Kimmel - Guyland: the perilous world where boys become men

Contents

Offers a fascinating look at contemporary culture, the coming-of-age challenges both sexes face, and the risks for society when young men disengage from their own lives.

Booklist

A bleak and urgent yet compassionate analysis of young manhood in the United States.

Salon

Guyland bristles with excellent raw material.... One of the leading lights of the merging academic subfield known as mens studies... Kimmel has an ear for the telling quotation. Some are worth the price of admission all on their own.

New York Times

If youve ever had a conversation with a teenage boy and wondered what on earth was going on behind the blank stare and slightly open mouth, this book will serve you well. Kimmel... exposes the gamut of male post-adolescent experiences (from sex to housework) with humor and empathy.

Chicago Tribune

Kimmel argues passionately that parents, mentors, and guys themselves must create alternate routes to responsible, ethical manhood.

Boston Globe

Riveting.

Feministing.com

[A] deft exploration grounded in research.... Kimmel offers a highly practical guide to male youth.

Publishers Weekly

Engaging... provocative.... The book raises important questions.... A useful, highly readable overview of an important social phenomenon.

Kirkus Reviews

Michael Kimmels Guyland could save the humanity of many young menand the sanity of their friends and parentsby explaining the forces behind a newly extended adolescence. With accuracy and empathy, he names the problem and offers compassionate bridges to adulthood.

Gloria Steinem

Kimmel is our seasoned guide into a world that, unless we are guys, we barely know exists. As he walks with us through dark territories, he points out the significant and reflects on its meaning. Just as Reviving Ophelia introduced readers to the culture of teenage girls, Guyland takes us to the land of young men.

Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of Reviving Ophelia

An absolute bombshell of a book. A disturbingbut mandatorywake-up call for all of us who are boys, love boys, or raise boys.

Madeline Levine, Ph.D., author of The Price of Privilege:How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage areCreating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids

Kimmel calls on us all to see the boy in the pseudo-man, to break the silence with which we surround them, and do what it takes to help them grow into real men.

Arlie Hochschild, author of The Second Shift,The Time Bind, and The Commercialization of Intimate Life

For anyone who has ever longed to know whats really going on in a young mans life, rejoice: Guyland is a compassionate, unflinching dispatch from deep in the heart of young masculinity. Required reading for people who raise, teach, and love guys.

Rachel Simmons, author of Odd Girl Out:The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

In this powerful book, Michael Kimmel finds that were raising a generation of prodigal sons, lost on the road to manhood and wasting their substance. Afraid of competing with competent young women and confused about how to become responsible men, they retreat into self-congratulation, exploitative sex, and video games. Every parent who is about to write a check for college tuition should read this book first and discuss it with his or her son... and daughter.

Michael G. Thompson, Ph.D., co-author of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys

Guyland takes up where Real Boys left off, giving us a vivid picture of the harrowing effects that the societal boy code has upon adolescents on the cusp of manhood. Kimmel interweaves cutting edge data with heart-wrenching stories of young mens struggles. This is a must-read for parents, teachers, coaches, young women who are so confused by the guys in their midstand for guys themselves who yearn to break free of unwritten rules that leave them half a man, rather than a whole person.

William Pollack, author of Real Boys

In Guyland Michael Kimmel presents a searching and accurate description of the rules, expectations, and consequences of the social world inhabited by my friends and me. Rendering these pressures and their effects visible, Kimmel does all of usboth those who dwell in Guyland and those who feel those effects from the outsidea great service. I feel certain that the insights he offers, to me and guys like me, about how best to navigate this often unrecognized but powerful subculture will help us become the honest and honorable men we want to be.

Connor Diemand-Yauman, president of the Princeton University class of 2010

MICHAEL KIMMEL is a professor of sociology and a leading scholar in the field of gender studies. He teaches at State University of New York, Stony Brook, and is the author or editor of more than twenty volumes on the subject, including the groundbreaking Manhood in America: A Cultural History. He lectures extensively on college campuses in the United States and abroad. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

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Nonfiction

Manhood in America

The Gendered Society

Men Confront Pornography (editor)

The Gender of Desire

The History of Men

Mens Lives (co-editor)

Sociology Now (co-author)

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2008 by HarperCollins Publishers.

GUYLAND . Copyright 2008, 2018 by Michael Kimmel. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

The After Hours Crowd from Some America by Patrick D. Higgins, 2008 by Patrick D. Higgins. Reprinted here with permission from the author.

Cover design by Jarrod Taylor

Cover photograph Image Source Photography/Veer

FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 2009, UPDATED 2018 .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Digital Edition JULY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-288650-7

Version 06272018

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-288573-9 (pbk.)

For Mitchell Tunick

We two boys together clinging,

One the other never leaving,

Up and down the roads goingNorth and South excursions making,

Power enjoyingelbows stretchingfingers clutching,

Armd and fearlesseating, drinking, sleeping, loving.

WALT WHITMAN , Leaves of Grass

Contents

American boys walk in packs

playing dress up in

small towns, boulevard

walking along panels

illuminated of glass.

American boys get violent

scared straight sending vibes like

small atom bombs

fallout smells of

musk, fear, Old Spice,

Boy Scouts.

American boys and mall-metal podcast

haircuts get the better

of me, an American boy,

hapless in fashions prison

culturebound to ignoramus

brethren, fatuous

fumbling for cigarette

taunting nervous girl