First, you’re playing into “what-aboutism” (your point is not at all relevant to my piece; my piece was about the phenomenon of mass shootings, and in mass shootings, almost all perpetrators are cis men). Second, your claim that more mothers kill their children in the U.S. more than men do people in this country is simply false.
You didn’t even bother to read my Politico piece, it seems. My claim that mental illness doesn’t play as strong a role in these mass shootings isn’t just based on the idea that if that were true there would be more women mass shooters. It was based on actual data. Of all the shooters we’ve had in the past 65+ years, only 14.8% had a definitive mental illness — but nearly 99% were cis men. Also this: “Studies have also found that those with serious mental illness are responsible for just 4 percent of the incidences of interpersonal violence and less than 1 percent of all gun-related homicides annually in the United States.” And this from my article:
“Eighty-nine percent of murder-suicides are committed by men, and most often include an unwitting female partner or ex-partner. (Murder suicides claim 1,200 American lives annually; nearly all of them are committed with a gun.)...In fact, more than half of mass shootings (54 percent) are actually domestic violence incidents.”
Murder-suicides include filicide, and here men commit it (much) more often than women, even including the post-partum mothers. There are some 450 children murdered by filicide annually in the U.S. and at least half or more are committed by men. If men are committing 89% of murder-suicides, that alone is over 1,000 people they are murdering every year (and this doesn’t include all mass shootings); whereas filicide by a mother claims approximately 200–300 per year. And here’s the hook: when filicide is committed by a woman — it is usually vast majority of the time in a fit of post-partum psychosis (one of the rare times it seems mental illness may be a legitimate culprit). Men are more likely to kill their children when they are older and it is premeditated (suggesting mental illness is NOT playing a role).
Does this mean it’s not a problem or that it’s not tragic? Of course not. And yes, women could benefit from better mental health care if/when dealing post-partum psychosis. Actually, women could benefit from better natal and post-natal care in the U.S., period. But our country is uniquely terrible in this way (more women die here in childbirth — particularly WOC — than any other developed nation). And yet, our (majority old white cis men) lawmakers would rather restrict abortion and birth control and deprive of us healthcare. Which is why I believe filicide rates for mothers of newborns are higher here by far than other nations with better healthcare access and resources. As a study on the phenomenon noted: “The strongest predictive factors of maternal child homicide are maternal age of 19 years or younger, education of 12 years or less, single marital status, and LATE OR ABSENT PRENATAL CARE.” These punishing policies for women are yet another indicator of toxic masculinity in our American culture and another nefarious way it impedes on and in some cases destroys the lives of women, NB and other marginalized folks.
