Crime and Gender Bending
Why Women Aren't Shooting Up The Joint
2009-11-09
By Terry Glover

In the days after the attacks at Fort Hood, Texas and Orlando, Florida, a colleague pondered the question of why women never seem to go on the kind of killing sprees becoming more common in the news. The perpetrators are always men, the acts always horrifying. A cursory look at the case of Jason Rodriguez would indicate the loss of his job at the engineering firm in Orlando as the catalyst for his rampage. From there, it’s a short leap to the economic climate and the massive loss of thousands of jobs as the reason for the current spate of crimes and an excuse for future transgressions. But Rodriguez was fired a full two years ago, and the case of Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan at Fort Hood had nothing to do with being unemployed and allegedly everything to do with being deployed and discriminated against as a Muslim of Jordanian descent. Coincidentally, during the two days over which these attacks happened, D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad reappeared in the headlines, his execution scheduled for November 10. Still not clear on his gripe.

These men were responsible for the killing and/or premeditated shooting of nearly two dozen people. Each also set out with the clear intent to do harm to as many people as possible, however random the encounter. And therein lies a very pointed gender distinction. While a man’s rage renders him intent on inflicting as much carnage as possible, a woman is interested in justice. In exacting revenge, specifically, on those who have done her harm. It is far easier for a woman to pinpoint the perpetrator as a specific individual rather than, say, the entire prison/corporate/government/imperial industrial complex conspiring against the ego of a man. Call it efficiency, call it the result of having to endlessly negotiate that ego, but women are much better at drilling down to the root of the problem. What happens after that could end up as an episode of “Snapped!” but check those cases – usually conflicts domestic in nature — and you’ll find the hurt directed at one victim, not spraying an entire waiting room with gunfire. Even Clara Harris, who ran over her philandering dentist husband in the parking lot of a Houston hotel, waited until she had him square in front of the hood of her sedan before she floored it and hit him twice.

Women also have an edge within their own complex -- one built not on one-upmanship, but of relationships that, for the most part, sustain and support them in the face of life’s challenges. Your boss is a bitch? Dealing with a backstabbing coworker? Order a round of drinks and tell it. While women feel purged laying their neurosis on the table, men cannot reveal vulnerability without seeming (or at least feeling) weak. So conversation between men can coast between sports, women, music and politics, but seldom gets personal enough to chill the demons within. The exception? Men with wives and families who tend to become, often by default, part of a social fabric that at least allows them to focus on needs greater than their own. The men in question here (one a psychiatrist!) had neither, and were left to wallow in their own misery and paranoia.

This is not to say that women don’t sublimate their feelings. They most certainly can and do. And as much as women can be their own best friends, they can also be their own worst enemies. Nurturers to the end, women tend to self-destruct rather than destroy, drowning their resentment in stuff like prescription meds or alcohol or cookie dough. Recall two recent cases of women involved in terrible auto fatalities, both found to have marijuana and blood alcohol levels off the charts. Their families thought they were teetotalers. Trust that those two women thought they were in control enough to get behind the wheel. Vehicular manslaughter was not the intention. Making it to the carpool line on time was.

Emotional turmoil for either sex can be daunting, overwhelming and dangerous. What is needed is a more insightful way of recognizing distress before it erupts into a series of awful and irreversible events. Family, friends and neighbors frequently report, after the fact, that there were troubling signs, but none ever thought the perpetrator “capable of something like this.” Regardless of gender we should all be on the lookout for chinks in the armor, and be willing to speak up if something doesn’t feel right.

Terry Glover is managing editor for Ebony. She writes about culture and politics for ebonyjet.com.