When men implode, why don't we blame others? (depressed, boyfriend, woman)

[goodheathen]

I just saw an interesting music video by The Roots, depicting a broken-hearted man killing a woman and her lover.

Things like that happen sometimes in the real world. Maybe minus the lover or involving suicide. Or a man goes "postal" after pending or actual job loss. Except for the Dorner episode and possibly reviews of the fictional "Falling Down" story, I never hear anyone talk about any responsibility for such tragedies beyond the man himself and "temporary insanity" rarely even is cited. Why is that? Not excusing violent crime and obviously in some cases it's purely the guy's fault, but often it probably goes beyond him. What does that say about how society views men, women, etc.?

[Amy1190]

Much of the problem is to do with men repressing their feelings. Society doesn't help because it tells them to "man up" and to not show any kind of weakness. When a man is depressed, he will most likely bottle it up and in turn, it will fester inside him and he will most likely become angry.

Women are generally much better at ensuring their emotional needs are met through friendships rather than just romantic partners. When a man gets divorced and hits hard times, he often finds himself alone as male friendships tend to be based on doing rather than actually talking.

This by no means gives men an excuse to go postal when times are bad, but I do feel that gender roles and stereotypes need to be majority reevaluated at some point as the status quo isn't working.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

........... I never hear anyone talk about any responsibility for such tragedies beyond the man himself a....................it's purely the guy's fault, but often it probably goes beyond him.

The reason is that it is clearly solely the responsibility of the man who committed the murders. Even if it were drug or alcohol fueled, at some point the man made the decision to put reality altering substances into his body.

If people (male or female) cannot function in society without killing people, then they really should be locked away. If anyone (male or female) has trouble controlling their anger, it is up to them to get treatment.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

I'm going to add that many of the mass shooting sort of happenings are done by people who were already well know to be wack-a-doodle crazy. So there is a failing of society in those cases, to remove the person from the public before they went on a killing spree,

That can not be done with our constitution that says innocent until proven guilty and you can't arrest anyone for something you know they are going to do in the future. You must wait for them to do it.

So, a societal failing in not having adequate mental health care available and for not being able to mandate that seriously crazy people take advantage of the available care.

[Tracysherm]

I tend to think that the news media likes to choose the villain in any violent crime, in order to fit their political agenda. When a stranger commits a violent crime, that stirs people up more, and the media can play into that fear--"hey this can happen to you, unless we... (fill in the blank)."

But when someone commits a violent crime with a person they know, when somebody is killed by a supposed "loved one," the general public aren't going to get very frightened. So the news media is less likely or able to stir people up to support an agenda.

Look at recent examples:
--Man shoots up a school and kills children. He's not painted as the villain, but guns, the 2nd amendment, and the NRA are the villains. Quick! We must do something now!
--Man pushes a woman off train platform, and she dies from being hit by a train. The man is not the villain, but since he had a mental illness, the "broken mental health system" is the villain. Quick! We must do something now!
--Man kills another man during an altercation caused by an unfortunate misunderstanding. Neither man is a villain. Racism is the villain--quick! we must do something now! Oh, and stand-your-ground laws are the villain--Quick! we must do something, now!

There's always some "villain" that can be exploited when a stranger kills a stranger. So the story becomes about an agenda and not about a bad person who did a bad thing. But when a person kills someone they know and possibly love, there's nothing to easily exploit. Sometimes the media can figure out how to push their agenda anyway--"this is an example of bullying! Quick, we must do something about bullying!" or "this woman killed her child! where was social services! we must do something to increase the ability of the state to get involved in parenting!" But besides those exceptions, when someone kills a loved one, it's just a sad unfortunate story, quickly forgotten when the next politically charged story comes along.
That is, unless, the murderer or the victim are very pretty. THEN it can become a big story with no political agenda required!

[oregonwoodsmoke]

By the way, women also kill lovers and family members and they don't get any slack cut for them, either. They take the full blame for their actions.

Who was the woman who drowned all her kids because the new boyfriend didn't like children? I never heard any sympathy or excuses for her.

[goodheathen]

Susan Smith. On the other hand, people made excuses for Andrea Yates (and I tend to agree with those excuses). Mental health issues are often involved in implosions; when so, it's unfair to completely blame the man. But why does society rarely blame women, workplace stress/injustices, or other things when they very likely are factors in specific cases? (Hrrm, I just recalled there was a case where a man killed a judge who ruled against him in maybe a custody case, and later there was press that was somewhat sympathetic to the killer.) Is the idea of collective responsibility somewhat disturbing in the USA? Edit: though to clear things up, I mean why don't we blame specific people for badly mistreating or mishandling men who later implode?