Letters to the Editor
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Violent Acts and Invisible Masculinity
My first assumptions when I heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech were that the shooter was: a male, white, student, and that he has problems interacting with women. My hypothesis came out to be 50% wrong. The most obvious profile for mass murderers is that they are male. I have yet to hear any stimulating news coverage concerning gender.
In the article, Paul Niwa is quoted as saying, “A shooter can be white and nobody thinks that race played a part in the crime. But when someone nonwhite commits a crime, this society makes the person's race partially at fault." Since whites are the majority in this country it is far more likely that the shooter will be white, so race is going to become a major talking point. Unlike gender, race should hardly become a focus. Yet, when women make up 50% of the population why is not equally as surprising that all the perpetrators of these massacres are men?
I feel that due to the rarity of these types of shootings profiling is far less affective than focusing on abnormal behavior patterns. Yet, why is there not serious discussion concerning masculinity in the United States? Men are those ones who are disproportionately represented in our government and in the culture’s decision making machines, as well as more likely to commit murder(no matter how many innocent victims they take with them). Is violence and masculinity a moot topic in our country? I don’t think so, perhaps it is a fact that is so obvious that it becomes invisible.