Mass Shootings and Masculinities: Exploring the Multifaceted Role of Gender in Cumulative Strain Theory

• In Event: Masculinity and Mass Shootings

Abstract

Building on cumulative strain theory (Levin & Madfis, 2009) which proposed a five-stage integrated model to explain mass shootings, this paper considers the role of gender throughout all five stages of cumulative strain. An estimated 97.7% of American mass shooters have been males (Peterson & Densley, 2023), thus gender and masculinities play no small part in the etiology of this problem. As such, several potential explanations are offered for the unusually wide gender disparity among mass shooters. Many male mass shooters experience real and perceived stressors as emasculating rejections which accumulate over time. Males are more likely to be socially isolated and/or have social bonds to anti-social people or groups that can exacerbate rather than alleviate their negative emotions and strains. Males are more likely to externalize the causes of their perceived failures and more conditioned to view anger as an acceptable emotion, thus they are more likely to enact violence on others when their stressors reach a tipping point. Males are more likely to fantasize about planned violence and less likely to stop themselves or their co-conspirators from carrying out rampage plots. Finally, males are ultimately far more likely to have access to and training in firearms.

Authors

• Eric Madfis, University of Washington Tacoma

• Katie Callahan, University of Washington Tacoma