This is a comment by Jed Diamond on the post “Dear Mr. President, Our Nation’s Boys Need Your Attention“.
Jed Diamond said:
Mark, thanks for addressing these issues and asking our president to step up and be heard. Another aspect of this problem is the violence which often results when we neglect our young men. The whole country pays attention when there is a school shooting or a bomb that goes off at a public event. We rarely look at these tragedies through the lens of gender. Its most often young men that are the perpetrators of this violence, and usually these acts of violence also involve suicide (sometimes by police, usually male, who shoot the perpetrator). The violence continues to escalate. In his book, Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes, James Gilligan, M.D. says, “I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo the ‘loss of face’ — no matter how severe the punishment, even if it involved death.”
The greatest form of shame and disrespect is when we focus a great deal of attention on one group and neglect another group. Boys matter, young men matter.
I’m glad the President stands up for gun control and he stands up in support of a professional athlete who acknowledges being gay. Think what it would mean if he showed this kind of respect to our young men. “For we misunderstand these men, at our peril,” says Gilligan, “if we do not realize they mean it literally when they say they would rather kill or mutilate others, be killed or mutilated themselves, than live without pride, dignity, and self-respect.”
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