All 'attackers' are young male, is this relevant?

[camaleon]

Not sure whether there is a point to make about this. I have been reading all kind of articles and listening to analysis trying to work out the 'reasons' behind the many mass killings that have happened recently (for instance, here. However, nobody highlights the most obvious feature all these attackers share: they are male and they are young.

Perhaps there is nothing to highlight. It is taken for granted they will be male and it would only be news worthy if they were all female/all over 60/all with green eyes, etc. Still, it seems to me that something must be totally wrong in the way we bring up boys to make them the vast majority of our prisons' population and authors of most crimes one can imagine, particularly violent crimes. I am sure there are tons of books/articles written about it. Would any of you be able to direct me to some good resources on this (rather than me googling at random)?

scallops Elliot Rodgers wasn't a terrorist because it was all about him- no idealism, no cause. He wanted to punish sexually active men for having g Sex when he wasn't and women for rejecting him - a toddler tantrum but with a vehicle and an automatic weapon

The same applies to the boy in Munich - the flimsy links to ISIS are a red herring - he was angry with people his age for bullying and not liking him.

Both those rather pathetic little individuals were all about self pity and bitterness at having been rejected - murderers not terrorists.

If somebody attacked women with a professed misogynistic agenda that was not so purely personal (for example wanting to frighten women back into some imaginary subservient house wife role and out of public life and public places) that would be terrorism (and in fact it certainly happens and has happened)

I don't think if someone's agenda is only about themselves they can be a terrorist - it gives them a twisted dignity that makes others more likely to copy them than if they were viewed with contempt and revolted pity, which are more appropriate.

It always strikes me that this kind of narrative seems to want to simplify sex differences, but only when it suits.

ie, the disproportionate volume of male soldiers, terrorists and violent criminals are a result of testosterone or aberrant male behaviour, whereas the disproportionate volume of male inventors, scientists and historic innovators are the result of societal, systemic bias.

I don't know what the answer is, but these two positions seem contradictory to me. Maybe the societal imbalances that have made men more destructive are also the ones that have made them more creative/innovative? Maybe it's something to do with testosterone?

I realise I am speaking on Scallops' behalf here and therefore maybe totally wrong, but I think she is saying that society promotes, condones and tolerates the subjugation and slaughter of women as part of it's ideology, and therefore Rodgers' actions were part of an ideology that actively terrorises women. Ergo, he was a terrorist.

Men are typically far more likely to occupy each extreme of the 'intelligence' bell-curve.

Could this be something to do with it (more likely to be a criminal, but also more likely to be a genius)?

Babycham could it be because society teaches men to expect things to go their way, which gives them the confidence and self belief to succeed (and means doors are open to them) but when they fail they have further, psychologically, to fall and feel violence is the only outlet...

Over simplification of course - boys are led to believe it's more acceptable to hit something when upset, girls are "allowed" to cry but never to hit ...

Grim - hmm maybe, but he targeted and killed almost as many men as women, and "society" generally approves of "virile" men (and those were the men he wanted to punish).

I think you have to get very theoretical to make him a terrorist - his motives were those of a toddler who is hearing "no" and hitting out ...

Various groups in Afghanistan and Iraq used women and children to carry explosives into military and other targets specifically because a) women and children are far less likely to be carrying out terrorist attacks and b) they are easier to kidnap and force to do awful things.

Sorry, posted too soon....

However, the people running the groups and doing the strapping on of the explosive vests are invariably men.

Babycham I may be talking nonesense here, but aren't IQ test notorious for being culturally biased, thus likely to over value "male" knowledge and thought in the same say they over value middle class over working class knowledge...

Pure intelligence is impossible to measure without bias, as I understand it.

Thank you for all the links. very interesting.
Babycham, I don't see the contradiction. Both the fact that successful people, in position of power, etc are more likely to be men and the fact that violence act are most likely being the authorship of a man, are worth looking into.
However, I think (nothing to back me up) that we pay much more attention to the first fact (probably because we all want to get these positions) than to the second. I also guess that raising the question: why violent acts are typically male? reinforces the anti-men propaganda attached to feminists.
Perhaps we should consider whether boys should be brought up more like women in certain aspects and girls more like men in others (of course assuming this is something susceptible of social engineering)

A terrorist attack is surely one that is a. not carried out by a nation state and b. is connected to a minority belief system or organisation.

I don't believe Rodger's views were particularly those held only by a minority.

Agreed, Camaleon, perhaps we should be encouraging girls to be more like boys. But maybe we should be doing the opposite?

Harriet Harman once said, 'if Lehman Sisters had been in charge, there'd have been no crash'. This may be true, but maybe there'd also be no advanced capitalism, medicine, pharma, industry etc.

I'm not suggesting sex superiority, but I am wondering if there's a difference. If women are less competitive and more peaceable, it stands to reason, there are fewer drivers to outdo each other with innovation/discovery etc.

Personally, I think that's probably crap. As more women enter the workplace and become primary earners, female crime-rates, substance abuse and violence are also on the rise. I suspect that by encouraging women to adopt the supposedly desirable aspects of 'male' behaviour, they will also increasingly display the undesirable. And vice versa.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne, yes, I agree; they are flawed and possibly are culturally subjective (hence my inverted commas around 'intelligence').

However, the bell-curve is replicated time and again across a variety of measures and proxies for whatever 'intelligence' really is.

Grimarse

I think she is saying that society promotes, condones and tolerates the subjugation and slaughter of women as part of it's ideology, and therefore Rodgers' actions were part of an ideology that actively terrorises women. Ergo, he was a terrorist

That seems a very extreme perspective. Given that the example cited took place in California, in what way was American society promoting or condoning the slaughter of women? That's a load of offensive nonsense.

JTK, I did say that I was speaking for her, which on reflection, was probably a bad idea. I was interpreting Scallops' statement. I should have let her answer. I would only say that it is not necessarily my own opinion.

Wasn't having a go at you Grimarse and sorry if it came across that way - wasn't my intention.

Women, in general (though there are always exceptions) don't love violence for the sake of violence.

With the male terrorists that were in the media recently, it was pretty obvioius that they wanted to kill people, and that the political goal was more an attempt to make their violence seem more meaningful or right, not really their only motivation.

Women are very rarely violent in civil life.
We can assume that women who fight in resistance armies are convinced that this is the only right thing to do.

As for why ... socialisation is a nice explanation, but it doesn't explain how patriarchy came to be, and why males started to glorify violence.

Perhaps it is the testosterone.

What Buffy said. Violence against women is presented as individual men committing individual crimes. But if you look wider at the oppression of women, how that is maintained i.e. through violence; rape culture (Brock Turner being a good and very obvious example); DV statistics (2 women a week killed in the UK and according to this article 3 women a day in the US) then it is much more systematic than that.

And it's not so much that society condones it (as Buffy points out I'm sure they wouldn't if asked directly) it's more about what they don't do e.g. join the dots; name the problem; sufficiently punish; believe women etc. Although certain aspects of violence against women are actively condoned - porn for example. Male violence in general is glorified too through films, war etc.

I'm not sure Elliot Rodger's target was men: “I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me but I will punish you all for it. …….. If I can’t have you girls, I will destroy you. [laughs] You denied me a happy life and in turn I will deny all of you life, it’s only fair. I hate all of you.” His hatred was for women. Yes he killed men (three of his housemates) but he would have killed more women if he had got into the sorority house which was seemed to be his real target.

And good point almondpudding!

I'm not wedded to the idea that Rodger was a terrorist, Schwabischeweihnachtskanne and I think you are right about the language and the unwarranted status the word terrorist could afford. Language around violence, especially mass murderers and family annihilators can be sensational/glorifying (not the right word but I can't think of a better one). Perpetrators can be shown sympathy and elevated; the victims practically forgotten. If they were portrayed as sad losers or much more focus put on the victims and the trauma of their families then maybe these kind of acts would decrease rather than be on the increase.

Sorry I've hijacked your thread camaleon - it wasn't supposed to be specifically about violence against women. Perhaps the language used around these crimes is more attractive to younger men and that is part of the reason for the demographic.

JTK, no worries.

As per Buffy's post after mine, it is a view that has some traction within feminist circles, hence why I extrapolated it from Scallops' post. I actually wasn't aware that Rodgers had killed men as well as women, so I have learned something from the discussion.

Rodgers killed specific men he knew and hated, he killed random women because they were women.