No-one here is equating masculinity with oppression except you perhaps. The entire story is the exact opposite of that. Patriarchy is a social system based in a dominance hierarchy, and that is the issue because it equates masculinity with overpowering, subjugating, and bullying other people - something that has no inherent link to being a real man - it's only so within this cultural construct.
"Contrary to what Fox News and faulty science would say, it takes a huge effort to turn boys and men into killers. From primatologists to evolutionary anthropologists, we know that neither women nor men are killers by nature.
Extreme trauma, humiliation, shaming, social isolation and intense indoctrination are nearly always part of the making of men who kill. Other researchers have shown how the effects of toxic childhoods and damaging relationships distort our human nature and turn us into killers. The anger that some young men feel in the face of poverty and discrimination may be natural or normal; using lethal violence is not.
Turning young men into lethal combatants, whether in standing militaries, insurgency groups, police forces or violent gangs, or as lone killers, is extremely time- and resource-intensive. It takes months if not years of constant breaking and rupturing of basic human connections; it often requires systematic cruelty and brutality; it requires intense indoctrination; it requires rupturing relationships or having family members or peers who encourage killing rather than discourage it; and it requires the systematic “othering” of the “enemy.”
None of these things are hard-wired into us as human beings. Indeed, the research, from Darwin onwards, is overwhelming that we survived and thrived as a species because our biological and social propensity to live in connection and close cooperation with others is vastly stronger than any propensity to kill or harm each other."
