Teaching her a lesson: Media misses boys’ rage relating to girls in school shootings

An analysis of media coverage of 12 United States school shootings, which took place between 1997 and 2002, shows a previously unnoticed pattern: nearly all the boys who killed in these shootings specifically targeted girls who rejected them, or minimally implied that they acted due to a perceived rejection by a girl. This research highlights the media’s blindness to significant social problems that are hidden behind society’s ‘boys-will-be-boys’ attitude toward harassment of and violence against teenage girls.