Short Response to 11/23 Readings

After reading Steinem's article, "Supremacy Crimes", I really started thinking about how I feel so safe in my every day life and yet the most common serial killers (or killings with no real motivation) are white non-poor men. I know I do not really have any enemies in my life since I am not a drug dealer nor do I owe anyone large sums of money; therefore my murder would hypothetically be considered a "senseless" killing. The weird psychological motivations that Steinem describes including seeing their behavior as "an appropriate--even 'manly'--response to the frustrations and disappointments that are a normal part of life" (1). As Johnson describes in the article we read at the beginning of the semester, our entire system of patriarchy helps contribute to these middle/upper class white men's expectations of dominance to "which they've become addicted" (1). At the end of her article, Steinem describes how the gender of these men are not focused on as it should be. If it were women who were most likely to be serial killers, then the media would most likely focus almost primarily on their female gender. If it were men of color, then their race would be focused on. Since white middle/upper class men are the "norm", the only aspect that is focused on of these male killers is their youth. I agree with her final words saying "just as we as society have begun to raise our daughters more like son--morel like whole people--we must begin to raise our sons more like our daughters--that is, to value empathy as well as hierarchy; to measure success by other people's welfare as well as their own" (3).