Gender roles may contribute in violent behavior

On Thursday of this past week, I was at work flipping through the Internet news venues when I found a story that actually made my jaw drop. For those of you who know me, this does not happen easily.

The main story on Yahoo! News was about a nine year old boy who gut busted for bringing a gun to school. That wouldn’t be so shocking if the gun wasn’t literally two inches long and plastic.

Timothy and his friend had been sitting at a table in the lunchroom and playing with Lego figures when he put the two-inch gun into the hands of a plastic police officer. 

That was literally all he did. 

Timothy’s mother said that the reason the boy liked the gun so much is because his father is a retired police officer. 

The boy was then brought into the Principal’s office, asked to sign a statement and nearly suspended. 

I apologize, but this boy is nine years old! The gun was the size of his pinkie, maybe. Never mind the fact that it was plastic. 

But then we had another gun story literally a day later that did not end on a good note.

On Friday in Madison, Alabama, a ninth grader was shot in the back of the head in between classes at a local high school and is currently in critical condition.

So as a society how do we link the two together? Do we say that one is just an innocent young boy playing with a gun and another is one who is unstable and took things too far? 

Or do we say that the person who was the school shooter played with toy guns as a young child and that this is what led him to kill a fellow classmate? 

I remember after the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 that everybody and their brother blamed video games for violence amongst children. 

After the Virginia Tech Massacre, it was that a student who needed severe mental treatment was not helped in the way they needed. 

We are always playing the blame game without actually looking at the true source. 

So should the Principal in Timothy’s case have jumped to the assumed conclusion that by allowing Timothy to play with the tiny gun that he would later go on to commit violent acts? No. She should have seen that he was just a child and that boys across this country are genderized to play with guns and other violent games and weapons.

Walk down any boy’s section of the toy store and you will see mostly guns or other weapons with taglines like “Kill,” “Fight” and “Destroy.”

All Timothy was doing was going along with what society has demanded of him since he was first wrapped up in a baby blue swaddle. 

I’m not saying that gender stereotypes are the main reasons for school shootings by any means. Drug abuse, mental illness, an abusive past as well as many other things can all be seen as causes as well. I do, however, feel that when we consistently tell young boys to play with guns and to “destroy the enemy,” that maybe we aren’t sending all the right signals. 

It may not just be the toys that are perpetuating the violence, but it is definitely being caused by something. 

According to the U.S. Department of Justice between 1998 and 2002, eighty three percent of spouse murders and seventy five percent of dating partner murders were executed by males. If, according to RAINN, one in every three women will be raped in her lifetime, who is doing the raping? Men. 

Males are brought up to be “tough” and to not “bitch out” or be a “pussy.”  All that does is tell them that being sensitive and not constantly fighting is wrong. 

That is not okay.  We, as a generation, need to make sure that with our children we do not perpetuate the issue that is underlying at least some, if not all, of the violence; gender stereotyping. 

When will we stop blaming violence in video games solely and start looking at the genderization of little boys and the way that we as a society tell them that fighting and guns are okay, but then criticize them and ask parents what went wrong when little boys and young troubled men shoot up schools?