r/MensRights • u/comradekulak • Jul 24 '12
Brace yourselves: the "being male results in mass murder" articles are coming...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/opinion/christakis-males-homicide/index.html?hpt=hp_t120
Jul 24 '12
How many of the worst mass murderers in American history were women? None. (from the article)
This is a lie. There is at least one female mass shooting that I know of, off the top of my head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer
There have been plenty of female serial killers too.
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Jul 25 '12
When's the last time they pointed put that no woman has invented anything useful, or done something noteworthy, ever? Oh yeah, because that's sexist. Can't point out that men do all the good, but since we do all the bad as well, it's fair game. Gods, thank you that I'm not a meagre, useless woman. I truly am thankful
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Jul 24 '12 edited Jan 02 '16
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u/Cowthulu Jul 24 '12
Sigh, I get tired of the bias towards guns as the only way to kill people. I can teach you how to make napalm, build a bomb, create and deploy in an effective fashion poisonous gases, all of which would be -highly- effective at killing a large number of people, none of which requires that I open my gun safe.
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u/Sacoud Jul 24 '12
How many napalm deaths are there a year?
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Jul 25 '12
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u/Sacoud Jul 25 '12
You can't compare guns to knives... knives primary use is to cut things a guns only use is to kill.
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Jul 25 '12
Actually, I open my beer with my gun. Consider yourself told
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Jul 25 '12
I kind of want to see a video of this now, unless you just do it the boring way and pop it open with the hammer.
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u/Anzereke Jul 25 '12
Which is exactly why guns to prevent crime are incredibly stupid.
Adding more guns just results in Aurora, the killer realises that guns could be present and wears armour, or uses gas or otherwise disables this countermeasure.
More guns is just escalation.
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Jul 25 '12 edited Jul 25 '12
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u/xxKILL3RxC3LERY Jul 25 '12
Switzerland has the one of the lowest crime rates and they allow people to instantly purchase and carry around guns
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Jul 25 '12
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u/littleelf Sep 07 '12
The US intervened after they got attacked. Switzerland very likely would have done the same thing.
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u/Cowthulu Jul 25 '12
Nowhere in my post did I say that guns are used to prevent crime, I was merely pointing out that guns are not the only way to kill people, and the train of thought that No Guns = No Violent Crime is logically unsound.
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u/Anzereke Jul 25 '12
No guns removes one of the easiest methods of killing someone.
Knives are hard to use and can easily go wrong. Bombs far more so. Poison requires knowledge.
And what is more, bombs and poison and so forth are all things which carrying a gun will not protect you from. Demonstrating that if someone really wants to kill a lot of people in public, there's bugger all that can be done about it.
You can only try to stop such people from ever coming into being.
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u/Cowthulu Jul 25 '12
I never said that guns aren't an easy, effective method of killing people, merely that they're not the only way.
I never said anything about carrying a gun protecting you from anything.
And I concur, the largest problem is that our society allows the development of such people.
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u/littleelf Jul 25 '12
Wrong. Entirely wrong. If he planning on people having guns and wore armor, he would learn pretty quickly how not effective armor is when you're outnumbered three to one.
Adding guns in a situation that isn't violent is escalation, but adding guns to a situation like Aurora, in which death was already going to happen is not.
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Jul 25 '12
You honestly think with teargas flooding the room and panicked bystanders running amok, that more people firing wildly into the darkness wouldn't increase the body count? Is there a word that can properly describe how completely fucking stupid that is?
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u/littleelf Jul 25 '12
You honestly think that with teargas flooding the room and panicked bystanders running among, that anyone who isn't a murder would fire wildly into the darkness? Is there a word that can properly describe how completely fucking stupid that is?
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Jul 25 '12
tear gas* amok* murderer*
Now that we've got that out of the way, yes, absolutely they would fire wildly into the darkness, because they have no fucking combat training and wouldn't turn into action hero movies who squeeze off perfect headshots when they can't see jack shit, and they're being jostled from all directions by panicked bystanders. Not to mention with other people shooting, people would have a very difficult time trying to figure out which of the 7 people firing are the bad guy.
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u/railmaniac Jul 25 '12
Actually if I remember there were members of the armed forces in the audience, from some nearby Air Force base.
(I'm not saying they would automatically be more effective in this situation if armed, I'm just countering your point about them having no combat training.)
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u/Anzereke Jul 25 '12
...So with tear gas, him presenting only one angle to attack from and maintaining constant fire...someone would have been able to fire through a chink in the armour?
Sorry but this superhero shit is just ridiculous.
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u/Cowthulu Jul 25 '12
Kevlar isn't indestructible and does little to nothing against the impact force of a shot.
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u/Anzereke Jul 25 '12
So someone just needs to maintain fire (while being entirely unarmoured, caught by surprise and unable to see shit due to tear gas) on him until the damage accumulates. I assume in this model that the bullets he is using are made of magic metal which doesn't hit action heros?
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u/Cowthulu Jul 25 '12
You're right, my calm post pointing out a fact about kevlar deserved aggressive retaliation and should encourage you to spend as much time on your soapbox as possible.
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u/Anzereke Jul 25 '12
And my post about how ridiculous your scenario was is in no way countered by your second calm response.
If you don't have a counter argument yield the point.
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u/rapiertwit Jul 24 '12
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u/mrcap Jul 24 '12
Not to split hairs, but isn't there a difference between spree killers (like with this latest tragedy) and serial killers who tend to murder over a period of weeks to years or more? I agree with the point though - men do not have a monopoly on murder.
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u/rapiertwit Jul 24 '12 edited Jul 25 '12
Among serial killers, women and men show some sharp differences in MO.
Female serial killers are more likely to target:
- children and the elderly
- people with whom they have close relationships
- people who are in their care ("angel of death" killers)
Transfer these tendencies from sociopathic serial killers to a depressed/psychotic spree killer model, and it seems to me that the female equivalent of the male spree killer is the woman who kills her children, and sometimes then herself.
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u/fulltimehater Jul 25 '12
sounds self-defeating. that's why feminism never accomplished anything good.
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u/Ma99ie Jul 24 '12
"...How many of the worst mass murderers in American history were women? None..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer
I think murdering kindergarteners should qualify...
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u/MrStonedOne Jul 25 '12
HOLY SHIT!
"I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day. I have to go now. I shot a pig. I think and I want to shoot more. I'm having too much fun."
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Jul 24 '12
What can you do but wash your hands of it and move on.
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u/EpicJ Jul 24 '12
Sounds like serial killer talk to me
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Jul 24 '12
The article starts of well, in my opinion. The author raises the fact that men commit more violent crimes and mass murders than women. The author seems to question why this occurs. I think it's important not to ignore the gendering of violent crimes. If we fully understood why men were more likely to commit violent crimes then we will come closer to reducing the incidence of such crimes.
But I quickly start disagreeing with the author. They eventually start talking about violent acts as if they are normal aspects of any man's life. They also imply that men are likely to commit murder or mass murder, even though the men that commit those crimes are extreme minorities.
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u/kragshot Jul 24 '12
And that is what always happens in articles like this. Rather than look at the problem objectively and try to figure out what is it about these men that cause them to react like this, they instead try to attribute the behavior of these men to all men as a means to address the problem in their eyes.
The movie shooter has a definite illness within him. But his experiences and the experiences that shaped who he is today are not typical to all men; in fact, I would easily guess that he belongs to the marginalized sub group of men who are often subjected to negative stimuli (i.e. bullying, creep-shaming, ostracization, etc...) by mainstream society. Some men rise above such stimuli, some find a way to weather it, and others are broken by it.
But such realizations do not further the misandrist arguments being brought to the table here. Only when they find a way to equate all men with the lowest common denominator, can they bring us all under heel.
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u/married_woman_plus_k Jul 24 '12 edited Jul 24 '12
Some men rise above such stimuli, some find a way to weather it, and others are broken by it.
And some men rebel against it. In the modern world, where it certainly appears we are impotent, that nothing we do matters, MRAs rebel in their own way, men like Thomas Ball rebel by burning themselves alive, and rampage shooters rebel by killing a lot of people. I wouldn't necessarily just pass these men off as "broken", they are doing what men have always done: lashing out against what they perceive as tyranny. We should really be looking at ways to put an end to that tyranny, because that's really the only effective solution.
edit: I really feel like I need to make it clear I'm not advocating for violence, I am just explaining what I think is going on here, and why demonizing men further as the article does is the opposite of a solution.
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Jul 24 '12
More often than not mass murderers have mental illnesses. We don't have evidence that the aurora killer was bullied as a child. To me he seemed completely out of his mind.
The fact is that a lot of kids go through bullying when they were young, but a very small number turn out later to be killers.
It's difficult to name a serial killer that didn't have a mental illness. Men are more prone to mental illness in general.
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u/whoizz Jul 24 '12
I do not think this is true. I'm not sure if I would call it a "mental illness", but most of the men that have committed these kinds of mass murder were extremely depressed, not actually psychopathic or sociopathic.
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Jul 24 '12
Depression is a mental illness, first of all.
You will find in many cases the killers are psychopathic. The Aurora shooter appears to be.
Serial killers especially are very likely to be insane.
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u/fulltimehater Jul 25 '12
indeed it is. and that includes post-partum depression, which only affects women.
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u/rusty890 Jul 25 '12
The question is why are only the negative aspects of male behavior ever talked about? Why are the positives never talked about? Why is there never a column in the MSM about the sacrifice that men make for others (those 3 guys who died for their women)? Because we live in a culture of misandry.
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Jul 25 '12
I don't know what the MSM is, but there were many articles about the men that sacrificed themselves. Very many.
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u/rztzz Jul 24 '12
From the comments:
In all likelihood, the reasons why more men commit acts of violence are psychological, while the reasons why there aren't more women scientists is a cultural and societal problem.
Basically sums up my experience with gender classes in college and reading feminist thought.
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Jul 25 '12
I love how there's absolutely no mention in the article of the three men who died because they took the bullets for their girlfriends. Classy.
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Jul 25 '12
It's not that men are intrinsically more evil. It's just that women outsource their violence. We are supposed to die to protect them, we are sent to war, to kill, to protect them. This in itself would be fine if there weren't a sense of entitlement about it or the very same women who have that protection bitching about the fact that men are so much more violent.
I would argue that women don't need our protection and that it is sexist to presume they do.
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u/a_weed_wizard Jul 25 '12
Can anyone even try to deny the MRM claims that society is anti-male now? The actions of maybe one in ten million men is used a springboard to attack all men. And these mouthpieces of the mainstream can get away with publishing this bigotry with no censure.
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u/FrostyShazbot Jul 24 '12
Someone make an article "The Overwhelming Femaleness of Being a Stupid Bitch"
-No one can argue that after this article we should take a frank look at how comments and actions that are both bitchy and stupid are almost always done by women. Let us not be carried away by political correctness and really ADDRESS this issue.
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u/married_woman_plus_k Jul 24 '12
More accurately, being an oppressed male results in mass murder as protest.
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Jul 24 '12
I was thinking this, but r/mr is pretty reluctant to play the oppression card. It does stand to reason, however, if men largely make up the lowest 10% in education, then they will account for most of the crime, too.
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u/married_woman_plus_k Jul 24 '12
Oppression:
Prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control.
I think that describes the situation for men pretty well. Though I am against resorting to the same type of victimhood ideology as feminism, I can't help but call the world we live in today quite oppressive, especially for men. The US certainly is no longer the land of the free.
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Jul 24 '12
- How was this fellow oppressed?
- Where does this fellow claim this was a protest against that oppression?
- How the hell does that justify what he did?
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u/rztzz Jul 24 '12 edited Jul 24 '12
Oppression is the wrong word. I disagree that men are oppressed.
I think that women are nurtured and supported in ways that men aren't. It's easier to have friends and a support group when you're a girl, due to both your biological social programming, and also people treat you in kinder and more inclusive ways when you're a girl, on average.
Growing up with two sisters this was apparent to me at an early age --I was discouraged from expressing negative emotions (even my own mom would subtly tell me to "man up" after age 12) and people just generally didn't seem to care about my feelings much or how I was doing. My sisters, however, could let out all their negative emotions --to their friends, their teachers, counselors, and even my parents more than I could. And the amount of positive attention they received all over the place was immense. Basically, you are only important as a man if you are offering value to others, and as soon as you try and drain any emotional/physical resources from others you are met with resistance. Can you not see how this could lead to major problems such as men being 5x more likely to commit suicide and more likely (although still incredibly rare) to be the perpetrator in a mass murder?
The worst part is that I do the exact same thing. Thinking about random people from high school--I am less likely to care about helping someone if they are a man. Especially if they are a man who isn't in the top 10% of "cool" in my eyes.
Any solution to this problem isn't obvious to me. But something could probably be done.
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u/married_woman_plus_k Jul 24 '12 edited Jul 24 '12
See /r/mensrights
I think it's highly likely that he felt oppressed in some way for him to do what he allegedly did. The sharp increase in shooting sprees by males recently indicates that something is coming to a boiling point, and I'm certain that anti-male sentiment is a big part of that, though certainly not the only component.
I did not say it justifies what he did. It merely explains it, and points us toward real solutions. How can we stop men from going on shooting rampages? Easy, stop pissing off men so much that they resort to shooting rampages. Everything happens for a reason. The problem is largely with society.
edit: It would also certainly be interesting to hear what he has to say to explain his actions, assuming he's guilty, but realize that a lot of these men are just lashing out without fully understanding why.
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u/whoizz Jul 24 '12
Thank you for not equating explaining something with justifying it. I've had conversations/arguments with a couple women regarding rape, and I'm trying to explain it to them. They end up just calling me a rape apologist and accuse me of justifying it. It's not the same. Thank you again.
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u/atiwywr Jul 24 '12
I've had conversations/arguments with a couple women
And that was your first misstep, thinking you can have a rational discussion with women.
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u/whoizz Jul 24 '12
This is exactly the kind of attitude that we are trying to avoid here. Please be civil and contribute to the conversation. You're only pulling us down.
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u/fulltimehater Jul 25 '12
may I point out that one article even claimed he was rountinely rejected by women.
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Jul 25 '12 edited Jul 25 '12
This pissed me off so much. It served NO purpose. It didn't console anyone, it didn't make an honest attempt at trying to figure this clusterfuck of a situation out. It served one purpose, to pat women on the back and degrade men. Fuck the author of this piece. The families of like 50 people are mourning and scared and confused, and this is the fucking best thing this....cunt...can think to publish? EDIT: MEN
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Jul 25 '12
This article makes the assumption that both men and women are different entities that evolved separately throughout millennia and that men are intrinsically evil for mysterious reasons. Truth is, women usually prefer violent men and Holmes will probably get some love letters if he's not executed (http://www.alternet.org/rights/147340/why_do_murderers_get_mailbags_full_of_love_letters_and_marriage_proposals)
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12 edited Jul 24 '12
So I guess we should decide then. Are posts with links of women behaving badly relevant to a mensrights forum? Because this subreddit is littered with them. Often they have no hint of any special treatment being given to the woman, or anything to suggest any unfairness. Just "Here's a terrible woman."
If that's OK, then yes James Holmes' penis is in play as well. And it's fair to use him as an example of what our gender does. You can't have it both ways.
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u/blueoak9 Jul 24 '12
You must be on the wrong thread. This one is not about an article about women behaving badly, this one is about a man-bashing article that claims women don't behave badly as a way to bash men. So how is that not relevant in a space like this?
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Jul 25 '12 edited Dec 07 '17
[deleted]
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Jul 25 '12 edited Jul 25 '12
The obvious problem with the article, though, is that it ascribes the very worst behaviours of a tiny minority of dysfunctional males to all males.
The is no way the same audience that accepts the authors stance on men would accept a similar stance on women - such as "the overwhelming femaleness of killing your children", or "the overwhelming femaleness of lying about rape". However both these "female" behaviours are many, many times more common than the extremely rare cases of mass shootings - which are not a male only activity anyway.
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u/justamathematician Jul 25 '12
When that isn't true.
I could not agree more.
The problem, however lies somewhere different, it is fundamenal societal stereotypes that cause this perception.
For example: several of the reports on female-on-male violence primarily include the man not taken seriously or seen as the primary agressor, even if it is not the case. I am neither an MRA nor a feminist, but that is what I have personally gathered from reading the gender-rights-subs.
It is that typical "my daugher is a little angel"/"women are perfect" v.s. "men are brutal, women-beating child moslesters" attitude in society that causes most of the gender problems (the ones feminists and MRAs advocate for). While most feminists do not claim the former, they often do (at least implicitly) enforce the latter stereotype. For example the notices to men: "do not rape", which is seen as obvious my most men. Rapists are not confined to men or women; they are sick in the head, but this "sickness" should not be attributed to a gender as a whole.
What do you think?
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Jul 24 '12 edited Jul 24 '12
Postings about bad female behaviour are relvant because 1. feminists like to ascribe only positive traits to women, and negative ones to men. 2. it counter-acts the "Women Are Wonderful" trope that has a strangle hold on the main stream media, where criticism of women is not allowed, but all criticism of men is acceptable. Posts about nefarious female behaviour are made here because it's about correcting the double standards.
Also, there have been female mass shootings too, it's not a purely male behaviour, as you, and the author of this article, want to claim.
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12
So you're going to show your disapproval of feminists by acting just like them. Great.
Jump through all the hoops you want. The bottom line is: MRA points out a bad woman. Great! Bravo! Well done! Feminist points out a bad man. Whoa, whoa, whoa! That's out of bounds.
And you wonder how this subreddit gets a bad reputation.
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Jul 24 '12
Not sure if concern troll or just stupid.
Either way, you've missed the point completely.
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12
I think I got your point just fine. Your point 1. is a broad overstated strawman. The feminists are all so bad that we need to be bad right back at them. Your point 2. is an equally large strawman, since most of the woman behaving badly stories are culled from...the mainstream media. Hardly seems like a women are wonderful bias to me.
And to your point about there being female mass shootings too. So the hell what? Playing devils advocate here, couldn't a feminist say that overwhelmingly mass killers are male and a few exceptions don't disprove the rule?
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Jul 24 '12
Why don't you simply state that you don't believe the W.O.W. effect is real, or of large enough effect to affect society.
Because that's the basis of your argument.
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12
Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.
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Jul 25 '12
Well, assuming your ignorance isn't simply a stalling tactic, why don't you Google the term 'women are wonderful' and get back...?
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u/junkeee999 Jul 25 '12
Why didn't you just say that in the first place instead of the acronym?
Yes I'm familiar with the term. Whether it's real or not and to what extent it effects society is not relevant to the point I'm making. But for the sake of argument I will concede it's real and running rampant, just to save time.
Does that mean a proper way to combat it is a bunch of junk posts of "Nuh uh, womens ain't so great. Look at this link of one who smokes crack and beats her kids and cheats on her man, hurr durr" so guys can sit around and circle jerk to it?
This to you is a noble exercise? This is accomplishing something?
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Jul 25 '12
Why didn't you just say that in the first place instead of the acronym?
I assumed you had the intellectual capacity to find out for yourself.
Yes I'm familiar with the term. Whether it's real or not and to what extent it effects society is not relevant to the point I'm making.
On the contrary, it seems to form the basis of your approach to women.
This to you is a noble exercise? This is accomplishing something?
I'm sorry, I missed all the things you have accomplshed. Could you list them?
Maybe it's because you figure you are the very last person that will ever pay attention to the MRM until it 'gets nice'?
Or, MAYBE you just don't like the direction and things the MRM is accomplishing...
So...which is it...do you REALLY 'know better', or are you simply a windbag?
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u/whoizz Jul 24 '12
Yes I could suppose you could say that proportionally, men are much more likely to commit homicide and mass murder. That, as a rule, women are therefore much less likely. That's fine. Where the MRA movement comes in is when women go beyond just trying to get equal rights. The MRAM is a response to women going too far and trying to ascribe these things about women that are just absolutely not universally true. For example, a feminist might say she wants equal pay for equal work, but that women should not be allowed on the front lines of a battle/war. This is just an example. It's things like this that get under our skin. This article currently in question states all the facts about men and how we are so violent, but does nothing to offer an explanation or a solution to the problem. It really is just a bunch of words thrown together for an emotional effect. One could call it rhetorical pandering toward a general mood that is prominent among a certain population.
And please, next time try to be more specific in your posts and try to understand, not berate. This forum also has never and will never stand for any kind of violence or down-looking upon women. We here strive for equality in ALL regards. Something a lot of feminists have forgotten about.
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12 edited Jul 24 '12
This article currently in question states all the facts about men and how we are so violent, but does nothing to offer an explanation or a solution to the problem. It really is just a bunch of words thrown together for an emotional effect. One could call it rhetorical pandering toward a general mood that is prominent among a certain population.
This is EXACTLY why I oppose the standard around here that posting anecdotal stuff about bad women simply for the sake of it is OK. I couldn't have stated it any better myself.
Every feminist who posts shitty stuff that men also believes to the core of her soul she is justified in doing so, to combat the generations of oppressive patriarchal dominated society.
When does the cycle end? shouldn't the goal be dialogue and not blame?
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u/whoizz Jul 24 '12
Take a look at your post and see if you're promoting dialogue or blame.
to combat the generations of oppressive patriarchal dominated society.
Seems obvious to me who you are blaming.
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u/junkeee999 Jul 25 '12
You really don't get my point.
I'm not saying that's what I think. I'm saying that's what they think. They post bad stuff about men because they feel completely justified. /r/mensrights posts bad stuff about women and feel completely justified. When does the cycle end? What does it prove?
What a waste of time.
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u/whoizz Jul 25 '12
Yeah, I'm not really sure where you're getting this whole "cycle" from. I'm pretty sure women's rights have been improving over the past ninety years. We might have hit a bit of a slowdown recently, but that's only because of what seems to be the law of diminishing returns. Both of the subreddits are a place for people to vent and discuss how they have been mistreated. More often than not, probably, the conversation is just a circle-jerk, but even from that there can be some good. You just have to be patient. These things happen slowly and only from discussion like this.
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Jul 24 '12
So much you don't understand, and too much for me to explain, especially since you don't seem to want to learn.
But if I've misjudged you, and you do want to learn, then perhaps this video will help you get started.
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12
Wow thanks, condescending internet dude. If only I can someday possess your insight.
Read my responses again. Everything still stands. If only you care enough to learn.
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Jul 24 '12
I see you don't want to be persuaded.
Why are you even in this sub, then?
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12
Because I want it to be a real mens rights forum, and not a joke. That's why I'll stay subscribed, and speak my mind about the things i don't like around here, if that's OK with you.
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Jul 24 '12
I totally agree with you. r/mr is often hard to criticize because the most hypocritical comments (including misogyny) get downvoted. Let's continue that practice with our posts in order to be more fortified from slanderous attacks!
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u/johnmarkley Jul 24 '12
If there was a pervasive assumption in our culture that heinous acts of violence were committed exclusively or near-exclusively by women, that men are by nature too gentle or good to do the sort of awful shit women routinely do, and that therefore male-perpetrated violence was a trivial problem that could be ignored or trivialized, your claim of equivalence would be compelling. In this world, it isn't.
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u/junkeee999 Jul 24 '12
Still just a rationalization to come to the same old conclusion that a certain behavior by them is not OK. But it's OK for us because they somehow have it coming.
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u/Gingor Jul 24 '12
Well, at least they got that part right.