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Instead of pointing fingers at permissive judges or poor mental health for the horrific mass shooting in Shreveport, a writer for New York Magazine has decided to blame \u2026 the patriarchy.<\/span><\/p>\n The outlet claimed that 31-year-old U.S. Army veteran Shamar Elkins, the man accused of killing eight children, including seven of his own, was the victim of a society that believes women belong to men.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt is tempting to treat Elkins\u2019s actions as the isolated incident of a madman. But poor mental health is never a reasonable explanation for attempting to execute one\u2019s wife and children,\u201d <\/span>wrote<\/span><\/a> Brittney Cooper, a Cut contributor who \u201cwrites about race and systems of power.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPatriarchy offers a better explanation for this violence,\u201d she went on. \u201cPatriarchy teaches men that women and children belong to them, that they are property that men get to have, as a male rite of passage. Men are taught, in what bell hooks famously called a \u2018white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,\u2019 to measure their worth and value by the size of their bank account, the size of their genitals, and the size of their families. These are forms of toxic self-value, predicated as they are on women and children having no agency or dreams of their own.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Cooper went on to lament \u201cthe rise of the manosphere\u201d and \u201ca nation being led by a group of right-wing extremists with Neanderthal ideas about gender and sexuality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMen who kill their wives and children are not just bad apples who needed a free month of BetterHelp. These killings are the natural outcome of a country enamored with patriarchy and determined to make sure that men can freely dominate women,\u201d she insists.<\/span><\/p>\n Readers on social media pushed back strongly on this theory.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWell you couldn\u2019t make it about racism, so I guess Patriarchy seemed like a good idea. Though I bet if you tried you could make it about racism and how mostly female mental health professionals won\u2019t take on poor Black male clients. Of course then, no patriarchy. Tough,\u201d one sarcastic commenter <\/span>wrote<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe race is inconvenient, so we switch to a gender motive. He was a criminal, a gun criminal no less. But instead of being locked up, the people that screech constantly about gun violence, went easy on him as they always do. It\u2019s a story about leftist policies causing more death,\u201d another person <\/span>added<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Elkins, who appeared to be targeting his own \u201cdescendants,\u201d opened fire in three different homes across Shreveport on April 19. He was shot and killed by police after he attempted to carjack a vehicle to escape.<\/span><\/p>\n Shreveport officials described the shooting as domestic violence, saying Elkins shot the mother of his children and another woman, as well as his seven children and one of their cousins, per <\/span>USA Today<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The outlet noted that Elkins married Shaneiqua Pugh in April 2024. A woman named Christina Snow sued Elkins for child support and was granted joint custody of their child, Sariahh, in 2017. Sariahh was one of the victims of the shooting.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n