"Many school shooters, one common factor: a warped view of masculinity"

"Usually it’s “a toxic cocktail of factors,” says Christopher Kilmartin, a professor of psychological science at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.

But there’s one topic that’s not getting enough discussion, he and some others say: masculinity. “The elephant in the room with ... mass shootings is that almost all of them are being done by men,” Professor Kilmartin says. Male shooters often “project their difficulties onto other people.... In this case, it sounds like he was blaming Christians for his problems, but the masculinity piece is what is really missing in the discussions about the equation.”...

While mass shooters are often seen as “outliers or oddballs ... we should actually think of them as conformists,” says Tristan Bridges, a sociologist at The College at Brockport, State University of New York, citing research on masculinity by expert Michael Kimmel. “They’re over-conforming to masculinity, because they perceive themselves, in some way or another, as emasculated.... It’s a terrible statement about American masculinity, to say that when you’re emasculated, one way to respond is to open fire.”...

The nation is going through a transition as it becomes more diverse, as well, and many expect the diversity to make it better in the long run, but “there’s a lot of anger and violence as we go through this transition,” says Mark Potok, an expert on extremism at the Southern Poverty Law Center"

http://m.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/1002/Many-school-shooters-one-common-factor-a-warped-view-of-masculinity?cmpid=addthis_twitter&utm_content=buffer96a03&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Masculinity can be such a toxic construct. Or maybe it's the context of patriarchy that makes it so harmful? It would be interesting to pull this apart.

Related to: Feel all the feels; Masculinity So Fragile; athletes and masculinity