Sunday, March 31, 2013

Talking Points #8 (Argument)



Kimmel argues that all school shooting have the same thing in common: masculinity. Therefore in order to understand the shootings we must take into consideration gender specifically the constellation of adolescent masculinity, homophobia and violence.

I am going to agree with Kimmel on this one, gender is a huge factor in these shootings, but why is the real question. Boys are thought to be tough, strong to the point of even violent at times, vulgar especially to girls, physically fit, and most importantly not a girl. I can only imagine a boy in school who does not fit into these criteria, the shame and humiliation he must get from his peers. the torture he must go through on a day to day basis in a place where he is supposed to be safe. I am sure many of these boys went up to teachers and principals and told but no one listened.

Why not girls? I think the answer to this might be that girls can pass easily as either a lesbian or straight, also girls can go back and forth without any consequences and its okay for her to do so. A boy on the other hand cannot.

This might also answer the question as to why only boys open fire and not girls, since they are also getting tortured and picked on. One side of it might be that girls are not as severely damaged as boys are, and to boys might be more of a pride thing and proving something, to themselves and also to everyone else.

I also noticed that every time there is shooting; the news and the media want to then make this teenager a bad person: gangster, bully, came from an unstable family, or was abused as a child, teen violence, etc., but then of course overlook gender. The reason all these excuses come up is because all or most school shootings occur in white neighborhoods by white kids, so media wants to make sure they give a reason that the public would be okay with and not ask too many questions. I found this Wikipedia of school shootings in the United States alone, and I can’t even express in this blog my initial reaction to it.

Here are some of the faces of some of the suspects of a few of the recent shootings:

 














Smile :)
kt

4 comments:

  1. I used your Post to do an extended comment! (I have officially done all six prompts!)

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  2. I think you did a great job connecting the reading and kimmel's argument about gender playing such a large factor in school shootings. I am always in awe of how many school shootings there have been in the past couple years!!! It is really scary.

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