Killing for Love.
By: Celeste Huang
Tags: Violence Against Women, Maren Sanchez, Killing For Love, No Means No, Toxic Masculinity

Some men can’t take no for an answer due to toxic masculinity and social identity, which causes over-aggression towards their victims.

You walk down the street, wearing your favorite jeans and your favorite top. You expect your day to be great because you just had your first cup of coffee and you are meeting up with a few friends for lunch. Then, you hear a whistle, that shifts your happy tune to a sad and annoyed dismay. Another catcall, you think. The only reaction you display is to walk away, because you were taught to ignore those people. Hey beautiful, let me take you out for dinner, you hear in the distance. All you do is walk away and roll your eyes, expecting no confrontation today. Bitch, he screams after you rejected his request for “love”.

Why is it that women are subjected to these comments daily? Women are expected to always say yes to a man, because he can “protect” and “provide”. Most women are taught to ignore these comments and walk away, in order to avoid confrontation or avoiding a life-threatening situation like trafficking. However, it becomes even worse when you see that women are being killed because they rejected a man’s advances for attention and love. For example, a 16 year old Connecticut high schooler named Maren Sanchez was stabbed to death because she rejected Christopher Plaskon who asked her to be his date to the junior prom. Maren Sanchez was stabbed around the neck, face, and chest.

Plaskon told police, “I did it. Just arrest me,” minutes after the stabbing.

The 16 year-old has been charged as an adult with murder and was held on a $3 million bond before returning to a psychiatric facility he now calls home. Chris’ lawyer said in the Daily News article, “Chris is in need of a continued psychiatric care and medication and should be housed in an age-appropriate correctional center.” The community was affected, as they postponed the prom and held a vigil in Maren’s name. Student wore her favorite color to school, and the school district brought therapy dogs to help students cope. People were confused as to why Plaskon lashed out, as they saw him as the “class clown”.

Not all men are subjected to “toxic masculinity”. According to Wikipedia, toxic masculinity is “defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that restrict the kinds of emotions allowable for boys and men to express, including social expectations that men seek to be dominant (the “alpha male”) and limit their emotional range primarily to expressions of anger.” This could lead to results of violence, as seen with the Maren Sanchez case. In Peach’s article, she states, “American law embodies a curious gender bias: it treats women and men differently in relation to violence, typically in ways that disadvantage women.” There is a sense of overgeneralizing all men seen as an aggressive figure, but their behavior does navigate from the means of rejection. Being rejected tends to affect one’s social identity and pride, as their masculinity is one visible source for men. Once they feel they have lost their source of power, they become aggressive and tend to use their own methods to cope with the following. They want to take ownership of their environment around them, in order to gain their “masculinity” back. This also hurts the other gender, the female, as it builds a stereotype around women, always conforming to men and working under their shadow. Peach explains that the gender law, the American society-built law that damages human beings, play into part of violence from men against women.

“Why do men love their masculinity so much? Because men have been taught to sacrifice their lives for their masculinity, and men always know that they are far less masculine than they should be. Women, though, have the power to give a man his masculinity or take it away, so women become both terrifyingly important and terrifyingly dangerous to men.” — Redefining Fathehood, Nancy E. Dowd.

Men have a similar upbringing when it comes to their social identity and belonging as men in society. Zimmer’s article states, “masculinity is founded on the myth that men alone are rights-bearing persons and women are subordinate, passive, second-class beings who either need the protection of or deserve to be subjected to men.” It is not natural for men in our culture to display emotions other than anger because that is how they are taught. Showing emotions is a seen as a characteristic of being weak. The worst thing a man could be called is feminine, because it is just another word for weak and passive. This also accounts to how society teaches men that they do not need to ask for permission for sexual advances. Society has taught men that they have to take charge and have no reason to respect a women. They expect something in return for being the “nice guy” and asking politely, as they put on a persona for the sake of a relationship or attention. They do not take “no” as an answer and will constantly harass or in this case, kill.

This is only one result of toxic masculinity, as there are many other cases and results that form from this one coined term. So many women in this country are killed over rejecting a man’s advances, for example like a marriage proposal or just being asked to dance on the dance floor. This also comes up to play of how these men were brought up, and they tend to navigate towards having mental issues that result to these aggressive out lashes. However, that does not change the fact that this is a constant on-going result of what society teaches these men to treat women. Women have suffered enough abuse from men in today’s society and are constantly harassed anywhere and everywhere. On the other hand, women can do the exact same to men, for those who cannot take rejection lightly, tend to go violent because they also feel lose of power and attention. Everyone is vulnerable to violence, and American culture/society does not help treat any type of violence. It hurts me to constantly be aware of my surroundings and hope that no one will do anything that I don’t want, or be killed because I rejected a man’s offering. Society has turned this into an on-going case of violence and there is not a solution quiet yet on to how to change this.