Elizabeth Winker: We Can Solve America’s ‘Gun Problem’ by Redefining Masculinity

By Robert Farago

America’s gun problem has everything to do with America’s masculinity problem. That’s the headline of an article at qz.com by Elizabeth Winkler [above], contributor to such famously conservative publications as The Economist, The New Republic and The Los Angeles Review of Books. To make her case against men among men doing manly things (with guns), Ms. Winkler rounds up some of unusual suspects. Experts like University of Minnesota graduate student Alankaar Sharma, whose “teaching and research have focused on diversity and anti-oppressive social work, masculinities from a pro-feminist standpoint” . . .

As Alankaar Sharma, a social worker and researcher, tells Quartz, “Possessing a gun is considered by many men, if not most, as a straightforward way of subscribing to dominant masculinity.” In his view, the patriarchal system, which privileges a certain set of masculine behaviors, values, and practices, provides men with “a clear and justifiable reason to own guns.” It cements their identity as masculine men.

So men who owns guns are buying into and propagating a patriarchal system – which discriminates against women and “privileges” men (obvs.). Winkler backs up Sharma’s misandrist assessment by recapping a May 2015 op-ed for The …Read the Rest