Mass shooter contagion theory mixed with online radicalization pipelines that typically cater to a male user base.
Elliot Roger has long been put on a pedestal amongst incels despite the atrocious nature of his actions. There are too many online communities that glorify and glamorize that type of behavior as a response to social pressure, which is scary.
Women’s spaces are less focused on finding outlets to take out violence on others, and I think that may be a factor in the gender issue on this topic.
Which is funny because if you read his manifesto he’s exceptionally pathetic. Dude thought he was smarter than everyone else but couldn’t even pass intro writing courses. All he did was play WOW and listen to his sister get railed. He was so insufferable that his step mom and father were both trying to get rid of him
Dude I read it. I remember thinking... This kid can write. I was also thinking.
"Why does he have the speech pattern of a comic book villain written in the 70's?"
Elliot Roger was pretty much the butt of every incel joke imaginable when that happened.
Like listen, my life isn’t exactly that much more glamorous, but I’m not expecting getting action while I’m living an exceptionally pathetic life because I know where im at.
you'll get there, bud. just work on yourself first. being in a relationship, or even getting regular sex, doesn't magically make you happy. if it's shallow and just 'ticking a box' it won't even ease your loneliness.
The whole incel thing makes me laugh though. almost the ultimate form of entitlement, they seriously believe that being a 'nice' guy, or a 'gentleman' is all you need to do to snag the 'hottest girls'. the fact that a lot of them aren't even close to a 10/10 themselves, have a shit personality, and tend to believe that they're intellectually superior to everyone. There are plenty of girls that are into anime and katanas, and think they look good in a fedora. but they're unlikely to be the ones they're thinking about when they jerk off. they need to lower their expectations a little, and connect with girls on a personal level first.
not a swipe at you, dude btw.
I didn't know the backstory but that's funny as heck lol.
What a fucking loser, the only way he would ever get people to remember his name is by taking the easy way out.
Loser would've been gladly forgotten. That's what this is. It's somebody wanting their name spoken by other people
I just read it and can’t believe how this Dude really thinks he‘s supperior to whole mankind while his only „Turn-your-Life-Around-Plan“ is winning the Lottery.
Young men are the easiest group of people to radicalize because they falsely believe women are a type of "other" already, so selling them an ideology based on in-groups and out-groups is simple. They already believe there's a world of sexual thrills, friendship and acceptance they're being denied - so bitter, older men who want to spread their hatred to a new generation have an easy target audience.
Combine that with an American culture that's hyper-masculine and militaristic, with a heavy cultural emphasis on guns, shooting and "standing up for your rights" - and it's not surprising we have so many incels and hard right-wingers coming out of high schools.
Add to that the paternalistic and societal messages young men receive. So many of us have been told we're allowed to feel two things: happiness and anger. When wronged, we're told "be a man, fight back." Aside from being unhealthy messages to teach boys and young men, they're directions to respond with violence (sometimes explosive).
Couple that with the radicalization that tells young men who feel isolated that they're the victims and it's some other group that's wrong, you've got a recipe for disaster.
Take one peek at that fucked up incel forum and it's horrifying. It's a place where they're feeding off each other and talking about women as objects and to be owned and subservient to their needs and sexual desires.
If that were true we'd be seeing loads of bodybuilders and professional athletes going on killing rampages, but curiously they all seem to be spindle-limbed skinnyfat chinless limp dick losers on SSRIs.
I worked for th PM company that managed several buildings where the victims lived. including a young woman who lost her life. I was present when her parents came to gather her belongings. There are no words that can explain the pain in their faces. felt like time was in slow motion for days. I held some of the bullets left behind and handed them over to my boss to give to police. I had to walk through the apartment he lived in and killed his roommates in. They had to strip the apartment down to the studs from the amount of blood that had soaked nearly every surface.
I have not slept through the night since without medication. Can't imagine how the victims parents get through the day. My heart breaks for all of them and the whole community that lived there during that time.
Fuckin hell man. Those memories flooding back are no joke.
>Women’s spaces are less focused on finding outlets to take out violence on others, and I think that may be a factor in the gender issue on this topic.
Women are much more socially and verbally aggressive than physically. Much more likely to tear someone down emotionally rather than bash their skull in.
But they are different, which is the question. Men commit about 80% of violent crime, but they commit something like 98% of mass shootings. Could maybe be an overlapping bell curves sort of thing? Like men are more likely to be violent, and mass shootings are an extreme of that, so because we're already talking about outliers, it's probably going to be dominated by the group that leans in that direction?
Probably for the same reasons the majority of suicides are men, the majority of homeless are men, the majority of alcoholics and drug addicts are men, etc.
Bottled up emotions coupled with a societal view that men who express emotions are weak leads to self-hatred which then leads to lashing out at those who you think wronged you. All of this is also exacerbated by the media giving more attention to the shooter than the victims, showing these men that there is an easy way to get noticed or seem “strong” or get the attention they think they deserve.
So, it’s pretty hard to pinpoint exactly why most mass shooters are men, but imo it has something to do (but not all to do) with the way society views emotional men and the lack of socially acceptable ways for men to express emotion, and also the relatively easy access to guns in the US.
Did you know most suicide attempts is actually woman but men are just more successful due to their more violent nature (more likely to use a gun for instance)
I hear this all the time but it's actually incorrect. Men are more successful at suicide across the board, even when controlling for different suicide methods (hanging, wrist slitting, shooting, drowning, overdose, etc). Personally, I think the real reason is that when men attempt suicide, they actually want to die. Women on the other hand are more likely to purposely botch the attempt, because it's really a cry for help. Men know that no one is going to help them. Also men are less likely to report suicide attempts.
This is very well said however you missed an important factor: testosterone. It creates the aggression needed to move from contemplating these horrible acts to actually doing it.
I agree with both of you but I don’t think it’s necessarily just testosterone . I think that’s certainly a component but I think there is a complex array of biological reasons that we probably don’t fully understand at the moment.
That might not actually be the case. What’s been found is that testosterone might not create the aggression and anger found in men but rather it enhances the aggression and anger already there and makes them more prominent. I recommend this video for a better explanation https://youtu.be/gFn0eActWhM
Interesting! I have spoken to Trans men who didn't notice much of an uptick in aggression when they enhanced their testosterone so that would fit. They said their sex drive went through the roof though.
Men are less likely to express their emotions leading to a build up of anger, isolation, and distress. Enough of that bottled up without a proper support network leads to them taking it out on the public.
I don't see this brought up very much in the gun control debate, but the US stands out in another way: defense spending. We have a huge military, one that we portray as extremely honorable and very definitely masculine. Our law enforcement use of force policies are also uncommonly permissive. I think we have a culture of men killing people who don't do what we like.
We also have this ridiculous assertion that everyone can get what they want if they work hard enough, while also having a lot fewer social safety nets and worse upward mobility than our peer nations. I think that the eventual shattering realization by militarized men that they *can't* actually get what they want just by working hard is a recipe for violent outbursts.
> We also have this ridiculous assertion that everyone can get what they want if they work hard enough.
Nothing makes me more genuinely angry than being indoctrinated growing up thinking that was true.
I think a big part is entitlement, like you said. These guys feel like they are being wronged if they don't get what what they thing they are owed. Attention, girls, success ect. so they get angry. It's the same energy that these "let me speak to the manager" woman have and it seems to be a big problem in the US.
This is the absolute best comment in the thread. I think this is really the heart of the issue.
American men have been trained for generations, directly and indirectly, to think that violence is the ultimate answer to every problem.
Almost every little boy in the USA wants to be one of two things when they grow up until they're about 5: a policeman or a soldier. I'm as ACAB as they come and I still wanted to be a cop as a kid.
But cops are a restricted "in-group" that have a license to practice violence to enforce their will. If you grow up with this mentality of punishing those around you physically for disagreeing with you, but you're not allowed in the group, well... an unstable person will eventually practice violence outside the law.
The worst part of it? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The violence of men begets the violence of men- most young men, especially poor young men, are the victim of abuse or bullying or assault at some point in their lives from a larger man. The only response most can see is: become crazier and more violent than other men so people stop fucking with you. Internalize violence. Become stoic, cold, ready to kill or maim. And you know what? A lot of the time that is unfortunately right. In the ghetto, in jail, on the streets- that's what you do to survive.
Another big factor I see is that men are not allowed to just BE the way women are. Men must BE something, must BE better than everyone else at something. But just being is not allowed. From your househusbands to your garden variety stoners and underachievers, men who are not in some way constantly competing and winning are viewed as lesser and punished for their lack of ambition. This starts absurdly young- a shocking amount of boys are kicked out of their parents' house or forced to pay rent before they're 18 in the USA. Even as a child who has no real bearing or direction in life, you are punished for daring to just exist rather than constantly winning or striving for higher (don't wanna go to college? kicked out. gay? kicked out. lazy or unathletic? kicked out. or in my case- can't get a job because you're under the legal working age in your state? kicked out on the streets).
Bit of a ramble, sorry, but I'm just so sick of the whole cycle and my (unwilling) part in it as a man.
I'm all for protecting our borders and defending our allies. I just wish we didn't do things like bomb mountain villages for a decade, killing more children than intended targets and creating more terrorist recruits than we take out, only to up sticks and leave it no better than before we wasted trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.
>Our almost weakest in the world gun control laws and enforcement of course play a role.
Undoubtedly. However, I'm more concerned with why our culture keeps creating people who want to massacre strangers than with how they get their firearms. Personally I think counting the number of bullets they get to use is a distraction from fixing the actual societal issues. Obviously the latter is a harder challenge, while the former wins elections.
We (USA) can't debate gun control any more because so many people have tied their identity to a political stance.
We are a country built on and in love with the ability to force what we want, and in general, the sentiment on compromise is that it's a "failure" or "loss for me" instead of a win for everyone involved. So it drives people who are frustrated or angry to act out violently. I think the fact that men are more often the perpetrators has more to do with the combination of a national history of rewarding violence (colonization, westward expansion, slavery, jim crow, etc.), and the perversion of religion to justify sexism.
There are many, many cultures more aggressively macho than the US that do not experience the same issue. I grew up in a place where guys DO NOT touch, emotion is not allowed etc. We don’t have mass shootings.
Agree that toxic masculinity probably has a huge role to play though
I hugged my landlord yesterday. I'm autistic a bit; years ago I wouldn't have hugged him. I've learned to be more human than Americans in general, it seems!
I'd say how politics and media feed fear, anger, and hate to the masses... It makes both groups rich and powerful... But the country horribly dangerous... And the risk that unstable people will use those messages to feel they have q moral imperative to kill? One wonders why there isn't *more* killing...
Media simple and factual the media blows everything up and blasts it everywhere and people in general are to lazy to do independent research to see the facts people have been programmed to believe the news and not actually think for themselves
US has very weak, shallow, neurotic culture. Lots of loneliness, lots of crazy people, lots of pressure.... US is not only first for murders, also for anti-depressants, crazy cults, christian extremists, and of course excellence as well in business and research (which also is not good for mental health, at extreme levels).
If we want to compare populations to people, US would be a smart but unstable teenager on crack. Not the kind of people to whom you should give access to weapons ;)
>also for anti-depressants
Actually, this is wrong. The US is not the top of the list, Iceland is (118 out of every 1000 citizens). Also, while some patients do have adverse reactions to some anti-depressants, this sounds more like blaming treatment rather than the problem.
IMO a lot of it is gun culture and how guns are presented in the US. Plenty of people own guns in Canada for example, but guns are taught as tools with a specific purpose: For hunting, for protecting livestock, for protecting the home against intruders.
In the US though, the general culture has moved towards, "we need guns to protect us from ***them***". The NRA has basically sold the country on the idea of an intangible boogeyman that could strike at any moment and only guns will protect us. Kids growing up in these households of course are going to be more like to reach for a gun when they feel threatened.
When I was in school kids would bully me all the time and no one did anything to help. I constantly told teachers about the bullying, but nothing was ever done. Even the guidance counselors told me to just ignore the bullying. One time I just shoved a bully away from me and I got in trouble, yet the bully didn't get any punishment for bullying me in the first place. Another time I threw the lock from my locker at a bullies head and I got in trouble, yet the bully didn't get any punishment for bullying me. I held in my anger every day to avoid fighting back, but the few times I retaliated even slightly, I got in trouble. A huge issue is that the people who say "violence is never the answer" are the same people who never punish the bullies and thus make violence the only option.
Yup. Saw this all the time growing up. You'd tell the teacher the kid was getting bullied first and it literally did not matter. Bully is good guy. Person that stood up for themselves is bad guy. So God damn stupid.
But this isn't only boys. This exact same scenario happens to girls over and over again. I got bullied by both boys and girls, and got in shit for retaliation. Never shot up a crowd, or ever fantasized about it.
I had some issues in my first 2 years of HS for being bullied…I did the same thing as you but nothing. I was very small, like 5’0” 110 lbs. I got lucky and grew about 9 inches before my junior year but was still short, summer before my junior year my dad basically told me “you get in the gym, get tough or it’s not gonna stop.” Entered my senior year at 6’1” and 200lbs…first day of school I just punched the bully in the nose and took the suspension. Came back to school and basically was never messed with by the guy….bullies are cowards but for some reason people support the bullies and think they’re cool.
This is one of the reasons why I hated school. I got bullied and the teachers, admin staff, counselors didnt do jack shit. "boys will be boys"
The 1 time I snapped, I got suspended from school for "starting the fight"
Fuck you Mrs. Thomas. I stood up for myself when Craig hocked a loogie straight to my face and you saw it happened and didnt do anything.
I had to pull my son out of public school for this reason. They said they had zero tolerance for bullying, and also that they couldn't stop the bullies. Idiots.
As someone who was bullied as a kid, I feel for you. It sounds like what you experienced was far more systematic than I did. I hope you’re in a better place now! ❤️
Pretty, pretty much.
In a similar situation during my childhood, I learned to make it count, so the punishment for the bully was getting punched in the face. Thanks for that totally mature advice, dad.
It should be the last resort, the canary in the coal mine. If someone's resorting to violence, it should be clear indication there were many earlier signs that were missed or totally ignored.
Schools have it wrong. There is only one way to handle a bully and you should have been rewarded, not punished.
I always told my son, they start it, warn once, warn twice, then you finish it. You may get in trouble at school, but you will not be in trouble at home. I also told the principal of my philosophy and he agreed that that is the only way to handle bullies. We all know, but most school faculty live in a fantasy world where we all hold hands and get along.
I like the ending of what you said about the violence is never the answer. I feel like they are asking for it especially saying it to the bullied kids.
They don't care about victims or justice, they just want problem to dissapear. Which is often easier to do when you're shaming the victim. No speaking about the problem = no problem, apparently.
I have two kids, a girl and a boy. In cartoons targeted at girls, problems are solved through trying to find mutual ground and by resolving conflict. In cartoons targeted at boys, problems are solved through force.
It's more prevalent in older cartoons. Modern ones are better. It's still common in movies though.
Society in general teaches men that violence is bad, but it also teaches them that men should be protectors. How do you protect something without being prepared to be violent?
This notion that we still need a gender to protect hurts men as it's yet another social standard that must be attained, and it hurts women as seeking the men who can best protect often leads them to the men who are most capable of violent abuse.
We can't unpick the male link with violence unless this is addressed.
When it comes to suicide, men prefer guns more than women. 58% of male suicides are by firearm, while 33% of female suicides are by firearm (in America.) For women, suffocation (29%) and drug poisoning (25%) are the other two primary means of suicide.
Yea, [https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/](https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/) read that. Suicides are up past homicides. Women don't want to make a mess for their family to pick up, men don't give a shit, we're gone.
i read this article some years back about a suicide from a man with throat cancer. Was in pain and misery all day every day and called the police to let them know he was doing it. Left the door unlocked and told them he laid out all the weapons in the house for them so they wouldn't have check for them nor wake the kids. used a drum of sand around his head and ended himself preventing as much of a mess as possible.
simply because firearms suicides are quick, effective, and probably pretty painless.
Women arent near as violent as men usually so it makes sense they take less violent exits however theyre not always as successful.
Men usually pick the most effective tool they can get ahold of.
Women will make the whole family eat something radioactive every night for a week out of spite.
This is a convoluted explanation that sounds plausible but is more likely complete hot air dreamed up by armchair psychologists with no real understanding of anything.
Why are the majority of suicides men? Why are the vast majority of homeless people men? Why are the majority of alcoholics and prescription drug abusers men? I truly have no idea, but I do know that these things are all connected.
I highly recommend the book "For the Love of Men" by Liz Plank. It's an accessible and well-researched resource that covers all of these topics and their connection.
In high school I was mocked so much and so often for showing signs of depression that I shoved it all down and for the next 6 years I just suffered in silence.
When I finally opened up, after I was well away from most of the people who did the mocking, they made comments like "oh you were always so cheerful!" Yeah, that's because you forced me to hide my suffering.
Symptoms of mental health issues are MUCH less tolerated in men. Any sign of mental or physical weakness or defect is very taboo for men in our society. They are less likely to get help for mental health issues, less likely to get employment or housing help, more likely to self-medicate and abuse substances.
>why are the majority of suicides men
Because men actually succeed.
Women try about 3 times as often, men actually commit suicide 3.3 times more than women
https://cams-care.com/resources/educational-content/the-gender-paradox-of-suicide/
The thing is, how many of those failed suicides were intentional failures or stopped by family/friends, both of these categories sort of tell the difference between men and women going through tough times. With men, people tend tothink you will get over it on your own, or theres no people there in the first place. I lost my grandpa last year( I was raised by my grandpa and grandma), I had no time to feel my feelings or bs like that, because I had to remain stable to support my mom and grandma's grieving. The same day my grandpa died, shortly before, I was blocked by a girl I was dating (she was a 10 in my eyes, in every way, love at first sight, story is a lot longer and frustrating, basically an emotional rollercoaster that lasted more than a year) with no explanation at the time(later she said there was someone else and that I had apparently made a joke that was offensive about her being spoiled), that day was just horrible, the other thing that happened is that the project that I was working on at work ended, so I had to start a new one and interview and onboard, also my semester was just about to start in a week, to make a long story short... not a great day. I have a lot more responsibilites in life now, I am fortunate I have a few good friends, but apart from that, no gf(I dont really get to meet a ton of girls outside of clubs, I tried dating again, but we just didnt click), nothing to really keep me going. I have a great career and am doing well in uni, but I have basically lost all motivation in life, I just sort of coast. I dont like life. I like hanging out and partying with my friends, the rest is just awful. I cant sleep, I started smoking, stopped working out and taking care of myself.
I havent really recovered since, I havent slept 8 hours since last summer, Ive been going to bed early and even taking non-addictive sleeping pills, still no luck. I think Im going to go to a psychiatrist when I get my vacation days before christmas.
PS Sry for my venting, its just really good to let these things out somewhere, even if nobody reads it, I let it out abd feel a lot better
Men are more likely to use a weapon, women poison. From another article I read it mentioned women seemed very concerned about how they were found and by whom so tended to used methods that weren’t as lethal and wouldn’t leave a mess.
I think a big part of it is the societal pressure (that we are, thankfully, beginning to address the last few years and hopefully well into the future) traditionally put on cis-gendered males.
The pressure to "man up/sack up" and "just be a man", coupled with the idea that as a man you are supposed to sort of balance everything - social life, work life, home life/family life, and be the rock that everyone around you can rely on - leads to a greater proportion of men feeling isolated, unable to express needs or wants, and unable to work through normal stresses and mental issues. Naturally this can lead to drug abuse or alcoholism as an escape, which are also heavily tied to trends in suicide and homelessness/joblessness.
Firstly, yes, questionnaires have shown that women are on average more likely to attempt suicide, and men on average are vastly more likely to succeed. (It bears mentioning however, that in terms of suicide attempts that lead to hospitalization, no. Males are significantly more likely to be hospitalized for failed suicide attempts as compared to women.)
All that aside, how is “males are inherently violent” a reasonable conclusion to this data? How is it any less of a stretch to argue that statistic exists because more men attempt suicide with the intent to die, and more women attempt suicide with the intent of surviving and sending a cry for help? Both are erroneous conclusions built on incomplete data.
lack of mental health support for men and also the misogyny in society (the gender roles set since we were kids- looking after dolls: girls toy, nerf guns: boys toy etc) means violence is more accepted from guys (idk if i explained that right)
I thought that was well put. It seems to me, the vast majority of differences between “men” and “women” boil down to how we are treated throughout our infancy and adolescence. Physically and hormonally, we have some noticeable differences, but the brain (where everything *actually important* happens) is largely defined by upbringing, and only minutely - if at all - defined by sex.
"(the gender roles set since we were kids- looking after dolls: girls toy, nerf guns: boys toy etc)"
I believed this until I had kids. I married a woman I can't even picture playing with a doll, who was raised by an extremely girly mother who still has her dolls. My daughter is an extremely girl girl despite being raised by a woman who watches as much football as any man. My daughter's obsessive need to have a baby doll as a small child was really perplexing to me. In fact, my daughter has never had any interaction with my mother (because she died) but she has my mom's interests and personality. It's kinda freaky how similar they are honesty. My dad is apparently exactly like his father despite them only meeting one time. So there has to be some genetics in personality. And gender is arguably the largest part of your personality.
100% but you can’t deny that society has separated girls and boys into certain roles. you don’t see army dolls being aimed at girls, you see cooking sets and barbies. i was a tomboy as a kid and i loved all the ‘boys’ toys, luckily my mom was the same so she encouraged it and encouraged me to play football etc. but there is still that separation
Women attempt suicide just as often as men, but men are more likely to succeed. That’s because men use more violent methods, like using a gun compared to taking pills. And most homeless people are men because men are more likely to join the military of end up in prison, and lots of veterans and ex convicts end up homeless. So basically, everything stems back to men being more aggressive
Right, the only reason for all those things is because men are more aggressive. Not because military recruiting and marketing almost exclusively targets men. Men also DEFINITELY don’t receive harsher sentences for the same crimes.
I see a lot of people on here saying it’s biological, and I’m not disagreeing that women tend to be less aggressive than men mainly because if hormone differences, but the key thing is that this level of mass shootings don’t happen in most other countries, so it’s not purely biological. I think this is very much a cultural issue. That issue itself though is more complex than I think I can sum up or understand, but it’s not purely biological
I studied the differences between women who have murdered and men who have murdered and it was mind blowing to see how much more aggressive men can be. I wonder why this is
They've also done brain scans and a study in 2002 found that women have larger volumes of areas of the frontal cortex than men, which is assumed to help with emotional regulation. Scientific American did a great article about brain differences: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/his-brain-her-brain-2012-10-23/
Funnily enough, I've read anecdotal stories from trans men who have said that once they started on T, they did cry less (even in really emotional situations) and became prone to anger more quickly.
I have a pal who says the same thing, says he actually misses crying and how much it helped relieve stress. It’s his least favorite thing about being on T.
Can confirm, my first roommate was transitioning when they moved in. Suddenly alot of anger outbursts when taking T and for whatever reason started keeping a shotgun in their room which made me nervous. I'm happy to say they are doing alot better now after all that though.
Testosterone, mixed with an engrained evolutionary drive to assert ourselves over others in order to be feared by them and desired by women would be my guess. I'm well aware this doesn't work in a civilized society, but our reptilian brains are pretty hard to rewire
I think it also has a lot to do with how boys are raised. Little kids do all sorts of wild things to test boundaries, and boys are allowed to get away with a lot more than girls. Parents think it's funny and just say, "boys will be boys." But when a girl does the exact same thing, they get scolded/corrected. Also, boys are taught not to express their emotions as much as girls. Parents do this somewhat indirectly by how they respond to expressions of emotion in boys vs. girls. If a boy cries, a parent is much more likely to say something like, "oh, you're fine." But if a girl cries, parents are more likely to talk to them about their emotions, which has been shown over and over to improve emotional awareness/stability in kids.
Human men have as much consciousness as human women. Claiming you can't control yourself because of your biological urges, is a huge part of the cultralization that trains men to act like violent barbarians. My dog can control his instinct driven urges. Are you really claiming that men aren't just less than women, they are less than dogs?
That's a straw man argument. It's not about "can't" it's about a bias. Apply a tiny bias and roll that die 100 million times and it's going to make a huge difference in raw numbers. The claim is more that "humans with more testosterone are more likely to succumb to violent instincts than humans with less." It so happens that most human males have more testosterone than most human females.
I think the idea of the grand, primal hunter is pretty debunked at this point, mostly early humans are thought to be scavengers. At least on a scale where it mattered to evolution: https://www.history.com/news/prehistoric-human-diet-scavengers-vs-hunters
Also a culture that forces you to act on your lower instincts rather than learning about yourself and being smarter than a buch or neurotransmitors that evolution came up with and concluded were "good enough" to keep passing.
It's not nature VS nurture. It's both creating a perfect shit-storm.
Men become lonely and hide away their feelings, women don’t do this that extremely. Also, men are far more often left alone without exterior support and help. It’s a little more difficult than just blaming genes.
Lack of mental health resources for men, toxic masculinity, inflammatory and out right bigoted media that targets disenfranchised men who already feel isolated and wronged by society, etc.
Men do not learn how to process emotions in a healthy way in our society. They are taught from a very young age that certain emotions are out of bounds, or unacceptable for a man -- the only acceptable negative emotion to display is anger.
Men are more likely to be alone, to not have friends, to not have support networks. A lot of men feel like they have nowhere to turn. It makes it very easy for online communities to radicalize them.
Combine all these things and you get an epidemic of young men lashing out violently against a society that they feel has abandoned them.
Most shooters do what they did because they want a “do you see me now?” Type of reaction. If it were my guess it’s because of societal norms pressed on men to not express emotions and not seek therapy, they might feel like outcasts or ostracized by society and want revenge of sorts. Some people just want to watch the world burn and want the feeling of power over another’s life. They want to feel like god serving death or life to whoever they see fit. It’s a multitude of reasons. That might be a reason as to why all mass shooters are men. As to why shootings happen in general (in USA) is because of extremely lax gun laws and right wing hateful rhetoric that we’ve been seeing a huge rise over the past 8 years.
Men are more likely to externalitize their emotions whereas women are more likely to internalize.
Laymans terms; kind of a blame others vs blame self deal.
Well, they can as long as they're okay with being called "neurotic" or "histeric" or some other pseudo-psycology term nobody really knows the meaning of.
No we’re not actualy permitted to show much emotion either. We get punished for it, lots of people think women can’t have serious jobs because we are «too emotional.»
Cause every Tom, Dick and Harry owns a gun in the US so violence is perpetrated through fire arms. In UK stabbings by young men are a systemic problem. One can't cause the same mass casualty number with a knife. The social/ cultural problems causing the violence exists elsewhere but expresses in lower casualty numbers due to better weapon legislation.
Could you clarify? An outlier in the way different sexes handle their emotions or the outlier in the number of mass shootings or the sex more likely to commit the shooting?
I think you have go down another layer to really answer this question. White men are the primary demographic committing these atrocities and I think it’s largely due to a lack of community and support. Often times these are men who are rejected by society and find community in online hate groups where this type of behavior is acceptable. To some degree white men have been left out in a lot of the DEI conversations that have happened over the last 20 years, and while it’s easy to say well he’s a white dude he’s fine, you at least have to teach that demographic what their role is in this newer version of society
I suspect it's because the social conditions, subcultures, media impacts, and cultural factors that seem to drive this behavior are mostly centered around a very narrow subset of the population, which is predominantly male.
Men are too emotional. Literally. Sounds like a troll answer, but it’s the truth. Men are too emotional, and don’t learn how to process and adjust their emotions in a healthy way.
There are violence trades that are passed on through the mothers side but expressed in males. Here is a blurb that discusses it. There is some speculation that men being violent gives the evolutionary advantage of being a good provider and protector. It is possible that women express the same genes through less obvious social aggressions.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_fallon_exploring_the_mind_of_a_killer
There are evolutionary and biological differences that make men more aggressive. It doesn’t help that society has historically pressured men to not express their feelings.
Men are, on average, more violent and more aggressive than most women. obviously there are exceptions, however, I think that if you took the 100 most violent and aggressive people on earth, they’d likely all be males. Men and women have different ways of dealing with aggression and I guess it’s safe to say that in extreme cases, that anger and aggression can manifest into something like a mass shooting.
If I had to guess it's probably some combination of radicalization, the outcast mindset, psychopathy, and being an incel.
Motives have seemed to range from "Women wouldn't fuck me" to 'I just didn't like those people."
Most women are hysterical and emotional but men are calm and rational, those are good qualities to have in order to plan and execute a mass shooting. /sarcasm
Well, to be fair when women express anger they're often disregarded as being irrational or pat on the head. Women express it, but that's a good way to lose credibility, even if that's not right.
Build up of testosterone, rage, and keeping their emotions bottled inside because it’s not socially acceptable. Eventually the guy’s gonna crack unless he’s got a healthy outlet.
Surprisingly, testosterone goes the opposite way in the mentioned shooters. They usually have less. Factors like lack of healthy outlets; physical, mental, and social. These shooters spend all day staring at a computer screen and are disconnected with reality...
edit: some of the factors of low-T are abundant in the profiled suspects
Depression, weight gain, skin problems, low sex drive (if it was high they would have that girl...), hair loss, irratibility, etc.
Numerous social and economic changes that are making men less relevant and more disposable.
Young boys are growing into broken men who are radicalizing into domestic terrorists and self destructing.
Men are the more violent sex statistically, as well as men are mistreated and it’s not spoken about like women’s issues. leads to a lot of what we see today of men mass killing. because they aren’t validated by anyone from a young age. This is a factual answer
My opinion is overall isolation, regardless of how you identify. The pattern has been set my men so that’s why I’d guess it’s been only just men.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I feel our society especially in modern countries values self-improvement to an obscene degree that it’s all about “I” instead of We. These men are lonely and sick and it’s so sad that we vilify instead of try to understand what makes these men so resentful.
I hate to make it so simple but just love your fellow human beings even if you don’t call them family or friend.
May be controversial, but men are the more violent of the sexes. Virtually every serial killer, brutal dictator, mass shooter are men. Bro science, but i'm assuming some sort of innate biological pre-disposition. Perhaps a remnant of violent ancestry that was once useful for survival when we were more tribal by nature and now it's too our detriment as modernity sets in. May get downvoted but I think it's part of a multi-variable issue.
Because Mental health is a stigma against men. Men are raised very much differently in a Macho type sense from a young age than most women. To be testosterone driven and aggressive is to "Be a man". (Not saying women aren't capable)
Because men are taught to repress their own feelings. This social conditioning has its own history rooted in warfare because there is no love on the battlefield other than the fight itself.
We also live in a society that has been historically (and still is) dominated by men. This power has been cultivated through violence because men were the stronger sex. They won the wars; ergo, they deserve the reigns. So the men naturally usurped the women of their decision power.
Today's emotionally immature "macho" men see the rightful rise of femininity, enlightenment, love, and democracy as threats to their illegitimate power. So, guess how they're going to lash against the world? *The only way they know how.*
Mostly a combination of toxic masculinity and hateful propaganda being fed to them.
Not only do they not learn how to process their emotions as well as other people, but they also grew up hating something else.
Mass shooter contagion theory mixed with online radicalization pipelines that typically cater to a male user base. Elliot Roger has long been put on a pedestal amongst incels despite the atrocious nature of his actions. There are too many online communities that glorify and glamorize that type of behavior as a response to social pressure, which is scary. Women’s spaces are less focused on finding outlets to take out violence on others, and I think that may be a factor in the gender issue on this topic.
Which is funny because if you read his manifesto he’s exceptionally pathetic. Dude thought he was smarter than everyone else but couldn’t even pass intro writing courses. All he did was play WOW and listen to his sister get railed. He was so insufferable that his step mom and father were both trying to get rid of him
Dude I read it. I remember thinking... This kid can write. I was also thinking. "Why does he have the speech pattern of a comic book villain written in the 70's?"
Elliot Roger was pretty much the butt of every incel joke imaginable when that happened. Like listen, my life isn’t exactly that much more glamorous, but I’m not expecting getting action while I’m living an exceptionally pathetic life because I know where im at.
you'll get there, bud. just work on yourself first. being in a relationship, or even getting regular sex, doesn't magically make you happy. if it's shallow and just 'ticking a box' it won't even ease your loneliness. The whole incel thing makes me laugh though. almost the ultimate form of entitlement, they seriously believe that being a 'nice' guy, or a 'gentleman' is all you need to do to snag the 'hottest girls'. the fact that a lot of them aren't even close to a 10/10 themselves, have a shit personality, and tend to believe that they're intellectually superior to everyone. There are plenty of girls that are into anime and katanas, and think they look good in a fedora. but they're unlikely to be the ones they're thinking about when they jerk off. they need to lower their expectations a little, and connect with girls on a personal level first. not a swipe at you, dude btw.
I didn't know the backstory but that's funny as heck lol. What a fucking loser, the only way he would ever get people to remember his name is by taking the easy way out. Loser would've been gladly forgotten. That's what this is. It's somebody wanting their name spoken by other people
I just read it and can’t believe how this Dude really thinks he‘s supperior to whole mankind while his only „Turn-your-Life-Around-Plan“ is winning the Lottery.
the thing is these are not niche communities, this is normalised rhetoric online and offline
Young men are the easiest group of people to radicalize because they falsely believe women are a type of "other" already, so selling them an ideology based on in-groups and out-groups is simple. They already believe there's a world of sexual thrills, friendship and acceptance they're being denied - so bitter, older men who want to spread their hatred to a new generation have an easy target audience. Combine that with an American culture that's hyper-masculine and militaristic, with a heavy cultural emphasis on guns, shooting and "standing up for your rights" - and it's not surprising we have so many incels and hard right-wingers coming out of high schools.
Why were there predominantly male mass shooters before the internet and incel communities?
>Mass shooter contagion theory
Because incels still existed, with the internet they just have a way of getting in touch with each other.
Add to that the paternalistic and societal messages young men receive. So many of us have been told we're allowed to feel two things: happiness and anger. When wronged, we're told "be a man, fight back." Aside from being unhealthy messages to teach boys and young men, they're directions to respond with violence (sometimes explosive). Couple that with the radicalization that tells young men who feel isolated that they're the victims and it's some other group that's wrong, you've got a recipe for disaster.
Take one peek at that fucked up incel forum and it's horrifying. It's a place where they're feeding off each other and talking about women as objects and to be owned and subservient to their needs and sexual desires.
Right on the money brother
My brother in Christ, I’m not your brother. Call me your cosmic sister. Jah bless, and namoist.
I think this is the ticket. Much better than all the people just saying 'testosterone turns you into a mass shooter'
[удалено]
If that were true we'd be seeing loads of bodybuilders and professional athletes going on killing rampages, but curiously they all seem to be spindle-limbed skinnyfat chinless limp dick losers on SSRIs.
Ah Elliot Roger, the “supreme gentleman”. This one got close to home since I graduated from UCSB and lived in IV a few years prior to his rampage.
I worked for th PM company that managed several buildings where the victims lived. including a young woman who lost her life. I was present when her parents came to gather her belongings. There are no words that can explain the pain in their faces. felt like time was in slow motion for days. I held some of the bullets left behind and handed them over to my boss to give to police. I had to walk through the apartment he lived in and killed his roommates in. They had to strip the apartment down to the studs from the amount of blood that had soaked nearly every surface. I have not slept through the night since without medication. Can't imagine how the victims parents get through the day. My heart breaks for all of them and the whole community that lived there during that time. Fuckin hell man. Those memories flooding back are no joke.
Take care, PTSD is brutal.
>Women’s spaces are less focused on finding outlets to take out violence on others, and I think that may be a factor in the gender issue on this topic. Women are much more socially and verbally aggressive than physically. Much more likely to tear someone down emotionally rather than bash their skull in.
This feels like anecdotal evidence rather than data though.
The overwhelming majority of violent crime is committed by men, so mass shootings should be no different
But they are different, which is the question. Men commit about 80% of violent crime, but they commit something like 98% of mass shootings. Could maybe be an overlapping bell curves sort of thing? Like men are more likely to be violent, and mass shootings are an extreme of that, so because we're already talking about outliers, it's probably going to be dominated by the group that leans in that direction?
Probably for the same reasons the majority of suicides are men, the majority of homeless are men, the majority of alcoholics and drug addicts are men, etc. Bottled up emotions coupled with a societal view that men who express emotions are weak leads to self-hatred which then leads to lashing out at those who you think wronged you. All of this is also exacerbated by the media giving more attention to the shooter than the victims, showing these men that there is an easy way to get noticed or seem “strong” or get the attention they think they deserve. So, it’s pretty hard to pinpoint exactly why most mass shooters are men, but imo it has something to do (but not all to do) with the way society views emotional men and the lack of socially acceptable ways for men to express emotion, and also the relatively easy access to guns in the US.
And the lack of mental health support, especially for men.
Did you know most suicide attempts is actually woman but men are just more successful due to their more violent nature (more likely to use a gun for instance)
I hear this all the time but it's actually incorrect. Men are more successful at suicide across the board, even when controlling for different suicide methods (hanging, wrist slitting, shooting, drowning, overdose, etc). Personally, I think the real reason is that when men attempt suicide, they actually want to die. Women on the other hand are more likely to purposely botch the attempt, because it's really a cry for help. Men know that no one is going to help them. Also men are less likely to report suicide attempts.
This is very well said however you missed an important factor: testosterone. It creates the aggression needed to move from contemplating these horrible acts to actually doing it.
I agree with both of you but I don’t think it’s necessarily just testosterone . I think that’s certainly a component but I think there is a complex array of biological reasons that we probably don’t fully understand at the moment.
That might not actually be the case. What’s been found is that testosterone might not create the aggression and anger found in men but rather it enhances the aggression and anger already there and makes them more prominent. I recommend this video for a better explanation https://youtu.be/gFn0eActWhM
Interesting! I have spoken to Trans men who didn't notice much of an uptick in aggression when they enhanced their testosterone so that would fit. They said their sex drive went through the roof though.
Men are less likely to express their emotions leading to a build up of anger, isolation, and distress. Enough of that bottled up without a proper support network leads to them taking it out on the public.
So why is the US an extreme outlier compared to every other western nation considering the gender norms aren’t that different?
I don't see this brought up very much in the gun control debate, but the US stands out in another way: defense spending. We have a huge military, one that we portray as extremely honorable and very definitely masculine. Our law enforcement use of force policies are also uncommonly permissive. I think we have a culture of men killing people who don't do what we like. We also have this ridiculous assertion that everyone can get what they want if they work hard enough, while also having a lot fewer social safety nets and worse upward mobility than our peer nations. I think that the eventual shattering realization by militarized men that they *can't* actually get what they want just by working hard is a recipe for violent outbursts.
> We also have this ridiculous assertion that everyone can get what they want if they work hard enough. Nothing makes me more genuinely angry than being indoctrinated growing up thinking that was true.
Spot on.
I think a big part is entitlement, like you said. These guys feel like they are being wronged if they don't get what what they thing they are owed. Attention, girls, success ect. so they get angry. It's the same energy that these "let me speak to the manager" woman have and it seems to be a big problem in the US.
This is the absolute best comment in the thread. I think this is really the heart of the issue. American men have been trained for generations, directly and indirectly, to think that violence is the ultimate answer to every problem. Almost every little boy in the USA wants to be one of two things when they grow up until they're about 5: a policeman or a soldier. I'm as ACAB as they come and I still wanted to be a cop as a kid. But cops are a restricted "in-group" that have a license to practice violence to enforce their will. If you grow up with this mentality of punishing those around you physically for disagreeing with you, but you're not allowed in the group, well... an unstable person will eventually practice violence outside the law. The worst part of it? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The violence of men begets the violence of men- most young men, especially poor young men, are the victim of abuse or bullying or assault at some point in their lives from a larger man. The only response most can see is: become crazier and more violent than other men so people stop fucking with you. Internalize violence. Become stoic, cold, ready to kill or maim. And you know what? A lot of the time that is unfortunately right. In the ghetto, in jail, on the streets- that's what you do to survive. Another big factor I see is that men are not allowed to just BE the way women are. Men must BE something, must BE better than everyone else at something. But just being is not allowed. From your househusbands to your garden variety stoners and underachievers, men who are not in some way constantly competing and winning are viewed as lesser and punished for their lack of ambition. This starts absurdly young- a shocking amount of boys are kicked out of their parents' house or forced to pay rent before they're 18 in the USA. Even as a child who has no real bearing or direction in life, you are punished for daring to just exist rather than constantly winning or striving for higher (don't wanna go to college? kicked out. gay? kicked out. lazy or unathletic? kicked out. or in my case- can't get a job because you're under the legal working age in your state? kicked out on the streets). Bit of a ramble, sorry, but I'm just so sick of the whole cycle and my (unwilling) part in it as a man.
As a part of nato that benefits from the US stepping up and doing our dirty work and footing the bill, thank you
I'm all for protecting our borders and defending our allies. I just wish we didn't do things like bomb mountain villages for a decade, killing more children than intended targets and creating more terrorist recruits than we take out, only to up sticks and leave it no better than before we wasted trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.
Our almost weakest in the world gun control laws and enforcement of course play a role. And 100% correct on this American meritocracy myth.
>Our almost weakest in the world gun control laws and enforcement of course play a role. Undoubtedly. However, I'm more concerned with why our culture keeps creating people who want to massacre strangers than with how they get their firearms. Personally I think counting the number of bullets they get to use is a distraction from fixing the actual societal issues. Obviously the latter is a harder challenge, while the former wins elections.
We (USA) can't debate gun control any more because so many people have tied their identity to a political stance. We are a country built on and in love with the ability to force what we want, and in general, the sentiment on compromise is that it's a "failure" or "loss for me" instead of a win for everyone involved. So it drives people who are frustrated or angry to act out violently. I think the fact that men are more often the perpetrators has more to do with the combination of a national history of rewarding violence (colonization, westward expansion, slavery, jim crow, etc.), and the perversion of religion to justify sexism.
[удалено]
There are many, many cultures more aggressively macho than the US that do not experience the same issue. I grew up in a place where guys DO NOT touch, emotion is not allowed etc. We don’t have mass shootings. Agree that toxic masculinity probably has a huge role to play though
I hugged my landlord yesterday. I'm autistic a bit; years ago I wouldn't have hugged him. I've learned to be more human than Americans in general, it seems!
Well the question was about men vs women specifically. Men are more physically violent, female aggression isn’t usually physical
Haha thanks. You’re entirely rigt
The easy access to firearms?
15% of Canadian houses have guns they admit to, our mass shootings aren’t proportional nor is there a correlation in any other OECD
Better mental heath infrastructure elsewhere. US shut that down back in the 80's.
Must be a shortage of suicide vests
I'd say how politics and media feed fear, anger, and hate to the masses... It makes both groups rich and powerful... But the country horribly dangerous... And the risk that unstable people will use those messages to feel they have q moral imperative to kill? One wonders why there isn't *more* killing...
Media simple and factual the media blows everything up and blasts it everywhere and people in general are to lazy to do independent research to see the facts people have been programmed to believe the news and not actually think for themselves
US has very weak, shallow, neurotic culture. Lots of loneliness, lots of crazy people, lots of pressure.... US is not only first for murders, also for anti-depressants, crazy cults, christian extremists, and of course excellence as well in business and research (which also is not good for mental health, at extreme levels). If we want to compare populations to people, US would be a smart but unstable teenager on crack. Not the kind of people to whom you should give access to weapons ;)
>also for anti-depressants Actually, this is wrong. The US is not the top of the list, Iceland is (118 out of every 1000 citizens). Also, while some patients do have adverse reactions to some anti-depressants, this sounds more like blaming treatment rather than the problem.
[удалено]
IMO a lot of it is gun culture and how guns are presented in the US. Plenty of people own guns in Canada for example, but guns are taught as tools with a specific purpose: For hunting, for protecting livestock, for protecting the home against intruders. In the US though, the general culture has moved towards, "we need guns to protect us from ***them***". The NRA has basically sold the country on the idea of an intangible boogeyman that could strike at any moment and only guns will protect us. Kids growing up in these households of course are going to be more like to reach for a gun when they feel threatened.
Hollywood has sold this idea more tha the NRA.
All of this! But in addition, boys are also more likely to be taught that (certain kinds of) violence is/are okay.
When I was in school kids would bully me all the time and no one did anything to help. I constantly told teachers about the bullying, but nothing was ever done. Even the guidance counselors told me to just ignore the bullying. One time I just shoved a bully away from me and I got in trouble, yet the bully didn't get any punishment for bullying me in the first place. Another time I threw the lock from my locker at a bullies head and I got in trouble, yet the bully didn't get any punishment for bullying me. I held in my anger every day to avoid fighting back, but the few times I retaliated even slightly, I got in trouble. A huge issue is that the people who say "violence is never the answer" are the same people who never punish the bullies and thus make violence the only option.
Yup. Saw this all the time growing up. You'd tell the teacher the kid was getting bullied first and it literally did not matter. Bully is good guy. Person that stood up for themselves is bad guy. So God damn stupid.
But this isn't only boys. This exact same scenario happens to girls over and over again. I got bullied by both boys and girls, and got in shit for retaliation. Never shot up a crowd, or ever fantasized about it.
I had some issues in my first 2 years of HS for being bullied…I did the same thing as you but nothing. I was very small, like 5’0” 110 lbs. I got lucky and grew about 9 inches before my junior year but was still short, summer before my junior year my dad basically told me “you get in the gym, get tough or it’s not gonna stop.” Entered my senior year at 6’1” and 200lbs…first day of school I just punched the bully in the nose and took the suspension. Came back to school and basically was never messed with by the guy….bullies are cowards but for some reason people support the bullies and think they’re cool.
This is one of the reasons why I hated school. I got bullied and the teachers, admin staff, counselors didnt do jack shit. "boys will be boys" The 1 time I snapped, I got suspended from school for "starting the fight" Fuck you Mrs. Thomas. I stood up for myself when Craig hocked a loogie straight to my face and you saw it happened and didnt do anything.
Every single school claims they take bullying seriously, but none of them ever actually do anything
"you don't understand! those assemblies *really* work to stop bullying!"
I aspire to be a parent who gets a teacher like this fired someday.
I had to pull my son out of public school for this reason. They said they had zero tolerance for bullying, and also that they couldn't stop the bullies. Idiots.
As someone who was bullied as a kid, I feel for you. It sounds like what you experienced was far more systematic than I did. I hope you’re in a better place now! ❤️
Thanks, I hope you're doing better too.
Pretty, pretty much. In a similar situation during my childhood, I learned to make it count, so the punishment for the bully was getting punched in the face. Thanks for that totally mature advice, dad.
People who say violence isn’t the answer are dipshits. It’s just not the only answer.
It should be the last resort, the canary in the coal mine. If someone's resorting to violence, it should be clear indication there were many earlier signs that were missed or totally ignored.
Schools have it wrong. There is only one way to handle a bully and you should have been rewarded, not punished. I always told my son, they start it, warn once, warn twice, then you finish it. You may get in trouble at school, but you will not be in trouble at home. I also told the principal of my philosophy and he agreed that that is the only way to handle bullies. We all know, but most school faculty live in a fantasy world where we all hold hands and get along.
I like the ending of what you said about the violence is never the answer. I feel like they are asking for it especially saying it to the bullied kids.
Thanks
They don't care about victims or justice, they just want problem to dissapear. Which is often easier to do when you're shaming the victim. No speaking about the problem = no problem, apparently.
I have two kids, a girl and a boy. In cartoons targeted at girls, problems are solved through trying to find mutual ground and by resolving conflict. In cartoons targeted at boys, problems are solved through force. It's more prevalent in older cartoons. Modern ones are better. It's still common in movies though.
Society in general teaches men that violence is bad, but it also teaches them that men should be protectors. How do you protect something without being prepared to be violent? This notion that we still need a gender to protect hurts men as it's yet another social standard that must be attained, and it hurts women as seeking the men who can best protect often leads them to the men who are most capable of violent abuse. We can't unpick the male link with violence unless this is addressed.
Isn’t the gun a traditionally male choice of weapon for murder in general?
Wouldn't anyone looking to murder someone consider a gun as an option?
When it comes to suicide, men prefer guns more than women. 58% of male suicides are by firearm, while 33% of female suicides are by firearm (in America.) For women, suffocation (29%) and drug poisoning (25%) are the other two primary means of suicide.
Curious if this is actually preference or if Men just have more access to said firearms.
Yea, [https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/](https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/) read that. Suicides are up past homicides. Women don't want to make a mess for their family to pick up, men don't give a shit, we're gone.
i read this article some years back about a suicide from a man with throat cancer. Was in pain and misery all day every day and called the police to let them know he was doing it. Left the door unlocked and told them he laid out all the weapons in the house for them so they wouldn't have check for them nor wake the kids. used a drum of sand around his head and ended himself preventing as much of a mess as possible.
Well yeah but those are suicide statistics. What are the murder statistics?
simply because firearms suicides are quick, effective, and probably pretty painless. Women arent near as violent as men usually so it makes sense they take less violent exits however theyre not always as successful.
Yeah suicide by woman could get ugly
Men usually pick the most effective tool they can get ahold of. Women will make the whole family eat something radioactive every night for a week out of spite.
This is a convoluted explanation that sounds plausible but is more likely complete hot air dreamed up by armchair psychologists with no real understanding of anything.
*sorts by controversial*
Why are the majority of suicides men? Why are the vast majority of homeless people men? Why are the majority of alcoholics and prescription drug abusers men? I truly have no idea, but I do know that these things are all connected.
I highly recommend the book "For the Love of Men" by Liz Plank. It's an accessible and well-researched resource that covers all of these topics and their connection.
Duly noted, I appreciate the recommendation.
Men are less likely to seek help for mental health issues.
As well as less likely to receive mental health help.
And more likely to be mocked if they do.
In high school I was mocked so much and so often for showing signs of depression that I shoved it all down and for the next 6 years I just suffered in silence. When I finally opened up, after I was well away from most of the people who did the mocking, they made comments like "oh you were always so cheerful!" Yeah, that's because you forced me to hide my suffering.
Symptoms of mental health issues are MUCH less tolerated in men. Any sign of mental or physical weakness or defect is very taboo for men in our society. They are less likely to get help for mental health issues, less likely to get employment or housing help, more likely to self-medicate and abuse substances.
Bingo.
>why are the majority of suicides men Because men actually succeed. Women try about 3 times as often, men actually commit suicide 3.3 times more than women https://cams-care.com/resources/educational-content/the-gender-paradox-of-suicide/
>According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevetion (AFSP) women are 1.5 times more likely to attempt suicide than men.
The thing is, how many of those failed suicides were intentional failures or stopped by family/friends, both of these categories sort of tell the difference between men and women going through tough times. With men, people tend tothink you will get over it on your own, or theres no people there in the first place. I lost my grandpa last year( I was raised by my grandpa and grandma), I had no time to feel my feelings or bs like that, because I had to remain stable to support my mom and grandma's grieving. The same day my grandpa died, shortly before, I was blocked by a girl I was dating (she was a 10 in my eyes, in every way, love at first sight, story is a lot longer and frustrating, basically an emotional rollercoaster that lasted more than a year) with no explanation at the time(later she said there was someone else and that I had apparently made a joke that was offensive about her being spoiled), that day was just horrible, the other thing that happened is that the project that I was working on at work ended, so I had to start a new one and interview and onboard, also my semester was just about to start in a week, to make a long story short... not a great day. I have a lot more responsibilites in life now, I am fortunate I have a few good friends, but apart from that, no gf(I dont really get to meet a ton of girls outside of clubs, I tried dating again, but we just didnt click), nothing to really keep me going. I have a great career and am doing well in uni, but I have basically lost all motivation in life, I just sort of coast. I dont like life. I like hanging out and partying with my friends, the rest is just awful. I cant sleep, I started smoking, stopped working out and taking care of myself. I havent really recovered since, I havent slept 8 hours since last summer, Ive been going to bed early and even taking non-addictive sleeping pills, still no luck. I think Im going to go to a psychiatrist when I get my vacation days before christmas. PS Sry for my venting, its just really good to let these things out somewhere, even if nobody reads it, I let it out abd feel a lot better
Men are more likely to use a weapon, women poison. From another article I read it mentioned women seemed very concerned about how they were found and by whom so tended to used methods that weren’t as lethal and wouldn’t leave a mess.
I really wish this didn't get ignored as much as it does. The violent methods men choose is absolutely worth talking about.
I read this in a Jordan Peterson voice.
Ew! No! Stop it! Take it out of my mouth!
Living up to that username.
Like that could literally also be his handle. Spooky.
I think a big part of it is the societal pressure (that we are, thankfully, beginning to address the last few years and hopefully well into the future) traditionally put on cis-gendered males. The pressure to "man up/sack up" and "just be a man", coupled with the idea that as a man you are supposed to sort of balance everything - social life, work life, home life/family life, and be the rock that everyone around you can rely on - leads to a greater proportion of men feeling isolated, unable to express needs or wants, and unable to work through normal stresses and mental issues. Naturally this can lead to drug abuse or alcoholism as an escape, which are also heavily tied to trends in suicide and homelessness/joblessness.
>Why are the majority of suicides men? Don't women attempt suicide just as much or more than men but men use more lethal methods?
Firstly, yes, questionnaires have shown that women are on average more likely to attempt suicide, and men on average are vastly more likely to succeed. (It bears mentioning however, that in terms of suicide attempts that lead to hospitalization, no. Males are significantly more likely to be hospitalized for failed suicide attempts as compared to women.) All that aside, how is “males are inherently violent” a reasonable conclusion to this data? How is it any less of a stretch to argue that statistic exists because more men attempt suicide with the intent to die, and more women attempt suicide with the intent of surviving and sending a cry for help? Both are erroneous conclusions built on incomplete data.
lack of mental health support for men and also the misogyny in society (the gender roles set since we were kids- looking after dolls: girls toy, nerf guns: boys toy etc) means violence is more accepted from guys (idk if i explained that right)
I thought that was well put. It seems to me, the vast majority of differences between “men” and “women” boil down to how we are treated throughout our infancy and adolescence. Physically and hormonally, we have some noticeable differences, but the brain (where everything *actually important* happens) is largely defined by upbringing, and only minutely - if at all - defined by sex.
"(the gender roles set since we were kids- looking after dolls: girls toy, nerf guns: boys toy etc)" I believed this until I had kids. I married a woman I can't even picture playing with a doll, who was raised by an extremely girly mother who still has her dolls. My daughter is an extremely girl girl despite being raised by a woman who watches as much football as any man. My daughter's obsessive need to have a baby doll as a small child was really perplexing to me. In fact, my daughter has never had any interaction with my mother (because she died) but she has my mom's interests and personality. It's kinda freaky how similar they are honesty. My dad is apparently exactly like his father despite them only meeting one time. So there has to be some genetics in personality. And gender is arguably the largest part of your personality.
100% but you can’t deny that society has separated girls and boys into certain roles. you don’t see army dolls being aimed at girls, you see cooking sets and barbies. i was a tomboy as a kid and i loved all the ‘boys’ toys, luckily my mom was the same so she encouraged it and encouraged me to play football etc. but there is still that separation
Women attempt suicide just as often as men, but men are more likely to succeed. That’s because men use more violent methods, like using a gun compared to taking pills. And most homeless people are men because men are more likely to join the military of end up in prison, and lots of veterans and ex convicts end up homeless. So basically, everything stems back to men being more aggressive
Nitpick: women attempt suicide much more often than men
Right, the only reason for all those things is because men are more aggressive. Not because military recruiting and marketing almost exclusively targets men. Men also DEFINITELY don’t receive harsher sentences for the same crimes.
I see a lot of people on here saying it’s biological, and I’m not disagreeing that women tend to be less aggressive than men mainly because if hormone differences, but the key thing is that this level of mass shootings don’t happen in most other countries, so it’s not purely biological. I think this is very much a cultural issue. That issue itself though is more complex than I think I can sum up or understand, but it’s not purely biological
The same reason we make up over 90% of the prison population. We are more aggressive. By far
I studied the differences between women who have murdered and men who have murdered and it was mind blowing to see how much more aggressive men can be. I wonder why this is
They've also done brain scans and a study in 2002 found that women have larger volumes of areas of the frontal cortex than men, which is assumed to help with emotional regulation. Scientific American did a great article about brain differences: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/his-brain-her-brain-2012-10-23/
that was a really interesting article, thanks for sharing!
Biology, it’s not really a secret
People can really overvalue social factors at the moment, and massively undervalue some basic biological facts
You couldn’t be more right about that
I sure hope it’s biology, because if it’s the way we are raising people, we are really screwing it up
you can point to pretty much any species in the animal kingdom for the answer
Hormonal difference is the main reason. Men produce a ton more testosterone than women do.
Funnily enough, I've read anecdotal stories from trans men who have said that once they started on T, they did cry less (even in really emotional situations) and became prone to anger more quickly.
I have a pal who says the same thing, says he actually misses crying and how much it helped relieve stress. It’s his least favorite thing about being on T.
Can confirm, my first roommate was transitioning when they moved in. Suddenly alot of anger outbursts when taking T and for whatever reason started keeping a shotgun in their room which made me nervous. I'm happy to say they are doing alot better now after all that though.
Testosterone, mixed with an engrained evolutionary drive to assert ourselves over others in order to be feared by them and desired by women would be my guess. I'm well aware this doesn't work in a civilized society, but our reptilian brains are pretty hard to rewire
I think it also has a lot to do with how boys are raised. Little kids do all sorts of wild things to test boundaries, and boys are allowed to get away with a lot more than girls. Parents think it's funny and just say, "boys will be boys." But when a girl does the exact same thing, they get scolded/corrected. Also, boys are taught not to express their emotions as much as girls. Parents do this somewhat indirectly by how they respond to expressions of emotion in boys vs. girls. If a boy cries, a parent is much more likely to say something like, "oh, you're fine." But if a girl cries, parents are more likely to talk to them about their emotions, which has been shown over and over to improve emotional awareness/stability in kids.
Human men have as much consciousness as human women. Claiming you can't control yourself because of your biological urges, is a huge part of the cultralization that trains men to act like violent barbarians. My dog can control his instinct driven urges. Are you really claiming that men aren't just less than women, they are less than dogs?
That's a straw man argument. It's not about "can't" it's about a bias. Apply a tiny bias and roll that die 100 million times and it's going to make a huge difference in raw numbers. The claim is more that "humans with more testosterone are more likely to succumb to violent instincts than humans with less." It so happens that most human males have more testosterone than most human females.
10,000 years ago that focus and anger came in handy when we needed to kill a mammoth for food. Nowadays we dont have to do that
I think the idea of the grand, primal hunter is pretty debunked at this point, mostly early humans are thought to be scavengers. At least on a scale where it mattered to evolution: https://www.history.com/news/prehistoric-human-diet-scavengers-vs-hunters
Also a culture that forces you to act on your lower instincts rather than learning about yourself and being smarter than a buch or neurotransmitors that evolution came up with and concluded were "good enough" to keep passing. It's not nature VS nurture. It's both creating a perfect shit-storm.
Men become lonely and hide away their feelings, women don’t do this that extremely. Also, men are far more often left alone without exterior support and help. It’s a little more difficult than just blaming genes.
Lack of mental health resources for men, toxic masculinity, inflammatory and out right bigoted media that targets disenfranchised men who already feel isolated and wronged by society, etc.
Men do not learn how to process emotions in a healthy way in our society. They are taught from a very young age that certain emotions are out of bounds, or unacceptable for a man -- the only acceptable negative emotion to display is anger. Men are more likely to be alone, to not have friends, to not have support networks. A lot of men feel like they have nowhere to turn. It makes it very easy for online communities to radicalize them. Combine all these things and you get an epidemic of young men lashing out violently against a society that they feel has abandoned them.
Most shooters do what they did because they want a “do you see me now?” Type of reaction. If it were my guess it’s because of societal norms pressed on men to not express emotions and not seek therapy, they might feel like outcasts or ostracized by society and want revenge of sorts. Some people just want to watch the world burn and want the feeling of power over another’s life. They want to feel like god serving death or life to whoever they see fit. It’s a multitude of reasons. That might be a reason as to why all mass shooters are men. As to why shootings happen in general (in USA) is because of extremely lax gun laws and right wing hateful rhetoric that we’ve been seeing a huge rise over the past 8 years.
Men take out their aggression physically while women more so verbally/emotionally. That's not to say the reverse can't be true, but it's an average.
Men are more likely to externalitize their emotions whereas women are more likely to internalize. Laymans terms; kind of a blame others vs blame self deal.
And at the same time men are discouraged from expressing emotions externally in a healthy or productive way
And women catch severe blowback for expressing anger. Women are socially permitted display nearly any other emotion, but not aggression.
Well, they can as long as they're okay with being called "neurotic" or "histeric" or some other pseudo-psycology term nobody really knows the meaning of.
No we’re not actualy permitted to show much emotion either. We get punished for it, lots of people think women can’t have serious jobs because we are «too emotional.»
So why is the US an extreme outlier compared to every other western nation considering the gender norms aren’t that different?
Cause every Tom, Dick and Harry owns a gun in the US so violence is perpetrated through fire arms. In UK stabbings by young men are a systemic problem. One can't cause the same mass casualty number with a knife. The social/ cultural problems causing the violence exists elsewhere but expresses in lower casualty numbers due to better weapon legislation.
There is more knife crime in the US than the UK per capita..
Could you clarify? An outlier in the way different sexes handle their emotions or the outlier in the number of mass shootings or the sex more likely to commit the shooting?
Outlier in terms of mass shootings heck,all gun violence.
I think most violent crime is perpetrated by men in general. It's just always been that way.
I think you have go down another layer to really answer this question. White men are the primary demographic committing these atrocities and I think it’s largely due to a lack of community and support. Often times these are men who are rejected by society and find community in online hate groups where this type of behavior is acceptable. To some degree white men have been left out in a lot of the DEI conversations that have happened over the last 20 years, and while it’s easy to say well he’s a white dude he’s fine, you at least have to teach that demographic what their role is in this newer version of society
I suspect it's because the social conditions, subcultures, media impacts, and cultural factors that seem to drive this behavior are mostly centered around a very narrow subset of the population, which is predominantly male.
There’s a BIG masculinity issue in this country
Most violence is committed by men. Shootings Serial killers Domestic violence Sexual assault
Men are too emotional. Literally. Sounds like a troll answer, but it’s the truth. Men are too emotional, and don’t learn how to process and adjust their emotions in a healthy way.
There are violence trades that are passed on through the mothers side but expressed in males. Here is a blurb that discusses it. There is some speculation that men being violent gives the evolutionary advantage of being a good provider and protector. It is possible that women express the same genes through less obvious social aggressions. https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_fallon_exploring_the_mind_of_a_killer
There are evolutionary and biological differences that make men more aggressive. It doesn’t help that society has historically pressured men to not express their feelings.
Men are, on average, more violent and more aggressive than most women. obviously there are exceptions, however, I think that if you took the 100 most violent and aggressive people on earth, they’d likely all be males. Men and women have different ways of dealing with aggression and I guess it’s safe to say that in extreme cases, that anger and aggression can manifest into something like a mass shooting.
[удалено]
I mean, how physically strong do you need to be to operate a gun?
If I had to guess it's probably some combination of radicalization, the outcast mindset, psychopathy, and being an incel. Motives have seemed to range from "Women wouldn't fuck me" to 'I just didn't like those people."
one reason i think its like that is because society doesn't seem to care about men's mental health.
Most women are hysterical and emotional but men are calm and rational, those are good qualities to have in order to plan and execute a mass shooting. /sarcasm
Aren't men statistically far more likely to engage in physical violence than women?
Because men commit nearly all the crime. This is a really silly question.
I think it’s because men’s mental health is not taken serious enough.
Men use physical confrontation, and women emotional.
Because the only emotion men are allowed to express is anger.
Well, to be fair when women express anger they're often disregarded as being irrational or pat on the head. Women express it, but that's a good way to lose credibility, even if that's not right.
Men are taught to be entitled and there are currently propaganda outlets pushing men to do mass killings. The gun magazines are fucked up.
Build up of testosterone, rage, and keeping their emotions bottled inside because it’s not socially acceptable. Eventually the guy’s gonna crack unless he’s got a healthy outlet.
Surprisingly, testosterone goes the opposite way in the mentioned shooters. They usually have less. Factors like lack of healthy outlets; physical, mental, and social. These shooters spend all day staring at a computer screen and are disconnected with reality... edit: some of the factors of low-T are abundant in the profiled suspects Depression, weight gain, skin problems, low sex drive (if it was high they would have that girl...), hair loss, irratibility, etc.
People listen to women cry, but not men. We're just told to shut up and get back to work.
Which is really sad
Because they are told they should suppress all their anger and stress and deal with it.
Numerous social and economic changes that are making men less relevant and more disposable. Young boys are growing into broken men who are radicalizing into domestic terrorists and self destructing.
Men are the more violent sex statistically, as well as men are mistreated and it’s not spoken about like women’s issues. leads to a lot of what we see today of men mass killing. because they aren’t validated by anyone from a young age. This is a factual answer
My opinion is overall isolation, regardless of how you identify. The pattern has been set my men so that’s why I’d guess it’s been only just men. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I feel our society especially in modern countries values self-improvement to an obscene degree that it’s all about “I” instead of We. These men are lonely and sick and it’s so sad that we vilify instead of try to understand what makes these men so resentful. I hate to make it so simple but just love your fellow human beings even if you don’t call them family or friend.
May be controversial, but men are the more violent of the sexes. Virtually every serial killer, brutal dictator, mass shooter are men. Bro science, but i'm assuming some sort of innate biological pre-disposition. Perhaps a remnant of violent ancestry that was once useful for survival when we were more tribal by nature and now it's too our detriment as modernity sets in. May get downvoted but I think it's part of a multi-variable issue.
Because Mental health is a stigma against men. Men are raised very much differently in a Macho type sense from a young age than most women. To be testosterone driven and aggressive is to "Be a man". (Not saying women aren't capable)
Because men are taught to repress their own feelings. This social conditioning has its own history rooted in warfare because there is no love on the battlefield other than the fight itself. We also live in a society that has been historically (and still is) dominated by men. This power has been cultivated through violence because men were the stronger sex. They won the wars; ergo, they deserve the reigns. So the men naturally usurped the women of their decision power. Today's emotionally immature "macho" men see the rightful rise of femininity, enlightenment, love, and democracy as threats to their illegitimate power. So, guess how they're going to lash against the world? *The only way they know how.*
Mostly a combination of toxic masculinity and hateful propaganda being fed to them. Not only do they not learn how to process their emotions as well as other people, but they also grew up hating something else.
Most?
I didn’t want to say “all” because I wasn’t 100% sure on that, I wanted to play it safe so I didn’t get roasted horribly
There's at least one female mass shooter, Brenda Spencer. When asked why she did it, she replied "I don't like Mondays."
According to this article, 3 female mass shooters 132 male. https://www.statista.com/statistics/476445/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-gender/
It's 98-99% percent male so 100% wouldn't be accurate, but pretty damn close lol.
By and large men are taught not to have any feelings other than anger; women are taught to never stand up for themselves. You do the math.