On December 4th, Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare (UHC), was purposely gunned down in Manhattan outside the New York Midtown hotel. The alleged assassin, who is now in custody, is Luigi Mangione.
Taylor Lorenz is a former Washington Post journalist, who is known for making various irrational and unhinged remarks about social and political issues. A few days after the murder of Thompson, Lorenz participated in a panel discussion about the case on Piers Morgan Uncensored. During the discussion, Lorenz said that she felt “joy” and “certainly not empathy” after hearing the news of Thompson’s death.
Lorenz was not alone in showing a lack of empathy toward the father of two. Others within the media-academia nexus commented favourably or in strangely non-empathic ways regarding Thompson’s death. For example, a skit on the Jimmy Kimmel Show made light of the incident by focusing on the good looks of Thompson’s assassin.
Many commentators have already highlighted the immoral nature of Lorenz’s comment and Kimmel’s skit, as well as, the broader problematic thinking about capitalism and healthcare adopted by Lorenz, Kimmel, and Mangione.
Here, using a counterfactual example, I want to highlight one aspect of the Thompson murder that has received little attention: the gender bias underlying the joyful reactions of Lorenz and her ilk.
Of the 11 companies listed on the widely circulated graph showing the percentage of claims denied by each company, three of those companies have female CEOs.
Would Lorenz have felt and then articulated the feeling of joy if the individual murdered by Mangione would have been Sarah London (CEO of Ambetter), Kim Keck (CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield), or Gail Boudreaux (CEO of Anthem)?
I doubt it, and scientific evidence supports this supposition.
For many years, researchers have repeatedly shown that men are less likely than women to be seen as victims, that male victims of various types of violence and abuse receive less empathy than female victims, and that male victims of violence are viewed more negatively than female victims of violence. This lack of empathy has sometimes been referred to as the “male gender empathy gap,” and it is part of a gender bias matrix known as gamma bias. One aspect of the definition of gamma bias is the minimization of the concept of gender in situations when men are victims, and an amplification of the concept of gender when women are victims.
Gamma bias and the male gender empathy gap explain, in part, the response of Lorenz and others to Thompson’s death. These concepts, or psychological states, also help to explain why social commentators typically do not think to encourage people to put on their “gendered lenses” when examining such crimes. To do so, would reveal circumstances that do not align with common feminist narrative. These “gendered lenses” would reveal that men, not women, are more often the victims of homicide, and that Thompson’s death is another example of this. These “gendered lenses” would reveal that in 2019, for example, 4,716 men were victims of homicide in the U.S. compared to 1,857 women. They would also reveal that 89% of male homicides are perpetrated by other men and that perhaps health officials and policymakers might want to start paying more attention men’s mental health.
Yet, whereas recommendations for considering gender were not made in Thompson’s murder, such recommendations would have almost certainly occurred had the counterfactual case of a female CEO assassination occurred. Such a murder would have been used by feminists to propel narratives about “gender-based violence.” UN Women would have declared the assassination an act of femicide and used it to support its narrative that “nowhere is safe” for women. Feminist commentators would have told us that the murder was motivated by misogyny and men’s supposed hatred for strong, career-minded women and their entrepreneurial successes. Academic journals would have published editorials and commentaries calling for millions more dollars being put into initiatives to address “toxic masculinity” and violence against women. Governments, particularly those that lean to the left, would have likely followed these recommendations, as has been the case in Australia in recent years.
Healthcare systems in all countries need continued re-examination. But irrespective of one’s views on healthcare in the U.S., the murder of Thompson was an immoral act. The reactions of Lorenz and her ilk were themselves immoral. They were also irrational and reminders of the strength and pervasiveness of gamma bias, misandry, and the de-humanization of men.
Such reactions should be called out publicly for their shocking lack of empathy. Counterfactual scenarios in which the sex of the victim is reversed can be useful for highlighting this anti-male bias.
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