This impossible role is detrimental to both the males who adopt it and the boys who resist it. The boys who adopt such a role learn to ridicule and belittle both women and other men who are perceived as weak. It is no accident that boys who do not project these male sex role attributes are called girls and sissies and wimps. While women are socialized to turn their feelings of powerlessness and anger inward, boys are taught to direct it outward. It is not surprising that even though sexual harassment is a serious assault on a woman's person, we have yet to have a woman come into an office and shoot all the people who have been unjust and unfair.
Women leave the job, or talk to friends, or take it to the courts.
Yet this society has trained males to react differently. Men are taught to defend their masculinity by striking out. Picking up a gun is instant power to men. It gives them the power and control society has taught them they are entitled to. Although as a society we say we abhor violence, the culture supports and glorifies violence.