[hellofelicia]

Many people are lonely, but only some of them shoot up little kids. Hell, I'd say most kids are bullied in some way or another at some point during their journey through school! It is important to reach out to all teens and address bullying for a multitude of reason, but the narrative of a misfit loner is just that, a narrative that most often falls apart during the investigation into the shooter's background.

Elliot Rogers did not kill young women because he was lonely. He did it because he felt entitled to do that and lacked awareness into his own contribution to his loneliness.

> Or you can believe that it is due to inherent "whiteness", or "maleness", if you would like to continue to divide these kids further.

If whiteness and maleness doesn't contribute to this issue, how come this crime has such a distinctive perp profile? As far as I know, young women in the US are not banned from going to a gun shop and getting an AR-15 as soon as they turn 18, and have equal capacity to contract mental illness. The difference is they don't feel like they are owed something that the world hasn't given to them. This is behavioral issue, not a mental health issue.

[drekipus]

> This is behavioral issue, not a mental health issue

I agree completely. And you're right on the Elliot Rogers part, I'm sorry that I wasn't quite clear on that. The issue was 100% the thought of being "owed" something.

Perhaps trying to put another way: He thought he was owed something because he felt that he fit some profile of a young, handsome, gentleman, who's a son of an actor, and life doesn't follow scripts.

My point is that if we keep saying "young white males have it all" when they don't, they will start to think "well why don't I feel complete, if I have it all?" - it's a genuine question. I think the answer is that we need to stop demonising "straight white males" lest they become demons*.

I'm not saying that they don't fit the profile. I'm saying that it's not because they are white and male. Black males fit a distinctive criminal perpetrator profile as well, but it's not due to being black. You can't have one without the other. Either you believe this is due to their race or not.

* I just recently had a newborn daughter, and my mother-in-law said something along these lines: whatever I call her: "princess", "monster", etc. is what she will become.

I think it's the same thing here: the more we demonise and stigmatise "straight white males" the more there's going to be a lash back from young males who don't feel like they have the power you claim they have, yet.

[hellofelicia]

Let me rephrase my thought: shooters do what they do not because they are white and male, because there are plenty white males who don't do it. But we can't deny there is something happening within that demographic that makes it more prone to commit this particular crime.

> My point is that if we keep saying "young white males have it all" when they don't, they will start to think "well why don't I feel complete, if I have it all?"

Not to discount this, but teenage angst has been around for generations. How come young men today decide to shoot their classmates instead of, idk, writing bad poetry or standing under the window of a girl that rejected them, the way their fathers did? I think the main deciding factor is being exposed to a certain brand of toxic masculinity that promotes misogyny and equates violence with power. One of the strongest red flags for mass shooters, leaving depression, bullying, etc etc far behind, is a history of misogynistic behavior and domestic violence.

You can disagree with my interpretation, of course.

[drekipus]

I largely agree with what you're saying. There is something about this demographic and it's getting largely worse, not better. I think most of this is enough feedback that we need to tailor our approach (as in almost put it in 180 from what we have been doing).

The issue with "toxic masculinity" is that only non-toxic men can define it. and everyone has different definitions of what a non-toxic man is.

If i were to suggest what an "ideal role model" is for young men, it would be someone who doesn't drink, who is physically strong, boxes, labours, is capable of causing harm, but chooses not to, and one who isn't prone to loosing it if a girl rejects him.

Others would read my description and recoil in disgust, because they think the ideal man should be one who is romantic and perhaps a writer, and should drop their coat so ladies can walk over puddles, and be well versed in different types of whiskeys, who is incapable of causing harm, but perhaps wants to.

These are really the two ends of what young men have to try and model themselves as, and they do a botched job of it and get called a creep and loser for being a creepy loser. drinking to excess because that's the only socially acceptable thing to do when in large groups.

Perhaps the one thing that we need to train boys in is how to handle rejection properly, maybe that's the missing piece here.

Perhaps society should not encourage the archetype of "incapable of causing harm but wants to" and instead encourage "is able to cause harm, but won't" - like their forefathers were into adventure and war stories of strong heroes, etc.

(these are just thoughts at this point, going from what I know of being a man myself, and what I had to do to grow up.)

Who's to say. Good chat none-the-less. :)

[showdeadtest111]

>Not to discount this, but teenage angst has been around for generations. How come young men today decide to shoot their classmates instead of, idk, writing bad poetry or standing under the window of a girl that rejected them, the way their fathers did?

>I think the main deciding factor is being exposed to a certain brand of toxic masculinity that promotes misogyny and equates violence with power. One of the strongest red flags for mass shooters, leaving depression, bullying, etc etc far behind, is a history of misogynistic behavior and domestic violence.

The forefathers either had enough hope, restraint, or we have simply forgotten of all the times they took emotional decisions. I can't think of anything personally besides some old fiction[0] that would back up the 3rd possibility. The second possibility seems backwards to me, if anything it should be the opposite, modern men would be less inclined to violence towards women, if not, then what benefit did 200+ years of womens activism do? And the first I have no perspective on, but consider the very real chance that young men today unlike their forefathers see no way out (Even if this perspective is only an illusion, it remains very real in their minds), which the original blogpost tries to address by telling them there is a light at the end of the tunnel and offers activities they can do right now.

For the record, most of the people against "toxic masculinity" would classify the standing under the window of the girl that rejected you to be stalking, and an extension of that toxic behavior.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther#C...

[hellofelicia]

> For the record, most of the people against "toxic masculinity" would classify the standing under the window of the girl that rejected you to be stalking, and an extension of that toxic behavior.

Yes, but that is not my point. What I am trying to say that when those young men face hardships, instead of internalizing their response or directing it towards the object of their desire, they somehow decide that the solution to their problem is murdering a bunch of elementary school children. They see themselves as the wronged party against the world, and the way to rectify that injustice is to commit an act of violence against someone who has nothing to do with their troubles.

[igetspam]

Another common thread for many of these shooters is violence or threats of violence toward women. It is sometimes discussed but doesn't get a lot of emphasis. In a society building on misogynistic ideals, it's easy to speculate on why that may be.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/us/mass-shootings-misogyn...

https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/05/30/wendy-murphy-texas-s...

Here's where Red Flag laws could do a lot.

[factcheckdec]

You have a poisonous, race and gender obsessed world view.