Are Men Socialized for Murder?

There was a report on the front page of the Wichita Eagle on Sunday titled “Far more men kill women than vice versa,” by Hurst Laviana and Tim Potter. The article centered around a statistic which showed that in Kansas, between 1985 and 2006, 63 women ages 12 to 21 were the victims of murders. Of these 63 victims, in 42 cases, men were the suspect, in one case, a woman was the suspect, and in 20 cases, the gender of the suspect was unknown. I thought it interesting that the article pointed out that in the same time period, 157 men age 12 to 21 were murdered, in 120 cases, the suspect was a man, in 6, the suspect was a woman, and in 31, the gender of the suspect was unknown. So maybe a better title for the report would be, “Men kill other men far more than they kill women,” or something, rather than insinuating that there was some sort of sexist bias among murderers.

The report went on and quoted Kathy Williams, the director the Wichita Are Sexual Assault Center, as saying, “Unfortunately, we socialize men to be big and strong and not show emotion.” Basically, it is society’s fault that men kill women, therefore Williams suggested that men need to be womanized (she actually said that “men need to learn to love and care in the broad sense, and they need to learn to respect the dignity of others.”).

There were so many flaws in this article, it is astounding. First of all, society doesn’t make men big, strong, and emotionless, men are big, strong, and emotionless by nature. It is therefore stupid to think that “training” men will help stop the murder of women.

Second, the fact that we men are big, strong, and emotionless is actually an advantage. If men were all womanized, who would defend society by fighting foreign enemies and catching criminals (and I don’t mean determine the identity of the criminal using amazing forensics, I mean, chase, catch, knock down, slap on handcuffs, and throw in a patrol car)?

Some might say, if all men were womanized, there would be no wars to fight or criminals to catch (and if pigs flew, bacon transportation costs would go down). The premise of this idea is ridiculous. What are we going to do, womanize terrorists at the same time we womanize America? And what if a few men slip through the cracks and are not successfully womanized? It isn’t even remotely feasible to train every single man on the planet at the same time.

Aside from protection against foreign and domestic enemies, the strength and aggression of men has other benefits. Roads, tools, furniture, and machines, to name a few things, need physical strength to be built. Aggression benefits men who are exploring the edges of a dangerous frontier. And competition driven by aggression can be beneficial as well. To put it simply, being size, strength, and aggression are not negative qualities, they are qualities that can be beneficial to the individual and the society the individual belongs to.

Third, and most important, blaming the aggression and strength of men for the murder of women is like blaming baseball bat manufacturers for busted kneecaps. While men may be more capable of committing murder, murder never occurs without a motive. That is what distinguishes murder from manslaughter: one is driven by a motive, the other is an accident. Murder happens because men (and occasionally women) break laws (both God’s and man’s) in order to kill someone out of anger, to solve a problem, or for fun. The disregard for laws is a problem all humans face and can only be solved by Jesus Christ. So the strength and lack of emotion in men isn’t even the root problem.