Manliness or violence?

In the American culture a man has to be strong. Strong can mean a lot of things but in this case it means being tough, emotionless, and being strong physically. As kids we grow up learning how to "be a man" and that molds who we are as people. As teenagers and young adults this idea of having to be strong shows up frequently. If we don't have a lot of muscle or if we don't play sports society looks down upon those people as being weak or not masculine. With boys being stigma as weak and more feminine it can sometimes take away our sense of pride. Society marks the tough boys to be true men and the weaker ones to be pathetic. We take that to heart, so if you shun someone because they aren't a varsity athlete, or would rather play chess than to play basketball it really affects the minds of kids. This correlates with school violence. Kids who feel picked on because they are not "tough' lash out. In the more severe cases they will even hurt fellow students just so they can feel strong. For example the shootings at colleges, the kids are able to hold a gun in their hands and hurt other people. This is a type of strength and they are able to wield it. So in killing some students they are simply following the social construction of being a tough guy. For me I was always pushed to play sports as a kid. The sport didn't really matter but as long as I was playing people respected that. Also when I was a kid and I got hurt my dad would always tell me to rub some dirt in it and stop crying. This is exactly what we are brought up to be like, just be tough and you will be a true tough man, and Anything less and we feel like failures and rejects.