Kill Show

by Daniel Sweren-Becker

men. I call this moment we’re in right now “the great leveling.” Yes, the playing field is becoming more level for so many marginalized groups. But there’s another reading of the phrase: White guys are getting absolutely steamrolled. All of the built-in advantages of white masculinity are being rendered moot or, worse, toxic, and it’s no surprise how these men are reacting. They are the group with the least practice at managing setback, the least institutional resilience to hardship. Sometimes there is a real human toll to modern progress, and the resultant death throes of white male supremacy have proved ugly to watch.

Some people chalk up every violent act against women to a boy who never got kissed in middle school. They think it’s really that simple. I hate that framework because it implies that it’s somehow every teenage girl’s responsibility to dole out just enough romantic attention to not get murdered. It’s lazy, misogynistic, and reductive. But I live in the real world. And goddamn if that doesn’t feel like the truth most of the time.