Michael A. Messner

Intersectional Action in the Veterans' Peace Movement

Unconventional Combat

Michael Kimmel

Now published by Oxford University Press--at a new, lower price--Men's Lives reflects on the question "What does it mean to be a man in contemporary U.S. society?" Edited by two of the field's most prominent researchers, and organized around themes that define masculinity, this best-selling reader uses a social-constructionist view to examine how men construct masculinity within a social and historical context.

Men's Lives

Raewyn Connell

James W. Messerschmidt

Patricia Yancey Martin

Introduction: the editors -- Points of departure : gender & power and its sequels -- "Theories don't grow on trees" : contextualizing gender knowledge / Myra Marx Ferree -- Hegemonic, nonhegemonic, and "new" masculinities / James W. Messerschmidt and Michael A. Messner -- From object to subject : situating transgender lives in sociology / Kristen Schilt -- The larger scope of gender analysis -- Postcoloniality and the sociology of gender / Raka Ray -- Race, indigeneity, and gender : lessons for global feminism / Mara Viveros Vigoya -- Categories, structures, and intersectional theory / Joya Misra -- Four dimensions of relationship, struggle, and change -- Why "heteronormativity" is not enough : a feminist sociological perspective on heterosexuality / Stevi Jackson -- Gender inequality and feminism in the new economy / Christine L. Williams and Megan Tobias Neely -- Gender politics in academia in the neoliberal age / Barbara Poggio -- The holy grail of organizational change : toward gender equality at work / Yvonne Benschop and Marieke van den Brink -- Dynamics of masculinities -- Concerning tradition in studies on men and masculinities in ex-colonies / Kopano Ratele -- Rethinking patriarchy through unpatriarchal male desires / Gul Ozyegin -- On the elasticity of gender hegemony : why hybrid masculinities fail to undermine gender and sexual inequality / Tristan Bridges and C. J. Pascoe -- Agendas for theory -- Limitations of the neoliberal turn in gender theory : (re)turning to gender as a social structure / Barbara J. Risman, Kristen Myers, and Ray Sin -- Paradoxes of gender redux : multiple genders and the persistence of the binary / Judith Lorber -- The monogamous couple, gender hegemony, and polyamory / Mimi Schippers -- Conclusion: theory work, or reckoning with gender / Raewyn Connell -- About the contributors -- Index -- Notes

New Social Theory and Research

Gender Reckonings

High school yearbooks provide both a vivid snapshot of student life and a reflection of what the adults in the community valued the most. For instance, athletics are often covered more than academics, and boys’ sports routinely receive more attention than girls’ sports. But how have those values changed over time? In The High School, acclaimed sociologist Michael A. Messner reads through 120 years of El Gabilan, the yearbook from his own alma mater, Salinas High School in California, where his father taught and coached. Treating the yearbooks as a historical archive, Messner makes surprising discoveries about the school he thought he knew so well. For example, over fifty years before Title IX, the earliest yearbooks gave equal spotlights to boys’ and girls’ athletics, while the cheerleaders were all boys. Tracing American life and culture from 1903 to 2024, Messner illuminates shifts in social practices at his high school that reflect broader changes in American culture across the twentieth century. The High School spotlights how the meanings and iconography of certain activities have changed radically over the decades, even as the “sports spirit complex”—involving athletes, cheerleaders, band members, and community boosters—has remained a central part of the high school experience. By exploring evolving sports cultures, socioeconomic conditions, racial demographics, and gender norms, Messner offers a fresh perspective on a defining feature of American teenage life.

Sports, Spirit, and Citizens, 1903-2024

The High School

Margaret Gatz

Sandra Ball-Rokeach

Highlights the practical benefits and the many problems of youth and sports in the United States.

Paradoxes of Youth and Sport

Max A. Greenberg

Tal Peretz

What does it mean for men to join with women as allies in preventing sexual assault and domestic violence? Based on life history interviews with men and women anti-violence activists aged 22 to 70, Some Men explores the strains and tensions of men's work as feminist allies. When feminist women began to mobilize against rape and domestic violence, setting up shelters and rape crisis centers, a few men asked what they could do to help. They were directed "upstream," and told to "talk to the men" with the goal of preventing future acts of violence. This is a book about men who took this charge seriously, committing themselves to working with boys and men to stop violence, and to change the definition of what it means to be a man. The book examines the experiences of three generational cohorts: a movement cohort of men who engaged with anti-violence work in the 1970s and early 1980s, during the height of the feminist anti-violence mobilizations; a bridge cohort who engaged with anti-violence work from the mid-1980s into the 1990s, as feminism receded as a mass movement and activists built sustainable organizations; a professional cohort who engaged from the mid-1990s to the present, as anti-violence work has become embedded in community and campus organizations, non-profits, and the state. Across these different time periods, stories from life history interviews illuminate men's varying paths--including men of different ethnic and class backgrounds--into anti-violence work. Some Men explores the promise of men's violence prevention work with boys and men in schools, college sports, fraternities, and the U.S. military. It illuminates the strains and tensions of such work--including the reproduction of male privilege in feminist spheres--and explores how men and women navigate these tensions. To learn more please visit somemen.org

Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence against Women

Some Men

Jim McKay

Donald Sabo

The papers in this collection consider how the study of masculinities in sport can be integrated with critical feminist studies, how to deal with the tendency to over-emphasize negative outcomes and the increasing trend to violence in sport.

Masculinities, Gender Relations, and Sport

Cheryl Cooky

In just a few decades, sport has undergone a radical gender transformation. However, Cheryl Cooky and Michael A. Messner suggest that the progress toward gender equity in sports is far from complete. The continuing barriers to full and equal participation for young people, the far lower pay for most elite-level women athletes, and the continuing dearth of fair and equal media coverage all underline how much still has yet to change before we see gender equality in sports. The chapters in No Slam Dunk show that is this not simply a story of an “unfinished revolution.” Rather, they contend, it is simplistic optimism to assume that we are currently nearing the conclusion of a story of linear progress that ends with a certain future of equality and justice. This book provides important theoretical and empirical insights into the contemporary world of sports to help explain the unevenness of social change and how, despite significant progress, gender equality in sports has been “No Slam Dunk.”

Gender, Sport and the Unevenness of Social Change

No Slam Dunk

Over the last few decades, as the United States has become embroiled in foreign war after foreign war, some of the most vocal activists for peace have been veterans. These veterans for peace come from all different races, classes, regions, and generations. What common motivations unite them and fuel their activism? Guys Like Me introduces us to five ordinary men who have done extraordinary work as peace activists: World War II veteran Ernie Sanchez, Korean War veteran Woody Powell, Vietnam veteran Gregory Ross, Gulf War veteran Daniel Craig, and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Jonathan Hutto. Acclaimed sociologist Michael Messner offers rich profiles of each man, recounting what led him to join the armed forces, what he experienced when fighting overseas, and the guilt and trauma he experienced upon returning home. He reveals how the pain and horror of the battlefront motivated these onetime warriors to reconcile with former enemies, get involved as political activists, and help younger generations of soldiers. Guys Like Me is an inspiring multigenerational saga of men who were physically or psychically wounded by war, but are committed to healing themselves and others, forging a path to justice, and replacing endless war with lasting peace

Five Wars, Five Veterans for Peace

Guys Like Me

Maxine Baca Zinn

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

The editors have gone beyond simply assembling a collection of readings by the leading scholars of sex and gender; they introduce a new way to conceptualize the interrelationships between gender relations and other systems of inequality and difference. The editors invoke the image of a prism, through which different groups are seen not as distinct, but in "a continuous spectrum". The prism approach illustrates the varied ways that gender is constructed relationally, and thus experienced differently. Toward this end, the editors draw from the most recent studies of women and men -- especially studies of gender relations in the context of different sexual, racial/ethnic, social class, physical abilities, age, and national citizenship contexts. Though the majority of articles in the book focus on issues in U.S. gender relations, the editors have included numerous articles that focus on international and transnational factors. Together, the articles in this book shed critical, yet at times optimistic, light on the possibilities for change.

Readings on Sex and Gender

Through the Prism of Difference

This engaging collection of readings presents a multifaceted view of contemporary gender relations. Using other inequalities such as race, class, and sexual orientation as a prism of difference, the readings present gender as it is situated in sexual, racial-ethnic, social class, physical abilities, age, and national citizenship contexts. In addition to articles about men, women, and sexual, and immigrant diversity, this reader also includes works on gender and globalization. The editors introduce this wide-ranging collection with a provocative analytical introduction that sets the stage for understanding gender as a socially constructed experience. Takes a sociological perspective on contemporary gender relations. Emphasizes the theme of difference or how other inequalities such as race, class, or age affect our gendered experiences. Presents a discussion of women's and men's issues. Includes articles on international and transnational factors in addition to the articles on U.S. gender relations. For anyone interested in Sociology of Gender, Women's Studies, Gender Roles, Sociology of Women, Women in Society, Race, Class, and Gender, Diversity, Feminist Theory, and Social Inequality.

Gender Through the Prism of Difference

A revealing look at gender issues in contemporary sport.

Critical Essays on Gender and Sport

Out of Play

Feminist Allies and the Movement to End Violence Against Women

Michela Musto

Is sport good for kids? When answering this question, both critics and advocates of youth sports tend to fixate on matters of health, whether condemning contact sports for their concussion risk or prescribing athletics as a cure for the childhood obesity epidemic. Child’s Play presents a more nuanced examination of the issue, considering not only the physical impacts of youth athletics, but its psychological and social ramifications as well. The eleven original scholarly essays in this collection provide a probing look into how sports—in community athletic leagues, in schools, and even on television—play a major role in how young people view themselves, shape their identities, and imagine their place in society. Rather than focusing exclusively on self-proclaimed jocks, the book considers how the culture of sports affects a wide variety of children and young people, including those who opt out of athletics. Not only does Child’s Play examine disparities across lines of race, class, and gender, it also offers detailed examinations of how various minority populations, from transgender youth to Muslim immigrant girls, have participated in youth sports. Taken together, these essays offer a wide range of approaches to understanding the sociology of youth sports, including data-driven analyses that examine national trends, as well as ethnographic research that gives a voice to individual kids. Child’s Play thus presents a comprehensive and compelling analysis of how, for better and for worse, the culture of sports is integral to the development of young people—and with them, the future of our society.

Michael A. Messner

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