Customer Reviews

Manhood in America: A Cultural History (Pbk)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are a lot of things about this book that are really great. The actual cultural history of manhood in America is fantastic, and his identification of the cultural ideals of Heroic Artisan, Genteel Patriarch and the Self-Made Man are particularly helpful concepts for making sense of it all. I've never seen it anywhere else. The first half of the book focuses on this, and was quite absorbing and illuminating. It explained, in my opinion, the Tea Party movement as well as right-wing Libertarians. The problem really shows itself in the second half of the book (almost seeming like a different person wrote it) where he loses his objectivity and replaces it with misandry instead of what is really needed in order to understand the subject (the American white male and his culture) which would be empathy. I think there's probably a way to point out the absurdity of some of the beliefs of white men's culture without being so nasty about it, and I feel that approach kept him from really getting to the core of the subject matter (which would have done a lot more to point up how people can change the problems with men's culture in the US). If I could give the first half 5 stars and the second half 2 stars, I would.

I ordered the First Edition of this book several years ago, and have referred to sections of it many, many times as I observe what is going on within myself, as well as the profound struggles of men around me. Manhood in America at times deeply resonates with my own pain and disappointment, and helps to explain why we (men) do some of the crazy things we do, in an effort to compensate for what we have now (since we entered the industrial/technical age about 150 years ago): a world that is dismally unsatisfying to men, and has cast us adrift in many ways. I am very much in favor of Michael Kimmel's call to a more "democratic" definition of manhood - any other option leaves us open to being even more lost than we are now. By the way, this is one of the best researched books I've ever read (the bibliography of Kimmel's sources is approximately the last 100 pages of the book!)

This is a great book it was assigned for a history class in my university and I have to say it was a pleasure to read. It gives amazing detail about a topic that I was not very familiar with, totally recommend it. It's worth reading!

I found Michael Kimmel's book to be a fabulous portrayal of the roots of American sex roles. He uses 3 categories of manhood to describe American men: The Heroic Artisan, Genteel Patriarch and the Self-Made Man. What is very interesting is that he explains, with excessive evidence, how business interests have effectively devalued the latter 2 models, leaving the Self-Made Man as the only thing for American men to strive for. Even more interesting, is the way he documents what this ideal does to the marginalized; minorities, women, immigrants, and working class men. Fortunately, he disagrees with Robert Bly about the need for men to run off into the woods and bond-men have been doing that for years. Instead, he calls on men to embrace feminist philosophy as they (feminists) are not man-haters, but those who really love men, because they "love us enough to believe that we can change." All in all, this is a great book for all men and women who are uncomfortable with gender roles in today's society and who want to learn where they came from. This book truly provides real hope for men.

This is a prodigiously researched and exceptionally well-written history of manhood in America -- something every man should read, and something every man COULD read, given the author's engaging, accessible writing style. I'm enormously impressed by the wealth of information contained in it and the author's wide-ranging understanding of American history, culture and popular culture. When you read this, one realizes the historical precedent, for one thing, of electing presidents of limited capacity. This is a seriously good book.

This book is very well-intentioned but I don't know too many men who are "bewildered by the sea changes" of gender relations (p.330) or who cling to power and status (p.331) or who seek a (false) sense of power in a "bulging crotch." To the extent that men feel "besieged," (p.332), it is not so much by changes in their status as by the incessant talk of women who while rejecting military service seek to assume traditionally male roles without necessarily taking on the concomitant responsibilities.

These women criticize male power while working fewer hours in jobs that are less dangerous and enjoying a longer life-span. The notion that women are "oppressed" by a sex-gender system is belied by the military casualties, who are almost exclusively male; and by the fact that such women may expect men to pay for them on dates, refuse to date men who are not earning significant incomes; and often want men to provide most or at least a majority of the income. Even as they hold these expectations, such women often do not take care of themselves and are not suitable partners for those who want an intelligent, kind, caring woman who is drug-and-disease-free. They do not seem to realize that rejecting stereotypical feminine roles does not entail a rejection of beauty, of fashion, of poetry, of joie de vivre, of passion, of love. They ignore the example of Coco Chanel who embodied these traits. I have found that Brazilians express these traits, without losing their place in society. In fact, they are proud to be pretty, interested in fashion, dance and love. Why is this possible when Brazil is so much poorer than America? Could there be something in feminism itself, at least has been it transmogrified in academic circles, that led to an outcome where women are single, embittered and unhappy? Why do many women attribute their unhappiness to men when they may have effected or chosen it?

While these women, and Mr. Kimmel, are correct in pointing out that women suffer from violence, p.335, they ignore the violence that men suffer from, violence encountered not solely on the job but also at the hands of women. I would like Mr. Kimmel to focus on this violence, and how it shapes contemporary conceptions of masculinity. If men are in some sense fungible, as soldiers, quarterbacks or coal miners, what does that say about men's role in society? Even as we cater to women, and adopt feminist policies, we must at the same time mourn the men who experience pain which far from being recognized or validated is instead commodified. A quarterback is expected to play through pain while women as mothers teach their children not to cry. This immense reservoir of pain is endogenous to masculinity. It is as though an iceberg floated beneath the surface of men's lives, an iceberg of suffering and hurt. I would suggest that the society actively produces this pain, and is in some ways dependent on it. If men were to release this pain, the society would be transformed.

It has been my experience that most feminists have no interest in this issue. In their simplistic conception, men are victimizers and women are victims. This Manichean dichotomy ignores that women oppress and are oppressed, beat and are beaten, harass and are harassed, murder and are murdered. When we adopt this alternative conception, of men as experiencing pain which they must internalize, we see that the male condition is a tragic one. This is not an inherent feature of masculinity but is reflection of how society has focused on women's pain to the exclusion of men's. It is only by seeing men and women as fellow sufferers that we can advance beyond the black-and-white thinking characteristic of contemporary feminism. In this way, we can move towards a new society in which the freedom of each is the freedom of all.

Michael Kimmel, undoubtedly, is at the forefront of sociology in America, yet at the same time developed an unusual gift for creative writing that miraculously transforms any tedious study of manhood in America into a gripping narrative that makes you envisage our schools are vanguarded by a horde of extraterrestrial organisms who arrived in our locker rooms to impress, overwhelm and subjugate womankind (and undo their competitors). What Kimmel does is piercing all the impressive data and disassociated knowledge from social studies together in order to reveal (as in revelation) those disturbing bounding rites and the chronic survival of (mostly white middle-class) male basic instincts going astray in the modern world of eternal competition, moral decline, and ferocious feminism. Very daring and thought-provoking!

This is a very interesting historical survey of American manhood from the early American Republic to the present day (at the time of last publication). Kimmel draws from a variety of sources to illustrate how ideas, images, and events shaped and were shaped by a continuing construction of a unique American understanding of masculinity. I understand that it is currently out of print, but I've heard rumors of a new printing fairly soon. If this is the case, then I heartily recommend this book to those interested in gender studies or cultural history. Even if you're simply interested in historical ideas of manhood or how current ideas of gender roles are in fact historically- based, this is a book for you.

Picked up the book today, and it's hard to put it down. Kimmel writes superbly.

Greatest book there is, best time ever spent. Go buy it