committing mass murders and why is this fact being overlooked or not discussed joining me now is meghan murphy founder and editor of feminist currents freelance journalist whose latest article on alter net is titled what is it about men that they're committing these horrible massacre meghan welcome and i think that me on the show thanks for joining us you would think that the gender of a perpetrator would be an important factor in understanding why crimes occur why is that being overlooked. i think gender is overlooked in general not just in these kinds of mass shootings but you know because we're living in a time and place particularly within an american context we're told over and over and over again that individuals are completely responsible for their own circumstances so things like race gender we're told that those things don't factor and i mean the american dream is based on this idea that any individual who works hard and i can succeed and oddly of course it's most often white men who have succeeded throughout history we know full well that race class and gender factor into our circums