In many ways, the responses to the gun control debate are a flash back to a high school mentality. Where if you aren’t a “masculine” (gun-loving) man, you aren’t a man at all.
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“Look at that. A pillow biting chicken queen, who sidelines as an attention whore. Obsessed with his lack of masculinity, and still trying to work out his rage because mommy and daddy didn’t accept him. Sees guns as a symbol of the masculinity he could never achieve, so he hates them, and the people connected with them….”
This quote by the administrator of the Disarmanuts Facebook page in response to one of my gun safety commentaries exposes a clear example of something the media rarely underscore in our current climate of gun violence: the gendered character of that violence.
I should have been more prepared for the veracity of responses
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In the over 50,000 shooting incidents in the United States in 2015, including approximately 350 categorized as “mass shootings” of four or more victims, men, mostly white men, committed the overwhelming majority. Since 2013, approximately 160 shootings occurred in schools. We have also seen numerous incidents of gun violence executed at family health clinics, houses of worship, community centers, and other sites with a disproportionate number of female employees. It is no mere coincidence that generally women (55%) favor gun control regulations more than men (40%).
In my attempt to come to an understanding why so many people oppose and resist common sense firearms safety regulations, I have developed a proposition that regulations on firearms challenge the promises of a patriarchal system based on notions of hyper-masculinity with the elements taken to the extreme of control, domination over others and the environment, competitiveness, autonomy, rugged individualism, strength, toughness, forcefulness, and decisiveness, and, of course, never having to ask for help or assistance. Concepts of cooperation and community responsibility are pushed to the sidelines and discarded.
Recently, to test out my theory, I distributed to a number of Facebook pages my understanding for the reasons why the United States remains among the last of the more developed Western countries to institute meaningful and appropriate firearms safety measures. Coming from the vast majority of sites devoted to enhancing firearms safety, members responded very positively, as if what I proposed was obvious, as common sense, and as indisputable.
Beta Male”: “an unremarkable, careful man who avoids risk and confrontation. Beta males lack the physical presence, charisma, and confidence of the Alpha male.”
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I also reached out to other locations where I was less likely of receiving nearly universal support. I should have been more prepared for the veracity of responses. The overwhelming majority, who by name or Facebook photo presented as men, rather than discussing or debating, spewed venomous attacks against me in the form of name calling, character assassination, and direct threats. I include a brief sample below keeping the language exactly as responders wrote it. I also include a number of the memes they posted.
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Calling My Masculinity into Question
Most members tapped into the larger societal hierarchy of masculinity in terms of the binary of the “Alpha Male” literally and figuratively on top versus the “Beta Male” on the bottom. According to the definitions on Urban Dictionary:
“Alpha Male”: “1. The leader of the pack/herd/etc. 2. The dominant male, 3. The main source of population.”
I also found the definition of “Alpha Male Syndrome,” which I surmise most members on the Facebook site would not embrace, since it is a “psychological ailment when a guy always has to push or boss others around, start fights, talk shit, makes himself the center of attention, assume responsibility for anyone else’s triumph while also pushing the blame for his fuck-ups onto others.”
“Beta Male”: “an unremarkable, careful man who avoids risk and confrontation. Beta males lack the physical presence, charisma, and confidence of the Alpha male.”
All responses associated with this hierarchy referred to me as “Beta” for the purpose of dismissing anything I have to say. I include only a few representative examples:
- “He’s a beta male = no relevance.”
- “That’s some beta male nonsense right there.”
- “If ever there were a poster boy for beta male…” followed by my Facebook picture with my three dogs:
- In response to my initial posting: “Translation: Yada-yada, buzzword, buzzword, buzzword city, beta male cuckholdry, whining, hail Karl Marx, more yadas and finish off with a death to America.”
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In Defense of Hyper-Masculinity
- “…every one of those [elements of hyper-masculinity that Blumenfeld listed on his initial posting] can be attributed to natural human nature. Take that away, and we’d all be a bunch a limp wristed pussies.”
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Heterosexism & Cissexism
Again, for the purpose of dismissing me, they referred in negative terms to my sexual identity or my gender expression, which they could easily determine by accessing my Facebook page or by initiating a google search.
- “The only thing missing from his comment is a cute, transparent rainbow over his profile pic.”
- “Fgt” [Faggot]
- “A very learned, articulate, self flagellating fag. Good riddance.”
- “Man this oke right here sounds like he went to a Re-Education Camp. I hope they didn’t cut your balls off Boet.”
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Femininization / Sexism
One of the most exploited ways of degrading males within our overarching patriarchal sexist society is to feminize or demasculinize males. This exposes our society’s blatant and covert forms of misogyny.
- “Warren….Aren’t you late for your bikini wax?”
- “Another liberal dipshit trying to pussify the American male. Go be a hipster somewhere else.”
- “This moron needs to go back to Star Bucks, sip his Latte, and shut his fucking douchey mouth. What a mouth breathing dick bag… Seriously…”
- “Another ‘I’m smarter and more enlightened then you’ liberal douchebag, who’s nowhere near as original as he believes he is. Fuck outta here with that shit.”
- “Wtf [What the fuck] are you people smoking?! I’m an INDIVIDUAL. That’s not negotiable. Shove this leftist/globalist community bullshit back in whatever orifice you dug it out of. Pansy ass apologists are the reason this Country faces destruction from within.”
I observed in many of the respondents’ comments linking feminization and what I had thought was the extinct concept of the “hippy.” Also, I see that going to Star Bucks they also depict as feminizing.
- “Trying to drop hippy buzzwords like patriarchal and transabled and overly masculin or masculinization or whatever the fuck else is hip right now. Piss off hippy, I discredit you when you when you do this. It truly does make you a regurgibot. That is a robot that regurgitates the bullshit you soak up in the liberal robot factory/marxist indoctrination system such as liberal biased media driven sensationalist clown colleges across North America. Go piss up a rope and let the adults talk you tight pants scarf combo wearing Starbucks loving social experiment.”
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Concluding Remarks: The Social Construction of Gender Role Scripts
Our society promotes what most of us have been very consciously and carefully taught throughout our lives. Gender roles (sometimes called sex roles) include the set of socially-defined roles and behaviors assigned to the sex we are assigned at birth. This can and does vary from culture to culture. Our society recognizes basically two distinct gender roles. One is the “masculine,” having the qualities and characteristics attributed to males. The other is the “feminine,” having the qualities and characteristics attributed to females. A third gender role, rarely condoned in our society, at least for those assigned “male” at birth, is “androgyny” combining assumed male (andro) and female (gyne) qualities.
A fairly simple way to remember the differences between “sex” and “gender roles” is to consider “sex” as a noun and “gender roles” as a verb (a repeated action).
Those who bully, like these respondents, often fulfill the social “function” of establishing and reinforcing the socially constructed scripts handed to them when they entered the play of life.
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This all conjures up images of the Hollywood movie “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey in the lead role as Truman Burbank. The film documents a man who for most of his life remains unaware that he lives within a human-made artificial set of a reality television show, broadcast 24 hours a day to billions of people around the world. The show’s executive producer and director, Christof, placed Truman at birth in the fictitious town of Seahaven, and manipulates every aspect of his life. (I will leave it up to you to analyze why the director of this farce has been given the name “Christof.”)
To dissuade Truman from exploring past the limits of the constructed set, Christof pretends to kill Truman’s father in a fabricated storm to teach him to fear the water. In addition, actors playing the part of TV news reporters warn of the dangers of travel, and promote the benefits of staying home. However, stemming from some unforeseen glitches in the scenery and unexplained and habitual coincidences in the placement of the actors around him, Truman becomes suspicions until he discovers the truth about the artificiality, manipulation, and control Christof has perpetrated on him for the past 30 years. Truman eventually outwits Christof and escapes the fabricated set into the warmth and brightness of a true sun, and the coolness and wetness of natural rain.
The respondents to my firearms commentaries serve as the director in the larger coercive societal battalions bent on destroying all signs of gender transgressions in young and old alike, and in the maintenance of gender scripts. Most of us function as conscious and unconscious co-directors in this drama each time we enforce gender-role conformity in others, and each time we relegate our critical consciousness by failing to rewrite or destroy the scripts in ways that operate integrally to us.
Those who bully, like these respondents, often fulfill the social “function” of establishing and reinforcing the socially constructed scripts handed to them when they entered the play of life. However, each time any of us rewrite the scripts so as to give an honest and true performance of life, each time we work toward lifting the ban against our transcending and obliterating the gender role status quo by continually questioning and challenging standard conceptualization of gender roles, only then will we begin as individuals and as a society to experience what Truman experienced after he lifted himself from the manufactured dome of artifice: the warmth and brightness of a true sun, and the coolness and wetness of natural rain.
Possibly, our society can then rid itself of at least some of the gun violence as well.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
Nobody is criticizing Warren. Only that his views are lopsided and I’m put guns with men. I carry permit and do not fit traditional male stereotype. To be honest I think that stereotype is a myth. You’d have to take a huge population study to determine what the true norm is and I suspect you’d find the norm is particularly left of what the stereotype is. Just too many men as individuals to slot nicely in a narrow range as is the belief. That’s why I think it was a creation and a myth. You’ve made good points both Bill… Read more »
Lol Danny. In the immortal words of George Bush Sr. Ain’t gonna happen,
What is up with this site that they are so afraid of dissenting conversation. That is not good men. That is scared men
Is this a conversation, or is it merely a pointless argument? There is a difference. Is the purpose of this exchange to promote understanding, or is it merely an attempt to discredit someone (namely, Warren) merely for expressing an innocuous point of view? By the way, this is not “my” website. I’m just as much a visitor as are these critics. I’m not defending the lack of response; but as far as accusing others of being scared, I suspect that some of the critics of this website are scared of its message. GMP poses no threat to anyone; so, I… Read more »
@ Bill I see things much differently than you, but I actually read the comments and the article. To me, the comments don’t seem to be Warren you’re wrong about some opponents of gun control tying their masculinity to their possession of guns. They object to the implication that this is the main reason people oppose gun control. They point out quite reasonably that there are other well thought out arguments for gun ownership that people on the left don’t want to address. The implication is that they won’t address it because of the weakness or dishonesty of their own… Read more »
Greetings, John. I had intended to not read any response to my last post. Indeed, I had intended to cut back on the Internet; but I succumbed to temptation. I was quite pleased when I read your post and saw that you were quite civil in your response. Politically I’m not doctrinaire. When I was young, I definitely identified myself as a liberal; but now I’ve given up on politics. I’m no longer optimistic about this country’s future, and I don’t even vote anymore. Having grown up under Jim Crow, I’ve been quite liberal about civil rights; but I do… Read more »
If I follow the logic of the OP here: Dr Blumenfeld was bullied (and bullied in sexist ways) on social media because of his stance on gun control. Therefore from this relative, subjective, individual experience we can conclude absolutely, universally, and objectively -with unchecked abandon & hyperbole- that all society is both overtly sexist (in the precise ways & boundaries he posits) and also anti-gun control. And that sexism and gun violence have verifiable, objective boundaries that exist & overlap -by virtue of their intersection with the same Dr. Blumenfeld, based on his personal observation and the lack of positive… Read more »
“…tight pants scarf combo wearing Starbucks loving social experiment.” Dude missed his calling at /r/roastme.
Seriously though, I missed the link to what you represented as your understanding of why America has the stance it does on firearms. Any time I hear the term “common sense”, I’m reminded of what Albert Einstein said, “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
Do you still have the link, mate?
Mass shootings in the U.S. this year? 353 — or 4, depending on your definition. Dallas morning news 12/5/15. I posted awhile ago challenging your numbers repeatedly reported. Wasn’t posted here yet but maybe waiting moderation for which I merely challenged your reports. I tried to copy the chart of explanation but it wouldn’t. Shooting tracker is the only one to list the 350 number. Gun violence archive lists 300. Stanford mass shootings report 61 and mother Jones reports 4. 4. Quite a wide range for a fixated reported number. So what’s up with that? Its all in the stats… Read more »
And you don’t think a VERY significant population on the left isn’t actively participating in bullying of their own??? Because when they’re shutting down any adverse discourse that’s exactly what they’re doing. The left has its own troglodytes and they are not much different from the right side of the aisle. They think they’re completely different but they’re not at all. Just as nasty as they say the ones who disagree with them are. Is this an area to agree upon?
Tom: Let’s be clear. We CANNOT merely dismiss these comments to the rantings of a few crazies on the fringe. These comments represent the significant percentage of people in our country who perpetuate restrictive abusive gender roles, whether in the context of gun control or generally. We live in a culture of bullying whether in politics, in athletics, in the schools. The actors in my article expressed their hate speech in the anonymity of cyber space, but they represent the hate speech emanating all around us. So again, we CANNOT dismiss this to only some angry irrational people. For a… Read more »
That doesn’t answer why you ignore the factual rebuttals you get here, Warren
I’m sure we’ll get either radio silence or a convoluted response as to why the responses in question aren’t worth considering… Somehow I think it’s more likely that dialogue prevents the easy casting of the opposition as ignorant troglodytes.
Given the number of news feets I have and accordingly responding to many articles, I can tell you without hesitation, these nut jobs are all over the board. They represent a small minority, many of which are no more then trolls. If I took the position that these responses truly represented a population, I’d have to say that the left needs to be put in padded rooms. But I don’t apply the idiocy of a few that respond/comment on these articles, as a majority. There are bullies everywhere and what I find to be most common is the bully who… Read more »
I wonder how many guns are out there? It’s usually a huge number like 300 million when people talk about gun control. There are a bunch of automobile accidents every year also. Didn’t we just have a person try and murder a bunch of people with an automobile in Las Vegas? But a gun is designed to kill that’s the response isn’t it? A gun is designed to expel a hard projectile at an extremely high rate of speed which can be used to kill. Just like a car is used to get a person from point A to point… Read more »
Tom, I posted on a number of sites. Most of the comments I quoted are from sites demanding NO further gun control regulations.
Warren, do you care to share what sites you posted where you received these idiotic responses?
Yet, whenever you write your gun control articles here you are met with factual rebuttals and polite inquiries which you ignore. Most of us responding to you here are traditionally masculine men… Why choose to engage actively in the lion’s den and on platforms which are, by nature, low brow and polemic when you have multiple people who would happily assist you in understanding their viewpoints right here?
The doctor doth protest too much methinks.
Thank you Dubya for you polite response. However, and with respect there is an essential point you have overlooked. Can you explain for me what “traditionally masculine men” actually means? Given the complexity of the label. For example, in many communities throughout the world, gender roles are completely different and yet they are equally convinced their views on gender roles are just as traditionally masculine as any of us would. So no, in my view, and just blatantly disgusting bullying needs to be called for as it is.
Those who fit neatly and securely inside the so-called “man-box”. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek). Do you honestly believe that there aren’t a core set of characteristics that have defined “masculine?” I’m not particularly interested in the little exceptions but if you cannot see the commonalities across civilizations and eras then you don’t understand central tendency vs. outlier.
Please tell us what those characteristics are.
By the way, why does this matter? Why must some men be deemed less “masculine” than others? A truly secure person doesn’t feel the need to put others down simply because they are different in some minor way or don’t happen to share your preferences.
So about those polite inquiries and factual rebuttals?