Sex of perps of mass/serial/spree killings

lol. look at you sprucing up the convos.

i'll bite: because men are not passive. we roll yo.
 
i love this topic because i'm damn sure that Mousey Little Poobear knows the answer to this already.
 
I would agree with Envy about the repressed emotions. Men are taught to repress their emotions and told not to cry from childhood. This is also blamed on the high male suicide rate in my country, there are some good mental health groups and mens issues groups that have been set up locally to help men get back in touch with their emotions.

And I can relate. Normally I am pretty expressive but I do sometimes have meltdowns and in every case it has been because I have been repressing my emotions, or allow someone to bully me.
 
MLP if you could be so kind... what exactly is the point that you are trying to make here?
 
I would agree with Envy about the repressed emotions. Men are taught to repress their emotions and told not to cry from childhood. This is also blamed on the high male suicide rate in my country, there are some good mental health groups and mens issues groups that have been set up locally to help men get back in touch with their emotions.

And I can relate. Normally I am pretty expressive but I do sometimes have meltdowns and in every case it has been because I have been repressing my emotions, or allow someone to bully me.
lol. i thought you were a woman...
 
Your avatar is confusing the hell out of me, man.

Me too. I keep reading the posts and having the reaction of "Is Danaskully having a meltdown?!"

MLP if you could be so kind... what exactly is the point that you are trying to make here?

I'm actually not trying to make a point, nor am I really trying to be provocative.

I know that testosterone causes a lot of problems; I know that societally imposed gender roles and expectations screw up males and females, in different ways. I don't think that either alone or in conjunction with the other explains the difference in the respective prevalence of certain behaviors in male versus female.

For instance, mass/serial/spree killers - I doubt that the testosterone levels of these guys are higher than the average male's. (Does anyone know whether studies have been done on this?) I wouldn't be surprised if they are actually lower.

I've been giving a lot of thought, off and on, about male/female differences. I think that hormones and societal influences don't account for nearly as much of the difference as people assume. I'm basing that on observation of the animals of various species I've lived with - in most cases, I can observe differences in male/female behaviors at very young ages, before hormones are supposedly kicking in. In almost all cases, my early assumptions, based on observation of behavior, about whether a specific animal is male or female turn out to be accurate.

Yesterday's mass murder was just the impetus for starting the discussion in the context of this kind of extreme violence.
 
Me too. I keep reading the posts and having the reaction of "Is Danaskully having a meltdown?!"



I'm actually not trying to make a point, nor am I really trying to be provocative.

I know that testosterone causes a lot of problems; I know that societally imposed gender roles and expectations screw up males and females, in different ways. I don't think that either alone or in conjunction with the other explains the difference in the respective prevalence of certain behaviors in male versus female.

For instance, mass/serial/spree killers - I doubt that the testosterone levels of these guys are higher than the average male's. (Does anyone know whether studies have been done on this?) I wouldn't be surprised if they are actually lower.

I've been giving a lot of thought, off and on, about male/female differences. I think that hormones and societal influences don't account for nearly as much of the difference as people assume. I'm basing that on observation of the animals of various species I've lived with - in most cases, I can observe differences in male/female behaviors at very young ages, before hormones are supposedly kicking in. In almost all cases, my early assumptions, based on observation of behavior, about whether a specific animal is male or female turn out to be accurate.

Yesterday's mass murder was just the impetus for starting the discussion in the context of this kind of extreme violence.

This is true in some ways, male and female animals can have very different behaviours from the outset, and I have even encountered transgendered animals....

However i am not sure whether it speaks about propensity to violence. I think that both genders are as likely to have a propensity to violence, but males are more likely to opt for physical violence in general whereas women are more likely to use emotional violence.
 
something needs to liven it up here. and friggin' Dana lured me here, so...
Is this like The Exorcist, where you've taken over the body of DS? I could honestly respect that if this is the case.
 
Culture, probably. Men are taught to be more violent. Men also tend, on average, to be more lacking in social ties and a social safety net.

Although there are plenty of women mass/serial/spree killers. They just don't seem to stick in our memories. After all, have you heard of Jennifer San Marco or Amy Bishop Anderson? Both went on a killing rampage with firearms within the last decade years in the US. Then there are cases which are less newsworthy, such as Kimberly Clark Saenz, who ended up killing patients with an injection.

And it's not just the US. Sanna Sillanpää is an example of a Finnish woman who went on a notable killing spree back in 1999.
 
Nobody is saying women don't do it - after all, the most prolific known serial killer in history was a woman. And there are many dozens of male mass/serial/spree killers who don't stick in our memories either. But the percentage of serial/spree/mass killers who are female is quite small. Also, those that exist seem to fall almost exclusively within about half a dozen fairly narrowly defined categories - the angel of death, the black widow, etc. Women tend to kill people with whom they have a personal connection.

ETA: I must say, though, that you're very predictable in your refrain of "but women do it too, but people only pay attention when men do something bad!" :p I checked Wiki's list of many dozens of rampage killers, and found only three familiar names - the Norwegian guy and the two Columbine shooters. But of course, we remember male killers just because they're male. :rolleyes: That explains why no one remembers Lizzy Borden, Andrea Yates, etc. :p