This is a comment by Monkey on the post “Bill Bennett Uses Aurora Shooting To Reinforce Own Bullshit Ideas Of Gender“.
“That’s interesting about Jesse Childress. What I find troubling is the expectation that a man sacrifice himself. Of course I would protect those who I was with – I would hope they would do the same for me.
“In 1989, a disturbed man shot several people in a university in Montreal. He injured people of both genders but was actively targeting (and indeed killed) only women. At one point he removed the men from a class at gunpoint and locked them in another room.
“In the aftermath the men (who were of course unarmed) were shamed by many for not defending the women. I think this was unfortunate – essentially their survivor’s guilt was legitimized.”
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Danny, The shooter came into a classroom with a gun and told the guys to leave. They did. He then proceeded to shoot the women. Turns out, based on various reports, that he had to reload one or possibly two times. There was a potential mass shooting at a Thurston High School in, iirc, Oregon or Wash state. When a couple of guys heard the hammer go down on an empty chamber, they charged the shooter and took him out. So, if any of the Polytechnique guys reproach themselves, there’s at least a technical possibility they had an opportunity and… Read more »
WRT Polytechnique: Some feminists claimed it was the male thing doing what male things do. Mark Steyn noted there hadn’t seemed to be a surplus of testosterone. I have no doubt the man who killed himself, and other who reproached themselves, felt really bad about missing the chance, about the instant’s failure of nerve. It would be interesting to know–although we never will–whether criticism was anywhere near the intensity of the self-reproach. So saying “a lot of people in essence shamed a man into killing himself” is speculation. Now, it appears that a great deal of criticism is considered legitimate.… Read more »
It would be interesting to know–although we never will–whether criticism was anywhere near the intensity of the self-reproach. So saying “a lot of people in essence shamed a man into killing himself” is speculation. Fine, I’ll adjust that to “a lot of people, by shaming him, contributed to his decision to killing himself”. Suppose you had been one of those guys who went out of the room. Would you reproach yourelf? I have partaken in training for shop-personell how to handle oneself in an armed robbery. The one thing which is really underlined is that we should do as the… Read more »
Tamen. Couple of things. First, armed robbery is not mass murder. It’s smart to let the guy go while accumulating the facts. Second, I did not criticize anybody at Polytechnique. I said self-reproach was likely. In addition, the actiions the kids took at Thurston provides the self-reproaching with another possibility that he may have missed. This would increase his self-reproach. No criticism, except of myself if I failed in such a situation. Your implication that I am boasting, which I am not, seems defensive. Fortunately, as at Virginia Tech, nobody else was armed, or someone might have been hurt. There’s… Read more »
First: No, armed robbery is not mass murder. Keep in mind that when the men were told to leave the room the men did not have the knowledge that this was to become a mass murder. It was a an armed person giving orders. Secondly: Yeah, I know you kind of walked close to the line and that you might have been writing about what happens internally for the survivors while at the same time avoiding saying outright that they should have acted in such and such a way. But you did come off as excusing those who did criticize… Read more »
Sorry, I forgot one sentence in the beginning when copying the comment from notepad:
No, armed robbery is not mass murder. Part of that advice is in place to avoid an armed robbery to turn into a murder or a mass murder (if there are several store clerks).
Tamen, The guys who felt bad after leaving the room felt bad because of something they thought they should have done. Little to do with post-event critiques. It also implies there was an ambient idea of what people ought to do. However, is it your view that nobody should ever be critiqued for acting or failing to act in any situation? I doubt it. So the question is, in what circumstances is criticizing others’ actions justified? As to what the guys in the room thought the shooter was going to do in Montreal: I suppose it depends on what he… Read more »
Survivors guilt can be really harmful. That survivors guilt after the Polytechnique massacre in ’98 has lead to at least two suicides (who left notes connecting their suicide to the massacre – there were other suicides where no such note were left). One hanged himself eight months after the massacre and left a note stating that he was torn apart by guilt for not stopping the shooter. Not long after that his parents killed themselves, unable to cope with the loss of their son*. * http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2009/12/04/montreal-polytechnique-massacre-20.html According to this article there indeed was a lot of criticism against male survivors… Read more »
Now that I didn’t know. From the way I’ve heard this event told it started and ended with a man who massacred women because they were women and men were spared. On the other hand when scores of men are killed oddly enough we always manage to hear about the women left behind (and a few who try to say they were the “real” victims).
Giving up your life for somebody is a pretty useful thing to do. Does our own value depend at least on being a bit useful? If we’re useful only to ourselves…who would or should give a rodent’s patootie about us.
Now, of course, we’re getting close to guilting the guys who made the sacrifice.
Was an Air Force guy named Hackney. Don’t bother with the details. Just figure that, when something got really bad, people would think, what would Hackney [or various others] do. Then you’d have to do it. So I can see dismissing the guys who sacrificed.
I myself think that this whole “a real man gives up his life for women” bullshit puts a sexist (yeah I said it) burden on men which reduces our value as our own selves. It’s telling men that as a man he is supposed to give his life up for women as if his life is less valuable than hers and that the little value it does have based upon doing something for women.
I’ve wondered if Kevin McCarthy, LIRR survivor and son of a man killed by Colin Ferguson, resents his mother on some level.. Carolyn McCarthy has become as legitimate an advocate for gun control as impossible. So on some level is Kevin robbed of a red blooded American fantasy- If he had a gun his father would be alive?
Is it weird that I haven’t heard of a single woman in the Aurora shooting who saved her boyfriend, husband or significant other. Did any of them do it, or is it just not talked about in the media. In fact, I rarely hear of women who sacrifice for the men in highly dangerous situations like this where there isn’t time to think about it.
Some of the stories of heroism that come out if events like this seem somewhat ambiguous. It’s dark, it’s chaotic, both the man and the woman hit the ground, or they are both running and he gets shot and she doesn’t. That doesn’t mean he took a bullet for her. But in the aftermath it is easy for survivors to jump to that idea and then the media runs with it. Alternative explanations are ignored: random chance; maybe the man’s larger body size makes him a bigger target, maybe the man was wearing more visible colors, maybe the shooter targeted… Read more »
Sarah, With due respect to you as a stranger and respecting your intellectual skepticism, I think your view is hugely implausible. Read and/or talk more to men – at least those in their 30s or more, in most western (that I’m aware of) cultures. We are schooled from very young to put ourselves at the disposal of those in need – the proverbial “damsel in distress.” I can’t tell you how deep that wiring is. I assume you have corollary in-culturations as a female of whatever generation you were raised. A mother, by some deep biologic-cultural wiring protects her young… Read more »
Fair enough, except that it wasn’t ambiguous: “Blunk instinctively pushed his girlfriend to the ground and threw his body on top of hers.”
I think it’s possible that women’s heroics don’t get as much coverage. I’d be surprised it it were true (it’s still great media fodder) but it’s possible. What’s undeniable is that female survivors are never shamed for having survived.
I’ve also read many stories of women saving people from drowning, pulling someone from a burning car and so on. Somehow those stories seem to get less attention.
Probably because women don’t have the “save men, even if it costs you your life” expectation pressed on them.
When coverage of men saving people, bonus points for saving women and children (in fact wasn’t there a fourth man that did the same as our three heroes, but only for a man and not a woman?), it’s covered because that’s what “real men” are supposed to do.
I like the comment by Monkey. I, too, have a problem with the ways in which masculinity is celebrated in America. For some reason, we are ecstatic about heroism, but are not interested in discussing the psychological fallout.
I get the sentiment, but I disagree with the notion. I think we should reject the idea of guilt as an active verb, “I guilt you, you guilt me, we both guilt too easily” (with kudos to Simon and Garfunkel). I experience guilt, but others don’t CAUSE my guilt unless I am somehow complicit and allow it. Should my wife, kids, boss, or others attempt to “guilt me” for not being chivalrous or manly or self-sacrificing, I need to examine that feeling and test its deeper nature. Perhaps the initial feelings of guilt will awaken more men to a (not… Read more »
By that argument bullying and peer pressure don’t exist unless the victim want it to.