Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men

Abstract

You know you have encountered good sociology when someone explains things that you have often observed, but have never imagined in ways that reveal the social structure of your observations. We have been able to count on such sociological insights before from Michael Kimmel, and he has done it again in his new, thought-provoking book, Guyland. Kimmel has long provided some of the most thoughtful analyses of men and gender, and his new book is no exception. Written for the lay public, but intriguing for scholars as well, explores the everyday world of young men whom Kimmel describes as immersed in a new of social development, one transformed by social-historical changes that have made the world of young men less certain than it may have been in the past. Kimmel defines Guyland as a stage of life, a liminal undefined time span between adolescence and (p. 4). There are no fixed age boundaries to this life phase, though it spans roughly from the time young men are in their mid-teens (about age 16) to their mid-20s. is, in Kimmers words, a time of suspended animation between boyhood and manhood (p. 6). It is a social space marked by norms and values that allow men to feel like men even at a time when the broader social context makes young men feel insecure, uncertain of their future, and without the historic roadmaps with which to chart their adult identities. is the world of young men's fascination with shock jocks, sports and locker room talk, endless video games, bar hopping, and hanging with their brothers. Without the old social scripts that dictated the path to responsible adulthood, young men now drift into adulthood, passing through or sometimes staying in it along the way. Kimmel portrays as a volatile stage, when one has access to all the tools of adulthood with few of the moral and familiar constraints that urge sober conformity (p. 43). In this context, men struggle to live up to a definition of masculinity they feel they had no part in creating, and yet from which they feel powerless to escape (p. 43).