Strained Masculinity and Mass Shootings Notes

Introduction

• Recent research integrates general strain theory and hegemonic masculinity into the concept of "strained masculinity."
• This study examines strained masculinity in mass shootings to understand the gender gap.
• Qualitative data (n=63) supports the prevalence of strained masculinity themes in mass shootings.
• Perpetrators responded to challenges to their masculinity (62%), pursued hegemonic masculinity through "sport" (33%), and sought control of space (27%).
• Some cases showed overlaps in strained masculinity themes, highlighting the complexity of this violence.
• Six outlier cases involved perpetrators with psychological or emotional issues, not strained masculinity.
• The study advocates for integrating traditional criminology theories with gender theories.

The Gender Gap in Crime

• Men have higher offending rates than women across various data sources, times, locations, and cultures.
• Criminology needs to focus on gender disparities in criminal activity.
• This study explores "strained masculinity" as a possible route.
• Mass shootings exemplify the need to include gendered perspectives.
• Mass shootings are a growing social problem and are mainly committed by males.
• Men commit 94%-97% of multi-victim public shootings in America.
• Traditional theories like social learning, strain, and social control have often ignored the gender gap.
• The integration of criminological and gendered theoretical approaches is essential.
• General Strain Theory (GST) considers the influence of social and personal strain on deviant behavior.
• Masculinity theories, such as hegemonic masculinity and doing gender, consider the social construction of masculinity.
• Hegemonic masculinity often involves risky behaviors like self-reliance, competition, toughness, and respect.
• Strain can pressure men into violence by challenging internalized norms or encouraging maladaptive coping strategies.
• The study uses thematic qualitative analysis of 63 mass shooter storylines (2009-2019) to examine these dynamics.
• Integrating GST and masculinity theories through "strained masculinity" explains the gender gap in mass shootings.

Context of Mass Shootings in the United States

• Mass shootings are a prominent social and public health issue.
• They have historically received little criminological attention but research is growing.
• Mass shootings have become deadlier and the U.S. has a disproportionate share of global mass shooters.
• They occur in various contexts: schools, malls, theaters, churches, festivals.
• Many unknowns remain about the causes and prevention of mass shootings.
• Mass shootings are challenging to research due to heterogeneity and rarity.
• Perpetrators are often killed or commit suicide, complicating research.
• Predicting and averting mass shootings is challenging.
• Theoretical explanations are growing but underdeveloped with limited empirical support.
• Levin and Madfis (2009) used GST to formulate the concept of “cumulative strain” to explain mass murder in schools.
• Men commit 94%-97% of mass shootings.
• Public discourse often overlooks the role of gender, but scholars acknowledge the gender gap.
• Feminist scholars note the significance of masculinity and the gendered nature of violence in school shootings.
• Mixed support exists for feminist ameliorative and backlash hypotheses explaining mass shootings.
• No research has qualitatively examined Allison & Klein’s (2021) concept of strained masculinity in mass shootings.

Integrated Theoretical Approach

General Strain Theory (GST)

• Agnew (1992) proposed GST, suggesting people are pressured into crime.
• Negative relationships cause strain, increasing negative emotions, and thus likelihood of offending.
• Three types of strains: blockage of goals, removal of something valued, presence of something undesirable or harmful.
• Offending is an avenue to alleviate strain.
• GST has substantial empirical support for the connection between strains, negative emotions, and maladaptive outcomes.
• Broidy and Agnew (1997) argue men and women experience and respond to strain differently.
• Men are exposed to strain that facilitates serious crime, while women encounter strain that restricts criminal opportunity.
• Gender differences in types of strain and reaction to strain illuminate the gender gap in offending.
• When men encounter strain, they are more likely to respond with externalizing behaviors (aggression).
• Women are more likely to internalize negative emotions.
• There is very little work that integrates masculinity theories into GST.
• Identifying salient strains can improve prevention efforts.
• Integration of GST with masculinity theories is beneficial for studying serious forms of violence like mass shootings.

Social Construction of Masculinity

• Masculinity theories recognize that cultural definitions of masculinity are socially constructed and change over time.
• Masculinity is variable and evolves across time, cultures, and individuals, not biologically determined or fixed.
• Contemporary definitions of masculinity and femininity differ from historical constructions.
• Societal expectations exist for what it means to be a man.
• Consequences arise if these standards are not met or are contradicted.
• Effeminate men face mistreatment, while those who exceed expectations are perceived favorably.
• Some men surpass acceptable definitions through violence, power, and control.
• The social construction of masculinity is beneficial when discussing the gender gap in offending.
• Hegemonic masculinity is a prominent type of masculinity, involving idiosyncratic and dominant actions and practices.
• Men seek to position themselves in relation to hegemonic masculinity, but most cannot attain it.
• Criminologists should consider the relational aspect of masculinity.
• Men may employ violence, dominance, control, and force to pursue superior masculinity, which can enlighten the gender gap in offending.

Conceptualizing "Strained Masculinity"

• Allison and Klein (2021) integrated GST and masculinity theories to explain anti-homeless bias homicides.
• Threats may result in "strained masculinity," where bias crime is used as "corrective action" in the pursuit of hegemony.
• Criminology theories fail to explain bias-motivated violence, justifying theoretical integration.
• Qualitative analysis was conducted on 66 anti-homeless homicides using homicide narratives constructed from thematic analysis.
• Each narrative included the precursor, transaction, and aftermath.
• Three themes were identified: response to challenges to masculinity, pursuit of hegemonic masculinity through "sport," and pursuit of hegemonic masculinity through controlling space.

Current Study

• The study seeks to expand the knowledge base using theoretically integrated approaches to studying violence, such as mass shootings.
• An integrated perspective is instrumental in prevention efforts, as disregarding the gendered nature of mass shootings fails to encapsulate the social problem.
• Drawing on GST and masculinity theories, the integration of these approaches explains the gender gap in mass shootings.
• The paper extends the concept of "strained masculinity" to mass shootings through qualitative data collection and analysis.
• It considers how strained masculinity themes might overlap for complex types of violence.
• Understanding the motives from a theoretically integrated approach will provide critical insights into detection and prevention if strained masculinity is salient.
• Three primary research questions:
  • RQ1: To what extent does the concept of strained masculinity explain the gender gap in mass shootings?
  • RQ2: Are the strained masculinity themes previously identified applicable to other forms of violent offending, such as mass shootings?
  • RQ3: Is there overlap in the strained masculinity themes when examining mass shootings?
• Strained masculinity is anticipated to be applicable to mass shootings.
• Hegemonic masculinity is a positively valued goal that most men attempt to pursue.
• Challenges to masculinity create a strain leading some men to overcompensate with violent behavior.
• As a result, mass shootings serve as a means for some men to overcome their strained masculinity.

Methods and Materials

• Detailed data on American mass violence is often absent from common criminology data sources.
• This study uses open-source data collection.
• Open-source methodologies systematically accumulate crime data from publicly available records, such as mass media, official records, and eyewitness accounts.
• Advantages include:
  • Flexible extraction of quantitative and qualitative materials.
  • Useful for examining characteristics of understudied social problems.
  • Reliable strategy for obtaining information on hard-to-study crimes like mass violence.
• This methodology investigates understudied research questions, including the role of strained masculinity processes in mass violence events.

Data Source

• Data was obtained from the open-source Mother Jones database of public mass shootings (Follman et al., 2019).
• The dataset is crowdsourced and available for public use.
• Data includes perpetrator (e.g., demographic) and incident (e.g., casualties, firearm type, location) information on 115 mass shootings in the United States from 1982 to 2019.
• Mother Jones staff systematically reviewed multiple public reports and applied objective inclusion criteria.
• Qualifying "mass" shootings refer to violent incidents in which a firearm was discharged and resulted in four or more injuries or deaths, excluding the perpetrator.
• The data includes incidents in which the perpetrator was known, those occurring in public spaces, and shootings committed by one or two individuals.
• Excluded is violence involving non-firearms, shootings with less than four victims, gang violence, domestic violence, for-profit instrumental violence, and shootings in private homes.
• The study focuses on all public mass shootings occurring between 2009 and 2019 to achieve research aims (n=63).
• The plausibility of selectivity bias in relying on public data like Mother Jones is acknowledged.
• Careful examination of Mother Jones’ information collection procedures increases confidence in their data coverage.
• Dugan and Distler (2016) call the relationship between news media and high-profile events “synergistic”.
• Gun violence that victimizes four or more people in a single, public event is among the most newsworthy of topics.
• Focusing on mass shootings dating back to 2009 helps protect against retrospective bias.
• Errors in selecting qualifying cases are likely associated linearly with time.
• Mother Jones began collecting data in 2012 in response to the Aurora Colorado shooting.

Crafting Qualitative Casefiles

• Rich qualitative records were assembled for each mass shooting.
• Public data aggregators (like google.com) were used to collect publicly accessible articles from reputable news sources into qualitative casefiles.
• The principal focus was on the most reliable national news outlets.
• Focusing on the more reliable news companies can help to improve consistency in information.
• Concentrating narrowly on the most reliable news can aid scholars in replicating the data collection strategy.
• In certain cases, regional news companies were used to collect information.
• Casefiles ranged from 1 to 19 articles, averaging five articles per mass shooting (median=4), laying the groundwork to accomplish the aims of the current research.
• The date of news reports following a mass shooting is critically important.
• News articles were collected that were published after the mass shooting occurred.
• The collection of news articles occurred in 2020 and 2021.
• There was a gap (months to multiple years) between the mass shooting and the date the news articles were collected.

Constructing Qualitative Storylines

• Event narratives were crafted to capture the mass shootings’ antecedent motivational and situational circumstances.
• Attention to reputable news outlets was beneficial because entities have the resources to conduct in-depth investigative reporting.
• Reliable news media tends to document what matters most to the public interest.
• This involves contextual insights about why the mass shooting occurred from interviews with witnesses, criminal justice actors, and other key informants.
• Crime-related investigative journalism remains dependent on the criminal justice system’s processing of the case.
• The rich and detailed nature of these news publications can provide valuable qualitative materials for examining the precursors to crime, including mass violence.
• The methods and materials remain vulnerable to limitations like any other qualitative study.
• The data represent the known public record.
• Direct quotations from the respective perpetrators of the shooting were included when available ( manifestos, suicide notes, descriptions of what the perpetrator said during the incident from survivors of the shooting, and direct quotes from the perpetrator during the aftermath and court procedures).
• The number of direct quotations varied from perpetrator to perpetrator.
• The study drew heavily on Agnew’s (2006b) “storylines” concept.
• Mass shooting storylines were defined broadly as "interrelated set[s] of events and conditions that increase the likelihood…" of committing a mass shooting.
• The scope of the storylines extends beyond the immediate triggers for crime to include more distal background elements and proximate contextual factors.
• This captures salient and objective events and other features of mass shooters’ lives associated with a temporary risk for violence.
• GST was relied on as a blueprint for studying the objective events and conditions.
• Known criminogenic strains associated with each mass shooting were extracted.
  • Failure to obtain status, money, and success, or fulfill the expectations of traditional masculinity scripts
  • Loss of loved ones, marriage, property, valuables, social status, or success
  • Negative interpersonal interactions like prior victimizations, abuse, bullying, social isolation, or generally harsh treatment by others
• Information was also collected on the shooter’s background characteristics (e.g., history of prior violence, psychological issues, and fascination with guns and violence) .
• 63 unique storylines of public mass shootings were created that systematically encapsulate their antecedent motivational roots, situated violent transactions, and aftermath stages.

Analytic Strategy and Coding of the Qualitative Themes

• Thematic analysis and systematic re-readings of the material were employed to examine demonstrations of strained masculinity in mass shootings.
• All cases were hand-coded within Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.
• The strategy drew from Allison and Klein’s (2021) investigation of situational indicators of hegemonic masculinity to obtain sensitizing concepts for the coding scheme.
• The process of theme development drew heavily on the themes previously constructed by Allison and Klein (2021) while simultaneously taking a deductive approach which allowed for the overlap of themes within a single mass shooting.
• Every author engaged in this process, meeting to discuss the extent to which conceptions of hegemonic masculinity played a role in producing mass shooting occurrences.
• The 63 cases analyzed were more heterogeneous than anticipated, and thus there was no reaching a point of saturation in the data.
• The three unique themes identified by Allison and Klein (2021) were also shown to illustrate the etiological significance of strained masculinity.
• Responses to masculinity challenges (Cohen’s kappa = 0.61; p < .01) in cases where violence occurred wholly or partly from challenges to masculinity.
• The pursuit of hegemonic masculinity through “sport” (Cohen’s kappa = 0.88; p < .001) in which mass violence perpetration was closely tied to the shooter’s prior obsession with violence, recreational weapons use, or methodical attack planning.
• The pursuit of hegemonic masculinity through controlling space (Cohen’s kappa=0.62; p<.01) was identified in cases where violence occurred due to strain linked to power and control over physical or social space.
• The coding of the qualitative themes considered the overlap of themes in mass shootings.
• This approach expands on the qualitative coding process of strained masculinity themes used by Allison and Klein (2021).
• Mass shootings situational and contextual factors are more complex than anti-homeless homicides.
• Of the 63 cases coded, there was evidence of multiple strained masculinity themes in 29 cases, while only 28 cases demonstrated a single theme, and six cases fell outside the scope of this theme.

Findings

• Table 1 summarizes the data’s key perpetrator and incident characteristics.
  Table 1. Univariate Statistics for Public Mass Shootings in the Mother Jones Dataset, 2009-2019 (n=63)
• The gender gap in mass shootings was prominent, with over 98% of the cases being committed by men.
• This maps with other work that finds roughly 94% to 97% of mass shootings are committed by men.
• Most perpetrators were white (47.62%), followed by Black (19.05%), Latinx (11.11%), Asian (6.35%), and Native American (3.17) perpetrators.
• 12.70% of the perpetrator’s race was coded as other “Other” or unknown in the Mother Jones dataset.
• The mass shootings averaged 8 deaths, 17 injured, and 25 total victims per incident.
• The Las Vegas Strip massacre was the most violent, with 58 fatalities and 546 injured people.
• The firearms used by the perpetrators included handguns (50.79%), rifles (39.68%), and shotguns (9.52%).
• Shootings occurred in various locations, with most being committed in commercial and other public areas (41.27%).
• Example narratives are provided for each of the three strained masculinity themes.
• Each category is discussed in the context of prior literature and the strained masculinity framework.
• Cases with multiple strained masculinity themes and negative case analysis are discussed.

Strained Masculinity Themes

Response to masculinity challenges (61.90%)

• Many mass shooting incidents involve offenders who experienced strain because of challenges to their masculinity (n=39).
• These challenges included rejection by women, financial strain, and/or loss of employment.
• In response, they engaged in acts of mass violence to restore their pursuit for, and commitment to, hegemonic masculine ideals.
  Example: Case 19, Accent Signage Systems Shooting
• The perpetrator encountered a direct challenge to his masculinity when he was fired after 12 years.
• The offender likely perceived this firing as a sign of disrespect and to “save face” (Luckenbill, 1977) pulled out a gun and fired on his colleagues.
• There was observable evidence of this type of strained masculinity in other cases as well, including the Harry Pratt Co. Warehouse Shooting (Case 32) and the Florida Awning Manufacturer Shooting (Case 48).
• Prior research has demonstrated how some men who fail to meet society’s standards of masculinity may turn to guns and violence as an alternative path for performing masculinity.
• Perpetrators may use violence as a mechanism for not only physically establishing dominance but also symbolically.
• Gun ownership allows men to emphasize their role as protectors with women and children (whom they protect) and to other men (whom they protect themselves against).
• Whether used for protection or perpetration, firearms in the hands of aggressors often symbolize power, dominance, coercion, and control.
• Acts of mass violence may restore a perpetrator’s pursuit and commitment to hegemonic masculine ideals.
• The perpetrator also had a history of untreated mental health issues.
• Men often view health care utilization as feminine and demonstrate hegemonic masculine ideals through refusal to admit pain and suppress their health needs (Courtenay, 2000).

Demonstrating masculinity through “sport” (33.33%)

• A third of mass shooters demonstrated a fascination with violence and/or guns before the shooting and actively sought and planned their mass murders (n=21).
• Many mass shooters engaged in violence as a sport to prove they can fight, demonstrating an illegitimate channel for achieving masculinity.
• Strain resulted from the lack of legitimate channels for achieving masculinity, and thus the perpetrators demonstrated and displayed their masculinity through mass violence.
  Example: Case 2, Dayton Entertainment District Shooting
• The perpetrator had a pattern of interest in violence as a sport.
• This perpetrator, and many others, were obsessed with violence before perpetrating incidences of mass violence.
• Notably, the pursuit of hegemonic masculinity through sport is not sporadic, it is a pattern of violent behavior and ideology that builds up and results in a group of innocent people being targeted.
• Many of these cases are calculated and methodically planned shootings, such as the Aurora theater shooting (Case 20).
• He described the shooting as “the mission” and discussed being calm and collected in his recollection of the shooting.
• Gender scholars have recognized that men demonstrate and achieve masculinity through traditional sports.
• Within the context of mass shootings, however, achieving and demonstrating masculinity through sport as violence is an illegitimate channel.
• These perpetrators may not recognize or have access to the legitimate channels for achieving masculinity and thus resort to violence.
• Many of the perpetrator’s obsession with violence coincided with their fascination with firearms.
• Men who fail to conform to more traditional standards of masculinity may turn to gun ownership and forms of violence as an illegitimate channel for pursuing masculinity.
• Gun ownership is one expression of hegemonic masculinity among American men (Gahman, 2015).
• The active and calculated sport of gun violence, such as mass shootings, is an extreme and exaggerated display of hegemonic masculinity.

Demonstrating masculinity through controlling space (26.98%)

• These mass shootings involved offenders who, to compensate for their strained masculinity, targeted specific groups of victims to regain power and control over space (n=17).
• Space is viewed as both physical (e.g., businesses, organizations) and metaphorical (e.g., space that holds symbolic meaning), and may also be general (e.g., the United States) or specific (e.g., workplace or church).
  Example: Case 14, Charleston Church Shooting
• Offenders who demonstrated masculinity through controlling space were often motivated by prejudicial beliefs about certain groups of people and engaged in fatal acts of bias-motivated violence to rid the space of them.
• These types of “warning-out practices” (Wachholz, 2005) are often used by bias crime offenders as a way to preserve the “hegemonic bloc” of which white, heterosexual, cisgender, protestant males own and control (Perry, 2001).
• By targeting a specific victim group because of their identity characteristics (e.g., race, class, gender, sexual orientation), biased crime offenders attempt to regain power and control over not only physical spaces but also social space more generally.
• This type of violence reaches beyond the specific individuals targeted, sending the message to their larger communities that they are not welcome.
• Some of the incidents that aligned with this theme involved offenders who held white supremacist ideals, such as the El Paso Walmart mass shooting (Case 27).
• Many of these men pursue hegemonic masculinity through violence and control over minority groups.
• Most men associated with the far-right movement have had issues pertaining to employment.
• Acts of violence may be directed at minority groups, whom many of these offenders might blame for their difficult positions in life, to restore their strained masculinity.

Multiple strained masculinity themes (46.03%)

• There was observable evidence of multiple strained masculinity themes in close to half of the cases analyzed (n=29).
• Most had two strained masculinity themes, while a few cases had observable evidence of all three themes.
  Example: Umpqua Community College shooting (Case 13)
• This narrative illuminates the utility of using a strained masculinity framework to understand mass shootings.
• It also demonstrates the complexity of mass shootings, given multiple strained masculinity themes were needed to understand the events.
• Some cases demonstrated all three strained masculinity themes. Example: Isla Vista mass murder (Case 17)
  • discussed the rejection he faced by women (response to masculinity challenges).
• methodically planned and prepared (i.e., went to the shooting range) for the “Day of Retribution” (demonstrating masculinity through “sport”).
• targeted the Alpha Phi sorority house at the University of California (demonstrating masculinity through controlling space).
• illuminates the multidimensional interaction of perceived strains and masculinity in perpetrators of mass shooters.

Negative Case Analysis

• Indicators of strained masculinity were absent in six of the mass shooting cases we reviewed (9.5%).
• Closer inspection of the perpetrators’ characteristics is informative.
• The perpetrators were heterogeneous in their racial and ethnic backgrounds.
• Every female-perpetrated mass shooting (n = 2) was encapsulated here.
• This stresses the thesis that strained masculinity may be necessary for shaping gendered pathways to mass violence offending.
• Nearly every shooter in these outlier cases suffered from psychological or emotional troubles before opening fire, such as paranoid delusions or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• The relationship between mental illness, mental health treatment, and masculinity are well-known in the literature.
• Hegemonic masculinity socialization can differentially influence men’s aggression and shape their perceptions of mental illness or decisions to seek care.
• The relevance of strained masculinity as it intersects with mental health remains an important consideration in understanding mass violence perpetration.

Discussion and Conclusion

Summary of Key Findings

• Men are responsible for well over 90% of mass shootings in America.
• Few studies have directly examined this extreme gap.
• Fewer still have explored the theoretical reasons why men commit mass shootings at much higher rates than women.
• Drawing on Allison and Klein’s (2021) concept of strained masculinity, the study extends prior research by proposing and qualitatively examining whether the theoretical integration of Agnew’s (2006a, 2006b) GST with masculinity theories would be a valuable approach to understanding the gender gap in mass shootings (Table 2).
  Table 2. Summary of Qualitative Findings (n=63)
• The analysis found support for using the concept of strained masculinity when examining the situational and motivating circumstances of mass shootings.
• A substantial proportion of this violence relates to shooters responding to challenges of masculinity, their pursuit of hegemonic masculinity through sport, or their pursuit of hegemonic masculinity via controlling space.
• The replication of Allison and Klein’s (2021) qualitative coding process found considerable overlap across the strained masculinity themes.
• The antecedents of mass shootings likely embody a complex intersection of multiple situational and contextual factors.
• The research highlights the nuances of mass violence while illustrating the utility of integrating theories of masculinity with orthodox criminology to enhance the discipline’s explanatory power and scope.

Limitations of the Current Research

• The use of news media has the potential for political bias to impact the results.
• The study utilized news articles to construct storylines of mass shootings, which were ultimately coded for themes of strained masculinity.
• This was attempted to rectify by drawing on the most reliable national news outlets and including direct quotes in the storylines from the perpetrators when available.
• Relying on actual quotes would have severely reduced the sample and inhibited the methodological approach of using storylines.

Implications of the Current Research

• Masculinity needs to be forefront in conversations about mass shootings.
• The findings demonstrate the necessity for unpacking the interaction between general strain and masculinity in research and prevention efforts for mass shootings.
• Including masculinity’s integral role in the perpetration of mass shootings will enhance academic and public discourse.
• A major cultural shift in the construction of masculinity is needed.
• The need exists for redefining masculinity at a societal level to deconstruct the patriarchal social structure that places masculinity at the top of the hierarchy.
• Cultural shifts in the construction of masculinity are slow, but it is essential to identify the lethal outcomes of masculinity in societies that place masculinity as superior and the cultural standard.
• The American Psychological Association (2018) lists viable strategies for re-shaping men’s early socialization experiences to encourage healthier masculine identities and protect against violent outcomes.
  Society-wide media campaigns that advertise prosocial coping skills and positive masculinity.
• Developing in-school programs that foster healthy dating and relationship behaviors and challenge harmful masculinity codes and traditional gender norms.
• Future research should consider Allison and Klein’s (2021) concept of strained masculinity when examining the gender gap in crime and other forms of violent offending.
• The current study demonstrates that integrating criminological theories with gendered theoretical approaches can be helpful to uniquely illuminate the complexity of the situational and motivating circumstances of violence and the gender gap in offending.
• These promising avenues for future research should continue to consider the overlap of the strained masculinity themes, especially for types of offending that have complex situational and contextual factors.
• Future comparative research may help uncover distinct etiologies of this violence.
• Mass shootings are a prevalent and growing social problem in the United States but are poorly understood.
• One clear finding from prior research is that men overwhelmingly commit most mass shootings in America.
• Strained masculinity can emerge as common challenges to the perpetrator’s masculinity that could spark violent responses.
• Mass violence may be an expression of aggressors’ pursuit of hegemonic masculinity through “sport” or their attempts to “control space.”
• All three themes illustrate the complex character of mass violence perpetration and the role that hegemonic masculinity plays in shaping violent decisions.
• Going forward, scholars can build from this study to test more formal hypotheses on the relationship between “strained masculinity” and mass violence, using this information to develop evidence-based prevention strategies.