Prof. David Plummer argues that social changes have left a power vacuum that is open to exploitation:
Boys are spending more time in the sole company of their peers: on street corners, in shopping malls and in their cars.
Instead of growing up with the role models and standards of older, more experienced men, most of their role modelling comes from peer groups. In the absence of alternatives, these groups resort to raw physical masculinity as the yardstick for what masculinity should look like, how boys should behave and who should dominate.
They also develop their own rituals to admit members, some of which are extreme, anti-social and high-risk. It is a willingness to take risks that is considered the hallmark of a “real man”.
Read more at Masculinity and terror: the missing conversation.