From COUNTERPUNCH
Coverage of "School Shootings" Avoids the Central Issue
Gunning Down Women
By JACKSON KATZ
In the many hours devoted to analyzing the recent school shootings, once again we see that as a society we seem constitutionally unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge a simple but disturbing fact: these shootings are an extreme manifestation of one of contemporary American society's biggest problems -- the ongoing crisis of men's violence against women.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so let's take a good hard look at these latest horrific cases of violence on the domestic front. On September 27, a heavily armed 53-year-old man walked into a Colorado high school classroom, forced male students to leave, and took a group of girls hostage. He then proceeded to terrorize the girls for several hours, killing one and allegedly sexually assaulting some or all of the others before killing himself.
Less than a week later, a heavily armed 32-year-old man walked into an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and ordered about 15 boys to leave the room, along with a pregnant woman and three women with infants. He forced the remaining girls, aged 6 to 13, to line up against a blackboard, where he tied their feet together.
He then methodically executed five of the girls with shots to the head and critically wounded several others before taking his own life.
Just after the Amish schoolhouse massacre, Pennsylvania Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said in an emotional press conference, "It seems as though (the perpetrator) wanted to attack young, female victims." How did mainstream media cover these unspeakable acts of gender violence? The New York Times ran an editorial that identified the "most important" cause as the easy access to guns in our society.
NPR did a show which focused on problems in rural America. Forensic psychologists and criminal profilers filled the airwaves with talk about how difficult it is to predict when a "person" will snap. And countless exasperated commentators -- from fundamentalist preachers to secular social critics -- abandoned any pretense toward logic and reason in their rush to weigh in with metaphysical musings on the incomprehensibility of "evil."
Incredibly, few if any prominent voices in the broadcast or print media have called the incidents what they are: hate crimes perpetrated by angry white men against defenseless young girls, who -- whatever the twisted motives of the shooters -- were targeted for sexual assault and murder precisely because they are girls.
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Jackson Katz, Ed.M. is one of America's leading anti-sexist male activists. An educator, author and filmmaker, he is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking work in the field of gender violence prevention education with men and boys, particularly in the sports culture and the military. He is also the creator and co-creator of educational videos for college and high school students, including Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity (2000), Wrestling With Manhood (2002) and Spin the Bottle: Sex, Lies and Alcohol (2004). His new book, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, was published by Sourcebooks in 2006.
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