“Adolescent Masculinity” Kimmel and Mahler.pdf
ARTICLE

Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence

Random School Shootings, 1982-2001

MICHAEL S. KIMMEL MATTHEW MAHLER State University of New York at Stony Brook

Since 1982, there have been 28 cases of random school shootings in American high schools and middle schools. The authors find (a) that the shootings were not a national problem but a series of local problems that occurred in “red states” or counties (places that voted Republi- can in the 2000 election); (b) that most of the boys who opened fire were mercilessly and rou- tinely teased and bullied and that their violence was retaliatory against the threats to man- hood; (c) that White boys in particular might be more likely than African American boys to randomly open fire; and (d) that the specific content of the teasing and bullying is homopho- bia. A link between adolescent masculinity, homophobia, and violence is proposed. Finally, the authors offer a few possible explanations as to how most boys who are teased and bullied achieve the psychological resilience that enables them to weather adolescence without recourse to random school violence.

Keywords: masculinity; homophobia; violence; school shootings; adolescence

Generally speaking, violence always arises out of impotence. It is the hope of those who have no power.

—Hannah Arendt

Violence is one of the most urgent issues facing our nation’s schools. All over the country, Americans are asking why some young people open fire, apparently randomly, killing or wounding other students and their teachers. Are these teen- agers emotionally disturbed? Are they held in the thrall of media-generated vio- lence—in video games, the Internet, rock or rap music? Are their parents to blame?

Indeed, school violence is an issue that weighs heavily on our nation’s con- sciousness. Students report being increasingly afraid to go to school; among

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AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, Vol. 46 No. 10, June 2003 1439-1458 DOI: 10.1177/0002764203251484 © 2003 Sage Publications

young people aged 12 to 24, 3 in 10 say violence has increased in their schools in the past year and nearly two-fifths have worried that a classmate was potentially violent (“Fear of Classmates,” 1999). More than half of all teens know some- body who has brought a weapon to school (although more than three-fifths of them did nothing about it), according to a PAX study (“Half of Teens,” 2001). And nearly two thirds (63%) of parents believe a school shooting is somewhat or very likely to occur in their communities (Carlson & Simmons, 2001). The shock, concern, and wrenching anguish shared by both children and parents who fear that our nation’s schools may not be safe demands serious policy discus- sions. And such discussions demand serious inquiry into the causes of school violence.1

We begin our inquiry with an analysis of the extant commentary and litera- ture on school violence. We argue that, unfortunately, there are significant lacu- nae in all of these accounts—the most significant of which is the fact that they all ignore the one factor that cuts across all cases of random school shootings— masculinity. Thus, we argue that any approach to understanding school sho