UCSB professors fault 'toxic masculinity' for mass killings in America

On today’s episode of “The News and Why It Matters",  Sara Gonzales, Pat Gray, Doc Thompson and Jason Buttrill discussed an article authored by two University of California, Santa Barbara, sociology professors titled, "The sociological explanation for why men in America turn to gun violence."

The article argued that "Mass shootings follow a consistent pattern: The men who commit them have often experienced what they perceive as masculinity threats. They’re bullied by peers, gay-baited by classmates, and often perceive themselves as unable to live up to societal expectations associated with masculinity, such holding down a steady job, having sexual access to women’s bodies, or being tough or strong."

Pat though it had more to do with the way we teach (or in this case, don't teach) children to handle adversity. "Kids don't know how to deal with adversity anymore because we take all the adversity away from them," he said. "We don't allow scores to be kept because we don't want anyone to feel badly about losing a game. We dumb-down the curriculum, we change the test scores ... so when they're confronted with [difficult] things, they don't handle them well."

Watch the rest of the discussion in the video clip above.

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