Mass shootings and masculinities: exploring the multifaceted role of gender in cumulative strain theory

Abstract

This paper illustrates the role of gender throughout all five stages of the cumulative strain theory of mass shootings. Scholarship on masculinities helps explain the unusually wide gender disparity among mass shooters. Mass shooters who are boys and men experience stressors as emasculating rejections which accumulate over time. Boys and men are more likely than girls and women to be socially isolated and/or have anti-social connections that exacerbate rather than alleviate strains. Boys and men are more likely to externalize blame for failures and are more likely to enact violence on others when stressors reach a tipping point. Boys and men are more likely to fantasize about planned violence and carry out rampage plots. Finally, boys and men are ultimately far more likely to have access to and training in firearms.