From cowboys to commandos: Connecting sexual and gun violence with media archetypes

If you feel as if there’s been an uptick in the frequency and lethality of mass shootings in recent years, you’re not imagining it. The time between mass shootings (involving four or more casualties) in the U.S. has been shrinking since the 1990s, and the death rate in these massacres has almost tripled since 2000.

And if it also seems that reports of sexual assault on the part of celebrities, politicians and journalists are coming in almost daily, you are, once again, not mistaken. It is probably not coincidental that the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network reports “a record number of survivors [who] turned to RAINN for help,” with a 26 percent increase in hotline traffic in November alone.

No, I’m not equating sexual assault and mass murder. But as a psychiatrist, I think there is an indirect connection between the rising rates of each.

https://ardelles.com/from-cowboys-to-commandos-connecting-sexual-and-gun-violence-with-media-archetypes/