Already boys will go to great lengths to hide their vulnerabilities. Add to it that many of them are abused or from homes full of dysfunction (though what now can we say is a functional family?) and we may be closer to understanding from where some of the sudden, violent rage of our shooters comes

Their violent outbursts are not born out of a malignant masculinity but instead a sure sign of the failure to transition into manhood.

By now this hatred has become firmly embedded in the culture of the United States (Nathanson and Young, 2001; 2006; 2010).

While Kimmel and his ilk may say that there is a healthy form of masculinity apart from toxic masculinity, it often comes off as their saying that men must act like feminist women.

Compare this with Kuper’s (2005) definition of toxic masculinity. Whereas these behaviors would seem to be the product of a hegemonic patriarch exercising his power of others, Gilmore is able to see that it is in fact the uniquely masculine way of nurturing others.

Kupers (2005) further defined it as “the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia and wanton violence.”

Namely it is what is colloquially referred to as “the patriarchy” both in academic and popular feminism.

In Connell and Messerschmidt’s (2005) Gramscian cultural Marxist analysis hegemonic masculinity is defined as a practice that legitimizes powerful men’s dominant position in society and the subordination of the common male population, women, and other marginalized ways of being a man.

The mythopoetic men’s movement sought to get men to connect with their lost feelings and the archetypes of deep masculinity in order to heal themselves from the damage done to them by industrialized, secular life

The comedian Michael Ian Black penned a popular op-ed for the New York Times in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 to say that “boys are broken.” The culprit: masculinity.

Perhaps for the first time the shooting was seen as an example of toxic masculinity.

And who today are we told to fear more than man?

From year to year there are slight fluctuations and spikes in incidence are generally attributable to copycat shooters and coincidence (Fox, 2012)

Researchers have only just begun to address how relationship dynamics, stress, emotions, and violence may be linked.

Continuing theoretical de- velopment on masculinities, along with an under- standing of stress and coping research, offers a promising framework for more fully understand- ing the social psychological processes (especially the stress, appraisal, and coping patterns) that un- derlie domestic violence.

he emphasizes that all men do not batter and that we must better understand and predict which men batter.

This explanation relies upon cultural notions about gender that hold women responsible for men’s aggression and that depict violence as a natural masculine response to frustration or provocation (Anderson & Umber- son, 2001; Connell, 1987).

iolent men may minimize their emotional re- actions to relationships and to stress. However, they are also likely to view acts of violence as expressions of extreme and cumulative emotional upset. Violence occurs when they lose control of their emotions, when their emotions begin to con- trol them.

Men with a history of violence are more likely to repress their feelings and emotions and to have trouble expressing those feelings.

We have sug- gested that masculine identity involves repression of emotion in response to stress and daily rela- tionship dynamics. The present results support this view and suggest that violence is more likely among men who experience a disconnect between their personal circumstances and their emotions.

In fact, the effects of relationship strain and stress on personal control are nonsignificant for the violent group, whereas they are significant for the nonviolent group

Domestic violence scholars con- tend that some men may use violence to regain a sense of control when they feel a loss of control (Campbell; Gondolf; Stets, 1988; Umberson et al., 2002).

If this is the case, and repressed emotion is eventually and explosively expressed in a violent act,

In this sense, men who are domestically violent are those who most dramatically demonstrate cul- tural images of masculinity (see a discussion in Connell, 1987).

he stress process may work differently for vi- olent and nonviolent men. Some evidence sug- gests that violent men experience greater physio- logical arousal in response to stress than do nonviolent men

ith stoicism in the face of stress, pain, and ad- versity (Connell, 1995; Messner, 1992).

Repressors constant- ly avoid and deny the experience of negative emotion; they “deny experiencing distress even in the face of objective signs indicating that they are distressed’” (Emmons, 1992, p. 143).

For example, immediately after experiencing the death of a loved one, crying may be most helpful to the individual, whereas immersion in work and social activities might be more adaptive several months later.

e describes “‘hege~ monic masculinity” as a masculine prototype— the strong, stoic, in-control man often portrayed in popular culture.

et he argues that all men organize their lives around conceptions of masculinity,

Stress researchers emphasize that men and women tend to express psychological distress in response to stress in different ways.

opular cultural representations of men under stress typically depict masculinized responses to stress, including aggression, alcoho] consumption, or a stoic refusal to let stress interfere with getting the job done (Savran, 1998).

Feminist scholars contend that violence (perpetrated pri- marily by men) is rooted in gender inequality and in the construction of the family as a site of male dominance and control (Dobash & Dobash, 1998; Yllo, 1993).

Family violence scholars argue that the stress of poverty and racial-ethnic inequality, combined with cultural notions of family privacy and the legitimacy of violence within families, facilitate domestic violence among both men and women (Gelles, 1993; Straus & Gelles, 1990).

Second, feminist scholars argue that violence is a means by which men can dem- onstrate a masculine identity (Anderson & Um- berson, 2001; Hearn, 1998).

emotional stoicism—men in our society are ex- pected to hide their feelings and emotions regard- less of physical or emotional pain: A “strong” man never cries.

First, the masculinities liter- ature reveals a cultural image of masculinity in which aggression is an acceptable way for men to express emotion in our society—whether in the form of sport, roughhousing, or controlling the be- havior of others (Connell, 1995; Messner, 1992; Segal, 1990).

se findings sup- port the idea that the demonstration of masculinity through repression of emotion and violent behav- ior may be linked.

Research examining societal-level factorssuch as sexual cultural scripting norms and traditionalmasculine norms is crucial, as societal-level factors canconstruct an environment that legitimizes and supports theuse of IPV and other forms of violence against women.

significant negative mental, sexual,and reproductive health implications for women

there remains adearth of research on societal-level factors of IPV in theUnited States (Gressard, Swahn, & Tharp, 2015; Spivaket al., 2014).