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In yesterday's post about Guyland, the Michael Kimmel book about 20something "guy" culture, a few of the commenters asked for another post on the roles of women in Guyland. Ask and ye shall receive! To recap, women exiled in Guyland must exhibit a state of being that Duke researchers coined as "effortless perfection." They must, as Kimmel says, do it all — but without breaking a sweat. According to Kimmel, "Girls are necessary to Guyland. They enable guys' behavior, normalize it, and make it seem natural and inevitable." But! There is another facet to this effortless perfection, and it involves women attempting, as Kimmel puts it, to be "bros." "These women prove their mettle in Guyland through shirking such 'feminine' traits as intimacy, loyalty, and openness and appropriating guys' behavior: sports, drinking, and sexual promiscuity. This approach can often backfire," Kimmel says. More »
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As I said on Thursday, I think I was a little too harsh on Guyland scribe, sociologist Michael Kimmel, when I discussed his appearance on the Today show. After reading the entirety of Guyland over the weekend, I definitely owe Kimmel an apology. Guyland is the province of American males ages 16 to 26 who are having difficulty launching as adults. The book is not only about a "guy" culture drenched in sexual and physical violence, but it's also about teaching those young men to take responsibility for themselves and their behavior — especially where women are concerned. These young, usually white, middle class guys are loath to act like men, or really, human beings, because of three cultural dynamics as named by Kimmel: a culture of entitlement, a culture of silence, and a culture of protection. More »
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You know, I think I may have been a little harsh on Guyland author Michael Kimmel yesterday. I think there was validity to some of what he said on the Today show, and that it could be applied to both sexes: that there is an extended adolescence these days that has left everyone, not just men, confused about their adult roles. For fucks sake, by the time my Grandparents were my age, they had two kids and my Grandfather had seen the front lines of the Battle of the Bulge. That shit certainly doesn't leave you dithering over Xbox. It's not a value judgment on adulthood or lack thereof, but it is an observation, and advertising, like the set of Campbell's soup ads with football players and their moms (like Donovan McNabb and his mama, pictured here), may play into the further infantilzation of American male. More »
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Even though a study has just come out showing that men "ranked good health, harmonious family life and good relationships with their wife or partner as more important to their quality of life than material, self-fulfilling or purely sexual concerns," author Michael Kimmel went on the Today show this morning to pimp his new book, Guyland*, which bemoans the culture of men between the ages of 16 and 26. Kimmel says America's young men are mostly interested in "binge drinking, violent porno, video games," and, using an old, tired trope, blames some of this "transformation" on feminism. According to Kimmel, in the past thirty years there's been a gender role shift and "this leaves a lot of men confused," Kimmel says. Men think, "What do you need me for?" Good god. Clip above. More »
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