Total number of victims: 49 male victims, 53 female victims
Actually it's 49 male victims and 52 female victims. This doesn't seem to me like there is a skew towards any gender. In fact based on this evidence, I'd
hypothosize that the ratio would be about 50/50 given that according to the data you have given Ann male victims make up 48% of the total number of people who had been killed while the female victims make up 52%.
Like Michael mentioned demographics play a part. The high school I went to had a higher percentage of boys. I can tell you now that when I finished primary school (equivalent to elementary in the US) I was only one of six girls and there were double the amount of boys.
While you have provided a good framework to discuss this I still fail to see any specific pattern.
At the end of the day though events like these are terrible and shouldn't happen whether or not the victim is male or female. I like to think that rather discussing any gender bias that people think of the fact that a family has either lost a son, daughter, brither or sister.
That's not to say that if I found compelling evidence that there is a gender skew towards females being the more likely to be murdered during a school massacre, I wouldn't be outraged because I definitely would. My closest friends reckon I can be such a hard lined feminist because of my views of a woman's place in the world. I am however trying to keep an open mind about this.
Like I said before regardless of whether the victim is male or female it is a terrible thing to happen and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I also believe that rather than debate about gender skewing or gender bias we should be looking at ways to prevent such tragedies from ever occuring. While I know that it has the potential to be an improbability and I'll be the first to admit that it probably is, but we can all at least try to make this world a better place.
