An editorial in the conservative magazine National Review is suggesting that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings happened because there was not enough “male aggression” in the building.
PHOTOS: The Heroes Of Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting
In fact, they’ve straight up contended that if there were less women in the building, the shooting wouldn’t have taken place.
There was no sugar coating there:
There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.
*sigh*
I don’t even know where to start. But let’s make one thing clear. Charlotte Allen, the anti-feminist who started this mess, is an idiot.
First and foremost, for the respect of the family, the victims, the town of Newtown in Connecticut and a mourning nation…shut up.
How dare she attribute this mess to women? How dare she, while a town is burying a handful of children a day because of this massacre, insult the very people who physically shielded students to save their lives. How dare this even get published. How dare she call herself a woman without recognizing the altruism and strength that we inherently possess. Who is this person?!
A feminized setting was not the detriment of Sandy Hook. In fact, it was why so many others survived. And I’ll tell you why.
DETAILS: Victims Of Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre Revealed
The male aggression Allen speaks of is not programmed to wipe the tears from first-graders eyes. It’s not designed to read stories in crowded closets while a gunman bangs on the door. Male aggression doesn’t hug 6-year-olds, it doesn’t tell them that they are loved. Male aggression doesn’t pull children close to them while bullets are flying past. It doesn’t comfort. It doesn’t have the capacity to talk about Christmas presents to calm children after hearing screams and shots ring from the intercom. Male aggression doesn’t hide every child in the closet, then sacrifice your own life to protect them.
In fact, the male aggression that she speaks of is false. What Allen wanted was Tarzan. She wanted the janitor to run into a closet and come out in a Superman suit. She wanted the archaic He-Man to save the day. Male aggression doesn’t make a man. Male aggression is foolish.
She thinks that a man, so different from a woman, could stop the bullets coming from Adam Lanza’s gun. Six bullets a second. From his Bushmaster AR-15. Yes…it’s so simple you see. That male aggression could have stopped Lanza, dressed in bulletproof and military garb and ready for battle. All Sandy Hook needed was a couple of male teachers and a burly 12-year-old to save the day.
The truth is, no one could have stopped Lanza. Not the heroes of Sandy Hook, not some faux-male aggression, not a handful of male teachers or a football wielding teenage boy.
Sandy Hook happened because a crazed gunman decided to massacre innocent children and adults.
Not because the women decided to lay their lives down to protect that which was most precious to them. The students.
These women didn’t breed a passive, weak environment.
That’s pure, unadulterated bravery.
And that…that is void of “male aggression.”
Whatever that even means.
Christina Coleman
Christina Coleman is the News and Politics Editor at GlobalGrind. A former science writer, she is obsessed with NASA, equality, and is a self-proclaimed foodie with a crush on Anthony Bourdain.
SOURCE: Think Progress
