When men don't get what they want

I wrote this transgressive caption back in 2017, moved by the slaughter in the Sutherland Springs church shooting (26 dead, 20 injured), a horror story about mental illness and a window into the ideological politics that block gun control.

However, once I read past the headlines and dug deeper it became clear that the Sutherland Springs massacre was also a window into the culture of white male rage and entitlement, the same entitlement and rage that drives domestic assault and rape culture across the United States. When white men don’t get what they want, they often get violent and they usually target women.

In the Sutherland Springs church massacre the shooter targeted the women among his in-laws that were attending church that day. He had a long history of domestic assault, and prior to the shooting he had sent threatening text messages to the mother of his estranged wife.

This incident is not exceptional. In the US, one out of every 10 people murdered is killed by an intimate partner, and seven of those ten murdered are women. Four women a day are killed by an intimate partner. This number has been growing, while at the same time the number of men who are murdered by an intimate partner has declined. [That decline is attributed to the increase in divorce and women having more options to leave bad relationships.]

A 2019 New York Times article, “A Common Trait Among Mass Killers: Hatred Toward Women,” reported, “The motivations of men who commit mass shootings are often muddled, complex or unknown. But one common thread that connects many of them—other than access to powerful firearms—is a history of hating women, assaulting wives, girlfriends and female family members, or sharing misogynistic views online.” (Bosman, et al, Aug. 10, 2019).

For more on this topic, I recommend this article: The Number of Women Murdered by a Partner Is Rising

I realize that using my caption above to connect the dots between ending male entitlement and promoting the practice of male submission (by cis het men) in personal relationships is transgressive territory. The concept of female supremacy is a biological fallacy. And it runs counter to feminist principles (which I understand to reject sexual hierarchy of any kind). However, in line with concept of being a gender traitor and relinquishing privilege, men can practice female supremacy by putting the women they encounter ahead of them - "in the bedroom, in the street and in the state" as articulated by Viola Voltairine in her podcast about men extending their practice of male submission outside of the home.

Using submissive male fantasies to promote gender justice is a subversive tactic that may end up being counterproductive on net. But I explore it because a lot of men have these fantasies.