MARTIN: Before we let you go, there is one thing that connects a number of the cases that we've been talking about so far, and by using the word cases, I don't mean to minimize just how, you know, devastating all these experiences have been.
BELL: Sure.
MARTIN: But one thing that does connect them - all these people are men. That's...
BELL: Yeah.
MARTIN: That's one thing that they all have in common. I mean, whether the person who committed that terrible mass shooting at Virginia Tech, who was Korean-American, then, you know, Jared Loughner, one case that we spoke about, you know, some years ago, Buford Furrow, who attacked these...
BELL: Yes.
MARTIN: ...you know, men, women and children at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles. They're all men, and I'm sorry. I can't help but notice that and I just wonder - what about that?
BELL: Astute observation. There's a professor of psychiatry, public health and education at Harvard, Justin Pierce, who's retired now, who used to talk about male entitlement dysfunction. And what he meant by that is that men are - you know, we've got testosterone disease. You know, we're aggressive. We're competitive. We actually believe that we own our wives, we own our children. Some of us actually believe that we could actually own other people and get away with it.
And so, you know, men have these issues that are colloquially referred to - it's not a formal psychiatric diagnosis, but male entitlement dysfunction is a problem and women know that men have male entitlement dysfunction. I'm recovering, actually, myself, but the challenge is, is that - you know who raises men? It's women.
So it's an interesting dynamic of how do you teach men to not be aggressive, competitive, 'cause(ph) - to be warriors. You know, I mean, that's kind of our role in this society and in most other cultures, although there are some exceptions. And so we've got to do a much better job at connecting men to their softer sides.
MARTIN: Dr. Carl Bell is a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Illinois. He's the president and CEO of the Community Mental Health Council in Chicago and the founder of the Institute for the Prevention of Violence, and he was kind enough to join us from member station WBEZ in Chicago.
---
Read the full converastion at: npr.org (click here)
You may also want to read, IMS, that is Irritable Male Syndrome (click here).
BELL: Sure.
MARTIN: But one thing that does connect them - all these people are men. That's...
BELL: Yeah.
MARTIN: That's one thing that they all have in common. I mean, whether the person who committed that terrible mass shooting at Virginia Tech, who was Korean-American, then, you know, Jared Loughner, one case that we spoke about, you know, some years ago, Buford Furrow, who attacked these...
BELL: Yes.
MARTIN: ...you know, men, women and children at a Jewish community center in Los Angeles. They're all men, and I'm sorry. I can't help but notice that and I just wonder - what about that?
BELL: Astute observation. There's a professor of psychiatry, public health and education at Harvard, Justin Pierce, who's retired now, who used to talk about male entitlement dysfunction. And what he meant by that is that men are - you know, we've got testosterone disease. You know, we're aggressive. We're competitive. We actually believe that we own our wives, we own our children. Some of us actually believe that we could actually own other people and get away with it.
And so, you know, men have these issues that are colloquially referred to - it's not a formal psychiatric diagnosis, but male entitlement dysfunction is a problem and women know that men have male entitlement dysfunction. I'm recovering, actually, myself, but the challenge is, is that - you know who raises men? It's women.
So it's an interesting dynamic of how do you teach men to not be aggressive, competitive, 'cause(ph) - to be warriors. You know, I mean, that's kind of our role in this society and in most other cultures, although there are some exceptions. And so we've got to do a much better job at connecting men to their softer sides.
MARTIN: Dr. Carl Bell is a psychiatrist and professor at the University of Illinois. He's the president and CEO of the Community Mental Health Council in Chicago and the founder of the Institute for the Prevention of Violence, and he was kind enough to join us from member station WBEZ in Chicago.
---
Read the full converastion at: npr.org (click here)
You may also want to read, IMS, that is Irritable Male Syndrome (click here).
RSS Feed
