Perhaps … but there are other factors that need to be weighed as well. Many traditionally Republican states ridicule common decency in the public sphere as being “woke,” (hyper/sensitive). Affordable counseling services for troubled adolescents are also scarce in that region. And of course, the notion of a man as “head” of his family, with the wife assuming a subservient role, as well as the overt contempt and dehumanization of sexual minorities, all reinforce a propensity for violence that remains an attribute of human males.

In the distant past, when men had to defend their families from raids by other clans or attacks by wild animals, an instinct to fight was a survival mechanism. Today, it it is largely counterproductive and needs to be sublimated to more appropriate behaviors. Unfortunately, in much of the south, that is not the goal.