C(h)ristian’s Blog

Violent Masculinities and School Shootings in Finland

Johanna Kantola, Jemima Repo and I are currently working on a paper investigating violent masculinities and school shootings in Finland. Having the feminist research on domestic violence in Finland and critical studies of masculinities as starting points, we analyze the media construction of Finnish masculinities and femininities related to the school shootings. We particularly focus our discussion on the emerging dichotomy between the rational and responsible violence of men that the Finnish army embodies and the irrational, hatred based violence of the perpetrators of school shootings. This dichotomy effectively silences any substantial problematization of violence in the Finnish culture.

Tags: Finland, Finnish culture, masculinities, school shootings, violence