the photos are really gut-wrenching.
The Color of Lila
August 7, 2012
Hi CrimeDime, aaaaand this just in from Detroit: woman gets off cruise boat, retrieves weapon from her car, and shoots up her family and friends. Another family member returns fire as she drives away (Gah! Who ARE these people??). Her victims all have minor injuries, so she’s not in the Mass Murderer Club… but not for lack of trying.
http://www.freep.com/article/20120807/NEWS01/308070074/7-injured-in-shooting-after-Detroit-Princess-cruise-Detroit-police-say
Re: socialization of women – have written some about that on my own blog but my take isn’t crime-related – as I said, another whole subject. Thanks for the consideration!
CrimeDime
August 7, 2012
Wow – this just in indeed. I’ve always wondered if anyone keeps data on attempted multiple shootings. I’d be curious to see if there are more women making the attempt. And then you have cases like Amy Bishop, the biology professor who killed three professors. The FBI likes to define mass murder as having at least 4 victims, but I would say that 3, like in the Bishop case, is plenty.
Louise Behiel
August 7, 2012
Yes, yes and yes
investigator25
August 7, 2012
The mother who drown her children? Or poison the homeless? There are a few in text form. Evil women are more likely to go under the radar. But, it is changing.
Melanie
November 29, 2012
In my experience as a news reader I do assume the perpetrator of mass murders in public places is male, but when it’s a family I don’t. Too many times intimate killings like that seem to take one of three directions: father, robbery etc, or mom.
anotherboomerblog
August 8, 2012
From the stand point of cultural anthropology, we are a highly individualized society and we teach sense of entitlement to everyone. I tend to be a collectivist, a communitarian. I will often do things that benefit the community (my community) as a whole even if I don’t get benefit from it. Asia is collectivist, historically. Family honor, etc. To quote Mr. Spock (Vulcans are very collectivist) “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.”
We’re not going to change America and Europe to a communitarian culture. I came from a family with an communitarian perspective on honor, respect, dignity, fealty to family values, and caring for elders. I know a few individuals who are (to my mind) whacked out wild eyed Libertarians who are on the extreme end of the spectrum who think if we were all armed to the teeth (including school children) that the saw “An armed society is a polite society” would apply. These individuals are angry people with a gross sense of entitlement and could be deadly since they are armed and believe in their right to “defend themselves.” (Please note, I also know more moderate Libertarians who are not borderline armed and dangerous.)
The most polite societies in the world (Asian) do not have people running around with guns at their hips – they are Taoist, Buddhist, Shinto, and Confucian and are respectful for other reasons. They are more likely to kill themselves from shame than kill someone else. But that’s going to change as they become culturally more like America and Europe.
Women are serial killers, but not with guns. Mothers have been known to serially kill their newborns and call it SIDS. Women chose other means and methods, by and large. We drown, poison, abandon, etc.
Of course, mass murder is different than serial killings – totally different situation. Andrea Yates was a mass murderer, not a serial killer.
Americans were not always a highly individualist, entitled country, but I don’t see people going back to caring for the community as much as for the self.
bastikononion
August 8, 2012
Excellent post.
I agree with what has been said so far and can’t think of adding something to it.
I also would have said that females kill differently most of the time and mostly with other motives.
on thehomefrontandbeyond
August 13, 2012
very interesting way to approach this – if more people thought along these lines and tried to come up with a solution based on your premise– maybe we could get somewhere with this
Ray's Mom
November 28, 2012
Reblogged this on JUSTICE FOR RAYMOND.
Carl D'Agostino
November 28, 2012
Perhaps a consideration should not be social, emotional or physiological gender. Does the particular gender(male)have chemical and electrical particulars and consequent reactions that would make the male brain more predetermined to act out such behaviors ?