36 Hours, Four Violent Men, and One American Ideology
Lisa Wade, PhD on June 12, 2016

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2016/06/12/36-hours-four-violent-men-and-one-american-ideology/

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We wake up this morning to the news of the deadliest civilian mass shooting in American history. We will be sad about this for a while and we will wring our hands feeling helpless. And we should be sad and gnash our teeth because it is a senseless tragedy.

In the meantime, many of us will forget to think and talk about Brock Turner’s crime and his “summer vacation” jail sentence: three months for the vile sexual assault of an unconscious woman. One outrage replaces another and we naturally and understandably move on, as if these two crimes are unrelated. They’re not.

Brock Turner was an All-American boy — demographically and, literally, by athletic title — and what he did to his victim was All-American, too, confirmed by decades of research to be tied closely to a sense of male superiority and entitlement. I study sex on campus and sexual violence is perpetrated disproportionately by high status men — athletes and fraternity members — who are strongly invested in their identities as men.

Omar Mateen’s crime is tied to this sort of masculinity, too. Mateen’s father has already spoken to the media, revealing that his son had previously been angered by the sight of two men kissing. Anti-gay hate crimes, like violence against women (Mateen also reportedly beat his ex-wife), are tied closely to rigid and hierarchical ideas about masculinity. Mass murders have become a distinctly American way for men to defend that hierarchy. As the sociologists Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober write:

This type of rampage violence happens more in the United States of America than anywhere else… Gun control is a significant part of the problem. But, gun control is only a partial explanation for mass shootings in the United States. Mass shootings are also almost universally committed by men. So, this is not just an American problem; it’s a problem related to American masculinity and to the ways American men use guns.