Woman to Woman

I recently read an article  called Guns and the Decline of Young Men published on The Stone which is editorial branch of the New York Times. The article was written by Christy Wampole, an assistant professor of French at Princeton University. She discussed her theory behind why she thinks there is such a rise in the numbers of young white men who are committing these organized crimes such as the ones at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. She believes that the reason for these crimes are not because of the guns or because of our violent media and socitey but rather because young white men feel they do not have a purpose. She thinks that since we've proved to them that minorities and women are just as smart as them that they don't feel like their special anymore. Since we've shown white men that a woman is capable of raising a child without a man, now white men feel useless. Christy wants us, I'm assuming she's referring to women and minorities, to take pity for the white man whose power is in decline. I find Christy's theory completely superficial and degrading to women and minorities who are still not equal to the white man despite all the many triumphs we've had. She uses the phrase that "white men are on the decline" but is she forgetting how there was a point in this country when white men didn't allow women or miorities to vote? Are women supposed to give up their rights to divorce and rights to work for equal pay just so some mentally ill white men feel powerful and will stop shooting American children? It's propostruous. I don't know what world she is living in but in the real world, women and minorities still make up the majority of America's poverty, colored faces still fill the majority of our prisons and women still make 30% less than what men make for the same work. If the problem here is truly about race and it's shifting powers, which I'm not sure it is at all, then the issue isn't that our society has completely deprived white men of all their previous opportunity; the problem is that we never taught them how to share. Power, money, and opportunity does not belong to a select group of people; it belongs to us all. So lets not get it twisted- white, heterosexual men still have a lot going for them. Although, I (am proud to) admit that women, minorities, and queers are making headway, lets not be scared into giving up what we've fought so hard to gain.